7 years for shoving a hall monitor
1,327943.story?coll=3Dchi-news-hed> LETTER FROM CYBERSPACE Tribune reporter Howard Witt hasn’t seen a reaction to a story quite = like the one he got after writing about a controversy in the small = Texas town of Paris March 26, 2007, 8:57 PM CDT Sometimes, as a newspaper reporter, you write a story that touches = enough readers that a few write you letters or e-mails in response. Less often, but even more gratifying, you write a story that actually = changes something, like getting a bad law fixed or a corrupt = politician indicted or a donation for a kid who can’t afford life- = saving surgery. And every once in a blue moon, you write something that literally = explodes across the Internet in ways no one could predict. That has now happened with a story I wrote two weeks ago, about a 14- = year-old black girl from the small Texas town of Paris, who was sent = to a youth prison for up to 7 years for shoving a hall monitor at her = high school. A 14-year-old white girl, convicted of arson for burning = down her family’s house, was sentenced by the same Paris judge to = probation. If you had Googled the black girl’s name, Shaquanda Cotton, the day = before the story was published on the front page of the March 12 = edition of the Tribune, you would have gotten zero results. On Monday = afternoon, there were more than 35,000 hits. The story has been picked up on more than 300 blogs around the = country, many of them concerned with African-American affairs. It has = generated thousands of postings to Internet message boards. It was the top story on digg.com, a site that ranks Internet pages by = user popularity and recommendations. It became the most-viewed and = most-e-mailed story on chicagotribune.com more than a week after it = was originally published, which is particularly remarkable because = most news stories on the site automatically expire after just a few = days. And now the story has jumped across the ethernet into the physical = world: Dozens of talk-radio stations across the nation were buzzing = about Shaquanda last week, protests on her behalf were held in Paris, = a petition- and letter-drive aimed at Texas Gov. Rick Perry and the = judge in the case, Chuck Superville, is under way, and civil rights = leaders from the NAACP and the ACLU to the Rev. Al Sharpton are = weighing whether to get involved. I’ve written thousands of stories for the Tribune over the last 25 = years, from around the nation and across the world, and I’ve never = seen a reaction like this before. What’s driving the attention to this story is outrage=97most people who = come across it say they are upset at what they believe was an = excessive sentence imposed on a teenager for a moment of reckless = behavior. Many perceive racial discrimination, because, as the story = explained, Shaquanda’s case occurred against a backdrop of other = discrimination complaints in the town. “This sentence is unexplainable. Where is the justice in this?” wrote = one man in a posting typical of many others. “I cannot imagine my = daughter in this situation. I will pass this on to everyone I know.” There’s been some outrage in the other direction, as well: A number = of residents of Paris have contended, in e-mails and articles in the = local Paris newspaper, that the Tribune story unfairly portrayed = their town as racist. “Paris is being burned at the media stake by a journalist that didn’t = get the whole story poking the hot irons and igniting the fire,” = wrote Phillip Hamilton, a columnist for the Paris News. “…Does = racism exist in Paris? Yes, but not nearly to the extent the Tribune = reporter would have readers believe.” Now it appears all of this ferment might affect Shaquanda’s case. = Hers will be among the first cases to be examined by a special = commission being established this week to review the sentence of = every youth being held inside Texas’ youth prisons, because of = concerns that many inmates might have had their sentences arbitrarily = extended by prison officials. The review panel was sparked by a wide-ranging scandal currently = plaguing the state’s juvenile prison system in which numerous prison = guards and officials are accused of coercing imprisoned youths for sex. While that scandal does not directly involve Shaquanda, the high = public profile of her case has caused the special master overseeing = the investigation of the juvenile system to say he wants to review = her case in particular. Shaquanda also has an appeal pending with Texas’ 6th Court of Appeals = in Texarkana, which has heard arguments on her case and could rule at = any time. But what’s particularly interesting to me, beyond the content of all = the reactions, has been the vehemence, and what it may tell us about = the powerful new Internet communications tools we all now have at our = fingertips but don’t yet fully comprehend. I had no idea, for example, of the extent of the African-American = blogging world out there and its collective powers of dissemination. But now, after reading thousands of anguished, thoughtful comments = posted on these blogs reflecting on issues of persistent racial = discrimination in the nation’s schools and courtrooms, what’s clear = to me is that there’s a new, “virtual” civil