I think everyone across the country should call in to the office of the Governor of Louisiana and demand the job of Jena District attorney Reed Walters. You can contact the governor's office at
Office of the Governor
Attn: Constituent Services
P.O. Box 94004
Baton Rouge, LA 70804-9004 Facsimile: 225-342-7099 E-mail the Governor
Call
866-366-1121
225-342-0991
225-342-7015
To reach the courthouse in Jena, Louisiana call
1050 Courthouse St, Jena - (318) 992-2158
Demand that District Attorney Reed Walters loose his job over the case of the Jena 6. "With just a stroke of my pen, I can make your lives end."-D.A. Reed Walters to 6 Black Students in Jena, Louisiana.
8 comments:
I agree completely. I'm sending this to everyone I know.
Hi. I don't know you but I googled Reed Walters name and your blog came up.
I heard the story of the Jena kids on National Public Radio today as I drove home from work. I was pretty enraged. I wrote this letter the Gov. Blanco. I don't know if it will help, but I also wrote one to the Louisiana State Bar. He should not be practicing law. He is a scary bigot who thinks its still 1850 or something.
Hope you are well, hope you don't mind complete strangers posting on your blog :)
Dear Governor Blanco
After listening to a report on National Public Radio on July 30 about a case involving youngsters in the Jena area, I became appalled by one of Louisiana’s district attorneys, specifically Reed Walters of Jena.
NPR’s Wade Goodwyn reported on events that began to unfold last year at Jena High School, a school apparently plagued by racial tension and self-segregation.
Here is the link to the story:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=12353776
To make along story short, Robert Bailey, a young black student got into a scuffle in a liquor store after a long, drawn-out confrontation between whites and blacks at the school. The white youngster ran and grabbed a gun from his car, and Bailey was able to take it from him, perhaps saving his own life.
Afterward, a young white student named Justin Barker was beaten by six black students after loudly gloating about a fight between Bailey and white students at a previous party. Barker was beaten by six black students. The injuries he received were so minor that he was treated by a doctor and released from care that same day.
Walters chose to charge Robert Bailey with theft of a firearm, second degree robbery and disturbing the peace, while the young white man who fought with Bailey and tried to pull a gun on him got off without any charges at all. I find this completely outrageous and criminally unfair on Walters' part.
I also feel Walter’s charging the six youngsters with attempted murder is ludicrous. The fact that Justin Barker managed to survive an attack by six young men, some of them athletes, with nothing but superficial cuts and scrapes proves the opposite of Walters’ charge. This was not attempted murder. The six boys obviously used a great deal of restraint. They easily could have killed him if they had not.
This to me is an obvious display of racism on Walters’ part. As a white American, I am sickened and embarrassed that in the year 2007, this blatant bigotry is allowed to persist in our legal system. It has been a half-century since institutionalized racism has been abolished. It is an embarrassment to the American criminal justice system, the state of Louisiana and the entire country that Walters is allowed to carry on this way.
I feel Walters has no respect for the laws of this country, and that he believes laws should be applied differently according to a person’s skin color. People like this should not be allowed to practice law, let alone function as district attorneys. He is frighteningly backward and I can only hope he is an abnormality among Louisiana’s practicing attorneys.
I hope, for the sake of credibility and decency, you as governor consider removing him from his district attorney post.
Sincerely,
Bethania Palma
Orange County, California
Not at all! Anytime! I will post this on my blog! I think these kids need all the help we can give them! Thanks!
I've left a comment here. With a little bit of luck therealnews will pick it up. I've also posted a discussion right here. If you want to participate you will have sign up but you can still watch the discussion as it roles out.
i was just doing a little research on how to contact reed walters and i found this blog...i wanted to leave a comment bc i have been dying to say a few things with regards this whole case..i grew up in the sleepy little town of jena la and i always knew that there was something unfair and unjust about the way things always seemed so segregated..and at the time, it didnt seem forced, it seemed voluntary...but looking back now after being moved away for almost 10 years now..i see things a little differently..i am filled with a mix of emotions as i think about the like that i could have had, had i stayed in jena...but then i think about having to raise 2 little girls in that mess and i realize that leaving was probably the best thing that ever happened to me...i wanted to find out as much as i could about this case and about that sorry excuse for a human, reed walters...and as i type this my blood just boils..i always thought that people of his status were supposed to be fair and just and not take matters into their own hands..the fact that he thought that charges these 6 young men with the harshest of charges and that he thought that this was a fair set of charges just blows my mind...it was a school yard fight...who cares if it was black boys beating up a white boy..would have pushed for the same set of charges if it was white boys beating up black or even if it was a girl fight? i think that it would have been very different had either of those been the case...and it makes me sick...by the way what happened to the students who hung the nooses? why werent they charged with hate crimes? did they get any kind of punishment aside from the school suspension..thats like a slap on the hand..what good did that do? maybe i am just rambling but this is outrageous..i am going to write a letter to the governor, reed walters himself, the jena courthouse, the mayor of jena, and the jena high school to express more deeply the pain, anger, anguish, sadness, and bitter outrage i feel now everytime i see or hear jena louisiana in the news...i always thought that i would liek to take my children to the place that i grew up, but not now and probably not ever...not that everyone there is bad, i am sure that there are plenty of decent people still there but this kind of tension is going to tear the place apart...i pray to god that never happens, but i fear that it will...
You're welcome and thank you for coming to my blog. I have never been to Jena, Louisiana, but I have read about it(before this whole incident began)-and I have lived in the South, so I know.
You're welcome and thank you for coming to my blog. I have never been to Jena, Louisiana, but I have read about it(before this whole incident began)-and I have lived in the South, so I know.
Will do. Thank you!
People, PLEASE spread the word. It's time to hold racist public officials accountable.
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