Lee: 'Why didn't you intervene?'The United States attorney who investigated racially charged events in Jena, Louisiana -- including the hanging of nooses in a tree at a local high school -- was roundly condemned by Democrats during a House Judiciary Committee hearing on Tuesday.
Donald Washington, who was appointed by President Bush as US Attorney for the Western District of Louisiana, had stated previously that no link existed between the nooses, which appeared in a tree at Jena High School in August 2006, and the beating of a white student the following December. Six black teens were originally charged with attempted murder in the incident, although the charges were later reduced.
At the hearing, Washington stated that although in his opinion the hanging of the nooses did indeed constitute a hate crime, it was not a prosecutable offense because the three white students alleged to have hung the nooses were all minors.
Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-TX) sharply rebuked Washington for not intervening in what she viewed as an over-prosecution of the black Jena teenagers by Louisiana district attorney, Reed Walters, who originally brought the case.
"I'm asking you to go back and I'm asking you to find a way to release Mychal Bell and the Jena six," Rep. Lee said, addressing Washington. " My question that goes down the road: I want to know why in the course of meetings of local district attorneys, why you didn't engage with Mr. Reed Walters, who may be subject to prosecutorial abuse, and confer with him and say 'Mr. Walters, this is not the way to handle this case.'"
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