Free Republic

Finally, I wanted to recognize the accomplishment of national correspondent Howard Witt, whose story led to the recent release of a 15-year-old girl from a small town in Texas who was imprisoned for shoving a hall monitor. Her sentence was indeterminate, from a minimum of 9 months to up to 7 years, when she reached 21. The story of Shaquanda Cotton's imprisonment may be testament to residual racism, but the story of her freeing is testament to the combined strength of the old and new media and to the power of bearing witness to injustice. In his front-page story on...

he headline in African-AmericanNews&Issues’ June 22 - 28, 2006 warned that Black children are targets in Texas school systems and at risk of becoming pawns of the juvenile justice system. Despite the numerous meetings, campaign speeches and pulpit grandstanding that promote Black children as “the future,” Black youth are constantly being attacked, written off and railroaded by police, judges, “Yes sum’” Blacks, White teachers, caretakers, principals and other school officials who have made deals with Willie Lynch and Jim Crow to sell our future down the river. The latest flagrant case of Black youth attacks involves a 14-year-old from Paris,...

HOUSTON -- After spending a year behind bars, Shaquanda Cotton walked out of a central Texas youth prison Saturday pretty much like many 15-year-olds would: eager for a hug from her mom and pining for a Big Mac. So McDonald's was the first stop for the soft-spoken black teenager, who was abruptly released by Texas officials after nationwide civil rights protests erupted over her sentence of up to 7 years for shoving a teacher's aide at her high school.

A 14-year-old girl has been sentenced to a state juvenile correction facility “for an indeterminate period not to exceed her 21st birthday” for shoving a 58-year-old teacher’s aide. The incident occurred Sept. 30 at Paris High School, while the aide was on hall monitor duty. The girl has a history of problems at school, according to court testimony. County Judge Chuck Superville said the girl must spend a minimum of one year at a Texas Youth Commission facility. How much longer she will stay depends upon her progress, the judge said. A three-man, three-woman jury listened to testimony Thursday and...

Shaquanda Cotton, whose yearlong stay in a juvenile prison for pushing a hall monitor made her a symbol of alleged racial bias and the troubled Texas Youth Commission, was released Saturday, a state lawmaker said. The 15-year-old was freed from the Ron Jackson Correctional Complex and picked up by her mother, said Rep. Harold Dutton, chairman of the House juvenile justice committee who lobbied state officials for Cotton's release.

DALLAS (AP) - A teenager has been jailed for more than a year for shoving a teacher's aide at her high school, a case that has sparked anger and heightened racial tensions in rural East Texas. Shaquandra Cotton, who is black, claims the teacher's aide pushed her first and would not let her enter school before the morning bell in 2005. A jury convicted the 15-year-old girl in March 2006 on a felony count of shoving a public servant, who was not seriously injured. The girl is in the Ron Jackson Correctional Complex in Brownwood, about 300 miles from her...