Sparks fly at Capitol Hill hearing on Jena 6
Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Texas), one of several Congressional Black Caucus members to visit Jena, told the hearing, “As a parent, I am almost in tears. Mychal Bell is back in jail” and “nooses have now proliferated around the country.”
Glaring at two Justice Department attorneys sitting at the witness table, she thundered, “I want you to tell me why you didn’t engage. Why didn’t you intervene?” Many in the crowded hearing room stood and applauded.
The witnesses and several Democratic lawmakers on the committee charged that the Jena Six had the book thrown at them for allegedly attacking a white classmate, Justin Barker, a year ago, yet white students who earlier attacked Robert Bailey, an African American student, with fists and beer bottles, screaming racist epithets, received a brief suspension. Bailey is now one of the Jena Six defendants.
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