WASHINGTON
Democratic lawmakers denounced federal authorities Tuesday for not intervening in the highly publicized case of six Black high school students charged with the beating of a White student, citing racist noose-hanging incidents far beyond the attack in the small Louisiana town of Jena.
The House Judiciary Committee held a hearing with federal officials and community activists examining the case of the teenagers known as the Jena Six. The incident happened after nooses, a symbol of the lynching violence of the segregation era, were hung from a tree on a high school campus.
Democratic lawmakers, many of them Black, blasted federal authorities for staying out of the local prosecutor’s case against the six, particularly that of Mychal Bell, who is currently in jail after a judge decided he violated the terms of his probation for a previous conviction.
“Shame on you,” Democratic Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee said to Justice Department officials, directing most of her fury at Donald Washington, the U.S. attorney for Louisiana’s western district and the first Black person to hold that position.
“As a parent, I’m on the verge of tears,” Jackson Lee said.
