Jena Six Activist Convicted : NOLA Indymedia

Repost from: http://louisianajusticeinstitute.blogspot.com/2011/03/jena-six-activist-convicted-faces.html

Civil rights activist Catrina Wallace, who received national attention for her role in organizing protests around the Jena Six case, was convicted today of three counts of distribution of a controlled substance. Wallace, who is 30, became an activist after her brother, Robert Bailey, was arrested and charged with attempted murder for a school fight. Bailey and five others later became known as the Jena Six. Their case eventually brought 50,000 people on a march through the town of Jena, and as a result of the public pressure the six young men were eventually freed. The six young men are all now in college or - in the case of the youngest - on their way.

The case was heard by 28th District Judge J. Christopher Peters, a former Assistant District Attorney and the son of Judge Jimmie C. Peters of the Louisiana Third Circuit Court of Appeal. Wallace was represented by Krystal Todd of the Lasalle Parish Public Defenders Office. The 12-person jury had one Black member. The case was prosecuted by Lasalle Parish District Attorney Reed Walters, who also prosecuted the Jena Six case, and famously told a room full of students, "I can make your lives disappear with a stroke of my pen."

Wallace was arrested as part of "Operation Third Option," which saw more than 150 officers, including a SWAT team and helicopters, storm into Jena's Black community on July 9, 2009. Although no drugs were seized, a dozen people were arrested, based on testimony and video evidence of a police informant, convicted drug dealer Evan Brown. So far, most of those arrested on that day have plead guilty and faced long sentences. Devin Lofton, who pled guilty to conspiracy to distribute, received ten years. Adrian Richardson, 34, who pled guilty to two counts of distribution, received twenty-five years. Termaine Lee, a twenty-two-year-old who had no previous record but faced six counts of distribution, received twenty years.

Wallace, a single mother, has three small children, aged 3, 5, and 10. The youngest child has frequent seizures. She was taken from the courtroom straight to jail after the verdict was read, and given a one million dollar bail. Her sentencing is expected to come next month.

Photo: Catrina Wallace and her mother, Caseptla Bailey.

I agree that it a shame that this women is going to jail I feel bad for her children. But I do have a couple of questions. First, what kind of drug was it? If she is facing serious jail time is this her first offense or is she a multiple bill? If she is a multiple bill, what are her previous convictions for?

And while I do feel bad for her family, if there is video showing that she was dealing death to the very black folks she claims to champion, I want her to explain that.

This has nothing to do with drugs, and everything to do with punishing a community and political retaliation unless the pigs in New Orleans are somehow less corrupt than in DC, which I highly doubt. My suspicion is this is really about police or even the FBI wanting vengeance for not getting their way with the Jena 6 case. Shit-I'm surprised they didn't plant some drugs for themselves to find.

I have seen this kind of shit in my area, though on a smaller scale. Back in 2001, the pigs tried to prosecute me for felony inciting to riot. This was after I was in a Jan 27, 2001 protest where 400 anarchists and animal rights activists stormed fur-selling Nieman-Marcus in a joint operation. This was staged out of the National Conference on Organized Resistance-just one week after all those rich asshole Republican women at Bush's inauguration were wearing fur. At a community event maybe a month into the case, a near-certain undercover cop tried to interest me in a heroin deal. This was presumably because I was refusing to submit to court-ordered drug testing. I told him to get out of my face, having no interest in drugs and treating this as proof he was a cop.

When I refused to negotiate and eventually forced them to drop the charges, they simply waited for another incident-and had someone else (John Batchelor) extradited from Seattle to Va (for "assautling a police officer) at another protest, this time not even in DC, but in Virginia. The FBI was presumably involved given this factor. John Batchelor spent thee months being held without bond, and video proving him innocent was suppressed at trial. Only a courageous spectator standing up and yelling to the jury about the tape prevented a felony conviction or jail time. The spectator was arrested, but was able to beat the charges as well.

The courtroom was packed and the halls were swarming with nearly 100 anarchists in black, the pigs had to set up a second metal detector outside just that one courtroom-and they didn't try something like this again here for over five years. They learned that we would defend our own, and that actions had consequences.

The current case also points up our national failing in the subject of snitch control and deterrence. Any time informants have gotten the idea that the price of snitching was less than the price of solidarity, we have had problems in all communities. Of course, if snitches start making up lies out of whole cloth, they open themselves to a new mode of retaliation:criminal complaints for perjury! While I can just about guarantee you this charge won't stick, they will still have to defend it, and will sweat and sweat about what happens if they end up a snitch in prison, however unlikely this may actually be.

In fact, "throwing paper" is an old tactic used by gangs who are not afraid to use every tool in the toolbox. If a cop gives them too much trouble, they file every possible complaint against him, just like the pigs do to to them and to us. Eventually, either something sticks, or the pig gets afraid something will stick and backs off. This might be worth trying on the kind of informants who not only snitch but lie to their police paymasters as well.

Is there a reason not to name the substance? I think this is outrageous, whatever it was, but I'd still like to know precisely what the charge was, i.e., what substance.