The fire that ripped through Jena High School on November 30, 2006 has never received much attention from the media. But you can’t understand the chaos that reigned the morning of December 4th unless you smell the smoke in the air. Who-done-it rumors were circulating wildly through the school the morning before Justin Barker was attacked. Everyone, black and white, felt violated and vulnerable. I have always maintained that Robert Bailey would never have been assaulted at the Fair Barn if the school hadn’t been torched the day before.
Jena residents have always assured me that some members of the Jena 6 were responsible for the fire. I have also been told that Reed Walter’s weird overcharging of Justin Barker’s alleged assailants was rooted in his belief that these students were also responsible for the fire.
No one knows what motivated Mr. Walters to charge the Jena 6 with attempted murder–a charge that could have placed some of the defendants behind bars for over fifty years without parole. My guess is that the fire at Jena High placed the entire community, Mr. Walters included, in a state of collective post traumatic stress disorder. In other words, the same affliction that sparked the assaults on Bailey and Barker was behind the overcharging of the Jena defendants. Like many prosecutors, Mr. Walters has a tendency to charge the max in order to achieve a strong bargaining position for negotiating plea agreements. Nonetheless, the attempted murder charge required a stronger explanation and, to my mind, the fire, not racism, has always been the best candidate.
Now we learn that the alleged arsonists are a racially diverse group of young males. My guess is that some of these charges are stronger than others and that, following a process of defendants flipping on one another, some charges will be dropped.
The suggestion that the fire was motivated by a desire to destroy grade records doesn’t stand up to close scrutiny. Why were fires set in various parts of the building if the goal was to destroy school records? Besides, the ringleaders are a bit old to be worried about their high school records. This was the work of arsonists with a deep grudge against the school. The nature of that grudge may eventually come to light. The bi-racial composition of the defendant group suggests that Sheriff Franklin can legitimately claim that racial malice was not a primary factor.
For the sake of Jena residents I am glad that investigators appear to have cracked this case. Let’s hope they have real evidence; this case has been hanging like a pall over Jena for well over a year. We can now lay to rest the unfounded suggestion that the Jena 6 can be tied to the arson.
Abbey Brown’s excellent article is followed by a few illuminating comments from TownTalk readers and accompanied by several photos.
8 face charges in Jena High fire
2006 blaze was not related to ‘Jena Six’ case
JENA — A plot to get rid of bad grades and get out of school may land eight people — including three juveniles — in prison for no less than two years. After more than a year, eight people will be charged with arson in connection with the fire that destroyed the main building of Jena High School in November 2006, authorities said Friday.
The motivation for the fire wasn’t racial, as many suspected, but solely to destroy records of bad grades and shut down the school, said LaSalle Parish Sheriff-elect Scott Franklin, who is CEO of the Sheriff’s Office. “Some of the students involved were doing poorly in school and decided that setting the school on fire would be a great way to get rid of their records and not have to go to school for a long time,” Franklin said.
“They did not take into consideration the strong resiliency of the administration, faculty, staff and students of Jena High School, who were back in classes at the campus just three days later.”
The arson is not connected to the “Jena Six” case, none of the six defendants in that case are suspects in the arson, and the arson was not racially motivated, Franklin said. The group of suspects in the arson case is racially diverse.
Investigators had been hopeful that in a community as small as Jena someone would eventually talk, giving investigators a break in the case.
Finally someone did.
An undercover narcotics operation led to information about the suspects in the school arson, Franklin said during a press conference at the LaSalle Parish Courthouse.
Three Jena men have been arrested, and two more men are being sought. The other three suspects are juveniles. All are males.
Four of the eight suspects were students at Jena High School at the time of the fire, and two are currently students at the school, Franklin said.
When Franklin announced the 13-month-old arson case was solved, an audible sigh of relief and applause could be heard from the courtroom packed with Jena residents.
“I’m glad it’s over,” said Sylvia Norris, who works in the LaSalle Parish School System. “We needed closure, and we’re all very excited to hear this news.”
The arrests
The three adults arrested are Marcus Lee, 20, Joshua McGee, 18, and Dakota Graham, 19, all of Jena, according to Franklin. All are still being housed in the LaSalle Parish Jail, pending bond.
The names of the other two adult suspects have not been released because they have not yet been arrested, and the names of the juveniles won’t be released.
