'Jena 6' Teen Pleads Guilty

(NEWSER) - Five black students accused of beating a white classmate in Louisiana pleaded no contest to misdemeanor civil battery today, ending a trial that triggered a huge civil rights demonstration, the Alexandria Town Talk reports. Critics said that the so-called "Jena Six," originally charged with attempted murder, were treated harshly for being black. A judge fined them $500 each and sentenced them to a week of unsupervised probation. More»

Bell couldn't take media attention following new arrest: family

(NEWSER) - Mychal Bell, one of the “Jena six” who were the focus of a racial controversy in 2006, survived a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the chest and is in a Louisiana hospital, the Monroe News Star reports. Bell shot himself after being arrested for shoplifting on Christmas Eve and said “that he shot himself because he was tired of all the media attention” after that arrest, police reports said. More»

Mychal Bell handed an unexpected sentence on earlier charges

(NEWSER) - Mychal Bell of the "Jena Six" was handed an unexpected 18-month sentence by a judge in juvie court yesterday—on charges unrelated to the attack on a white classmate that drew national attention last month. The charges of battery and destruction of property were pending before the December 4 incident; the judge ruled yesterday that the fight that day violated the terms of his probation on the earlier conviction. More»

Move could hasten release of key player in Louisiana race case

(NEWSER) - A prosecutor has given up attempts to have one of the Louisiana teenagers at the center of a civil-rights furor tried as an adult, Reuters reports. Mychal Bell, 17, was convicted in June of battery in the beating of a white classmate, but an appeals court overturned the verdict on grounds that Bell couldn't be tried as an adult. More»

Mychal Bell will stay in jail while his appeal is reviewed

(NEWSER) - Mychal Bell, the black Louisiana teenager in jail since December for the battery of a white classmate, was not released on bail yesterday, as has supporters had hoped. The day after a demonstration that brought 10,000 civil rights activists to the tiny town to protest the treatment of the teenagers, a juvenile court judge denied his request to be freed while an appeal of his conviction is being reviewed. More»