rights movement out = there on the Internet that can reach more people in a few hours than = all the protest marches, sit-ins and boycotts of the 1950s and 60s = put together. There’s another lesson to be drawn from this episode: Newspapers do = still matter. Many Americans are very skeptical about the health of the newspaper = business these days. Readership is declining as long-time newspaper = subscribers die off and younger consumers decline to take a paper in = their place. Advertising revenue is bleeding away onto the Internet. Everybody seems to think they can just flip on their TV or bring up a = Yahoo! page or a blog and find all the news they need. Well, it is quite true that uncountable hundreds of thousands of = people who had never heard of the Chicago Tribune before have now = read my story about Shaquanda Cotton, thanks to its broad = distribution across the Internet. But in order for all of that to happen, people had to read it here = first. Howard Witt is the Tribune’s Southwest Bureau Chief, based in Houston. =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=
=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=
=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D = =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D chi-0703120170mar12,1,1921178.story> To some in Paris, sinister past is back In Texas, a white teenager burns down her family’s home and receives = probation. A black one shoves a hall monitor and gets 7 years in = prison. The state NAACP calls it `a signal to black folks.’ By Howard Witt
Tribune senior correspondent March 12, 2007 PARIS, Texas — The public fairgrounds in this small east Texas town = look ordinary enough, like so many other well-worn county fair sites = across the nation. Unless you know the history of the place. There are no plaques or markers to denote it, but several of the most = notorious public lynchings of black Americans in the late 19th and = early 20th Centuries were staged at the Paris Fairgrounds, where = thousands of white spectators would gather to watch and cheer as = black men were dragged onto a scaffold, scalded with hot irons and = finally burned to death or hanged. Brenda Cherry, a local civil rights activist, can see the fairgrounds = from the front yard of her modest home, in the heart of the “black” = side of this starkly segregated town of 26,000. And lately, Cherry = says, she’s begun to wonder whether the racist legacy of those = lynchings is rebounding in a place that calls itself “the best small = town in Texas.” “Some of the things that happen here would not happen if we were in = Dallas or Houston,” Cherry said. “They happen because we are in this = closed town. I compare it to 1930s.” There was the 19-year-old white man, convicted last July of = criminally negligent homicide for killing a 54-year-old black woman = and her 3-year-old grandson with his truck, who was sentenced in = Paris to probation and required to send an annual Christmas card to = the victims’ family. There are the Paris public schools, which are under investigation by = the U.S. Education Department after repeated complaints that = administrators discipline black students more frequently, and more = harshly, than white students. And then there is the case that most troubles Cherry and leaders of = the Texas NAACP, involving a 14-year-old black freshman, Shaquanda = Cotton, who shoved a hall monitor at Paris High School in a dispute = over entering the building before the school day had officially begun. The youth had no prior arrest record, and the hall monitor–a 58-year- = old teacher’s aide–was not seriously injured. But Shaquanda was = tried in March 2006 in the town’s juvenile court, convicted of = “assault on a public servant” and sentenced by Lamar County Judge = Chuck Superville to prison for up to 7 years, until she turns 21. Just three months earlier, Superville sentenced a 14-year-old white = girl, convicted of arson for burning down her family’s house, to = probation. “All Shaquanda did was grab somebody and she will be in jail for 5 or = 6 years?” said Gary Bledsoe, an Austin attorney who is president of = the state NAACP branch. “It’s like they are sending a signal to black = folks in Paris that you stay in your place in this community, in the = shadows, intimidated.” The Tribune generally does not identify criminal suspects younger = than age 17, but is doing so in this case because the girl and her = family have chosen to go public with their story. None of the officials involved in Shaquanda’s case, including the = local prosecutor, the judge and Paris school district administrators, = would agree to speak about their handling of it, citing a court = appeal under way. But the teen’s defenders assert that long before the September 2005 = shoving incident, Paris school officials targeted Shaquanda for = scrutiny because her mother had frequently accused school officials = of racism. Retaliation alleged “Shaquanda started getting written up a lot after her mother became = involved in a protest march in front of a school,” said Sharon = Reynerson, an attorney with Lone Star Legal Aid, who has represented = Shaquanda during challenges to several of the disciplinary citations = she received. “Some of the write-ups weren’t