Franklin said authorities have good leads on the whereabouts of the two men at large and foresee their arrests in the near future.
All three of the adults already arrested are charged with aggravated arson and two counts of contributing to the delinquency of a minor. Lee also is charged with three counts of distribution of marijuana, police said, and McGee also faces charges of possession of marijuana and drug paraphernalia.
The felony charge of aggravated arson carries a sentence of six to 20 years in prison with at least two years having to be served without probation or parole, LaSalle Parish District Attorney Reed Walters said.
“These are very serious crimes,” he pointed out. “(The District Attorney’s Office) will move forward on this as quickly as possible.”
The school fire occurred on Nov. 30, 2006, and a year after the blaze, investigators said there were still no suspects or new leads in the arson probe.
But when Franklin assumed his position as CEO a little more than a month ago, he implemented a narcotics enforcement operation that included undercover narcotics work. Through one of those undercover operations, information was obtained that led to the naming of four suspects, Franklin said.
With that information, the Sheriff’s Office launched a full-scale investigation using all available resources, leading to even more suspects. The three arrests took place Thursday afternoon.
Information sought
During authorities’ investigation, Franklin said, they discovered that “several students” at Jena High who weren’t involved in the arson had personal knowledge about who did it.
“Let me share this with all the parents — talk with your children if they were at Jena High last fall in the days following the fire,” Franklin said. “If they have any information, it would behoove them to come forward now.”
Franklin said “there is a strong possibility” that those who knew of the arsonists but did not come forward could face criminal charges.
“The arsonists have been revealed, and the time for protecting them or choosing not to get involved is over,” he said. “Again, I warn those that have information — come forward now before officers from our department come knocking on your door.”
The $5,000 Crime Stoppers reward will be paid to the person who led investigators to the suspects, but Franklin didn’t release the person’s name. He also said officials would be calling on the Rev. P.A. “Fox” Paul, a Jena minister who has collected “several thousands of dollars” in reward money, to be paid to the unidentified informant.
‘Always optimistic’
School Board member Dolan Pendarvis said the community is close-knit, has gone through a lot of emotions this past year and is grateful to hear of the arrests.
“I was always optimistic that eventually it would get solved,” he said.
Others in the community had been convinced the crime would remain cold since all attention was focused on the Jena Six case and not the arson. But state and local investigators didn’t give up.
“Even a year later, these kinds of crimes can be solved,” Marc Reech, lead investigator for the State Fire Marshal’s Office in Baton Rouge, said during a late November interview with The Town Talk. And sheriff’s investigators then said they continued to work hard on solving the case.
Reech said investigators knew the fire was arson because the fire started in several different places in the building — in the first-floor office area and in at least one classroom upstairs.
The building was a total loss, and investigators said the majority of the classrooms were gutted.
The main academic building held the math, science, English and art departments, as well as the school’s main offices. The building was demolished this summer, and the spot is now bare.
Tentative plans call for the school to have more classrooms than the old building, just one story and an updated look, Schools Superintendent Roy Breithaupt said. But he stressed that it won’t be here anytime soon and that the process is a lengthy one.
“I’m very glad to hear that those who committed the crimes will be brought to justice,” Breithaupt said after the announcement.
Dec. 4, 2006
After the fire, students returned to what many called “chaos” on Dec. 4, 2006. That was the day that authorities say six black high school students — who became known as the Jena Six — attacked white student Justin Barker. Barker was knocked unconscious and treated at a local emergency room for about three hours.
The incident and the legal system’s response to it thrust the high school and entire community into the national spotlight.
The six were arrested and initially charged with attempted murder, but the charges eventually were reduced.
More than 20,000 marched through the streets of Jena on Sept. 20 to protest what they called unequal justice.
Only one of the cases has made its way through the justice system.
Mychal Bell pleaded guilty to second-degree battery after admitting in court on Dec. 3 that he did hit Barker, knocking him unconscious. As part of his plea agreement, Bell will have to “truthfully testify” in any of the cases involving the other members of the Jena Six.
Bell was sentenced in December to 18 months in a juvenile facility to run concurrently, where possible, with the previous sentence of 18 months that Bell had received for three previous crimes.
The other five members — Robert Bailey Jr., Jesse Ray Beard, Carwin Jones, Bryant Purvis and Theo Shaw — have yet to face trial, and no trial dates have been set.
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||
Friends of Justice 