Sunday, March 18, 2007

Free Shaquanda Cotton

7 years in jail for pushing a hall monitor--if you're black

What began as a bad day for 14-year-old Paris (Texas) High School freshman Shaquanda Cotton ended up as an apartheid nighmare. It seems that Shaquanda shoved a hall monitor in a dispute over entering the building before the school day had officially begun. She was trying to get to the nurse's office to get her daily dose of medicine for her "attention deficit" disorder. Was this African-American youngster suspended? Kept after school? Sent to a counselor for some anger-management intervention? No.

Shaquanda, who had no previous arrest record, 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.

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