fair to her or accurate, = so we felt like we had to challenge each one to get the whole story.” Among the write-ups Shaquanda received, according to Reynerson, were = citations for wearing a skirt that was an inch too short, pouring too = much paint into a cup during an art class and defacing a desk that = school officials later conceded bore no signs of damage. Shaquanda’s mother, Creola Cotton, does not dispute that her daughter = can behave impulsively and was sometimes guilty of tardiness or = speaking out of turn at school–behaviors that she said were = manifestations of Shaquanda’s attention deficit hyperactivity = disorder, for which the teen was taking prescription medication. Nor does Shaquanda herself deny that she pushed the hall monitor = after the teacher’s aide refused her permission to enter the school = before the morning bell–although Shaquanda maintains that she was = supposed to have been allowed to visit the school nurse to take her = medication, and that the teacher’s aide pushed her first. But Cherry alleges that Shaquanda’s frequent disciplinary write-ups, = and the insistence of school officials at her trial that she deserved = prison rather than probation for the shoving incident, fits in a = larger pattern of systemic discrimination against black students in = the Paris Independent School District. In the past five years, black parents have filed at least a dozen = discrimination complaints against the school district with the = federal Education Department, asserting that their children, who = constitute 40 percent of the district’s nearly 4,000 students, were = singled out for excessive discipline. An attorney for the school district, Dennis Eichelbaum, said the = Education Department had determined all of the complaints to be = unfounded. “The [department] has explained that the school district has not and = does not discriminate, that the school district has been a leader and = very progressive when it comes to race relations, and that there was = no validity to the allegations made by the complainants,” Eichelbaum = said. Not so clear But the federal investigations of the school district are not so = clear-cut, and they are not finished. In one 2004 finding, Education = Department officials determined that black students at a Paris middle = school were being written up for disciplinary infractions more than = twice as often as white students–and eight times as often in one = category, “class disruption.” The Education Department asked the U.S. Justice Department to try to = mediate disputes between black parents and the district, but school = officials pulled out of the process last December before it was = concluded. And in April 2006, the Education Department notified Paris school = officials that it was opening a new, comprehensive review to = determine “whether the district discriminated against African- = American students on the basis of race” between 2004 and 2006. = Federal officials say that investigation is still in progress. According to one veteran Paris teacher, who asked not to be named for = fear of retribution, such discrimination is widespread. “There is a philosophy of giving white kids a break and coming down = on black kids,” said the teacher, who is white. Not everyone in Paris agrees, however, that blacks are treated = unfairly by the city’s institutions. “I’ve lived here all my life, and I don’t see that,” said Mary Ann = Reed Fisher, one of two black members of the Paris City Council. “My = kids went to Paris High School, and they never had one minute of a = problem with the school system, the courts or the police.” A peculiar inmate Meanwhile, Shaquanda, a first-time offender, remains something of an = anomaly inside the Texas Youth Commission prison system, where = officials say 95 percent of the 2,500 juveniles in their custody are = chronic, serious offenders who already have exhausted county-level = programs such as probation and local treatment or detention. “The Texas Youth Commission is reserved for those youth who are most = violent or most habitual,” said commission spokesman Tim Savoy. “The = whole concept of commitment until your 21st birthday should be = recognized as a severe penalty, and that’s why it’s typically the = last resort of the juvenile system in Texas.” Inside the youth prison in Brownwood where she has been incarcerated = for the past 10 months–a prison currently at the center of a state = scandal involving a guard who allegedly sexually abused teenage = inmates–Shaquanda, who is now 15, says she has not been doing well. Three times she has tried to injure herself, first by scratching her = face, then by cutting her arm. The last time, she said, she copied a = method she saw another young inmate try, knotting a sweater around = her neck and yanking it tight so she couldn’t breathe. The guards = noticed her sprawled inside her cell before it was too late. She tried to harm herself, Shaquanda said, out of depression, = desperation and fear of the hardened young thieves, robbers, sex = offenders and parole violators all around her whom she must try to = avoid each day. “I get paranoid when I get around some of these girls,” Shaquanda = said. “Sometimes I feel like I just can’t do this no more–that I = can’t survive this.”