14-year-old Texas girl gets 7 years in prison for shoving hall monitor

[sheya joie]

She has been released. Here is the story according to the Paris TX newspaper.

[mawoni]

thank you for posting that followup, tmrfiles. it goes to show how quickly people jump to conclusions when media bias rears its ugly head. we can blame the mother for her part in it, but we must remember, the editorialist who wrote the article in the chicago trib was just as guilty of manipulating the public.

Maybe you need to read the last articl LadyC. If the sentencing was justified why was the girl released??? If it was totally justified then they would not have released the teenager and would have stuck to the sentence. You should open your eyes to the racism that is in this world. What does refusing to see it make you???...Not a good thing!

Edited April 2, 2007 by mawoni

[rtwo]

I think it's at least certain that we're dealing with a racist judge.

As for the prosecution, I'd say their just part of an unjust system in which instead of looking for actual justice, attorneys are instructed to "win."

[Guest LadyC]

thank you for posting that followup, tmrfiles. it goes to show how quickly people jump to conclusions when media bias rears its ugly head. we can blame the mother for her part in it, but we must remember, the editorialist who wrote the article in the chicago trib was just as guilty of manipulating the public.

Maybe you need to read the last articl LadyC. If the sentencing was justified why was the girl released??? If it was totally justified then they would not have released the teenager and would have stuck to the sentence. You should open your eyes to the racism that is in this world. What does refusing to see it make you???...Not a good thing!

maybe you need to read the posts i've made in here a little more closely before you start mischaractarizing what i've said.

i have repeatedly stated that i felt the length of her sentence was was too harsh.

i have repeatedly stated that the media drew comparisons specifically for the purpose of exaggerating the differences. we don't know the circumstances of the arson thing, whether it was intentional or if the girl was playing with fire and it got out of her control because she was stupid. but we DO know that some of the other cases referenced were nothing more than tragic accidents with no malice or intent to harm on the part of those who got off lightly... for example the guy who killed the grandmother and todler on the road getting (what was it? probation? i'd have to go back and look) the article didn't bother to mention that it had been an accident on an icy road... the article was written to make it appear as though it were a hit and run against the woman and child because of their skin colour.

why was this girl released early? i dunno. maybe political pressure because this was becoming a media circus. or maybe because someone who reviewed the case rightly determined that the girl's sentence was too long.

i don't deny that racism exists, and have also stated that the judge who sentenced her may very well not be worthy of sitting on the bench. but this article paints the entire town and in fact the entire state of texas as being racist bigots. THAT is certainly a far cry from anything truthful.

i ALSO know that REVERSE racism exists. and like it or not, i see more examples of reverse racism going on every day than the other.... saw it in texas all my life, see it here in las vegas, and see it on the national news on a regular basis.

and the media? i have a natural understanding of exactly how they operate. they write stories designed to get the biggest ratings and sell the most papers, by stirring up emotional responses among their readers/viewers. i know this because i have been a part of it from both sides... as a former newspaper columnist and as an expert on a topic which had me in the hotseat of interviewers many times. i've even dealt firsthand with the chicago trib.

columnists skew facts. it's part of their job. i recall once when i wanted to branch out from entertainment writing to political writing to cover a local race, being warned quite clearly that if i wanted to continue writing for the paper, i would write with a liberal bias. i could report factually anything i wanted about the republicans, but if i wrote anything that reflected poorly on the democrats i would not be writing for the paper anymore. i chose to stick with writing entertainment reviews.

i don't deny racism exists. but you apparently don't recognize that media spin does exist, and it was alive and well in that article.

[Guest LadyC]

having just read the latest article, it's clear that at least the TYC's motivation for releasing her early was the pressure of the media. the girl was obviously still presenting behavioural problems, which is what landed her in there to begin with.

i still say the length of sentence was too long. however, she was put in a correctional facility and her sentence was truncated six years early... and it appears to have been a little too soon. had she earned an early release, i'd be happy for her. but she didn't. and chances are, shaquonda cotton will be getting in more legal trouble in the future as a result.

[Axxman]

Maybe you need to read the last articl LadyC. If the sentencing was justified why was the girl released??? If it was totally justified then they would not have released the teenager and would have stuck to the sentence. You should open your eyes to the racism that is in this world. What does refusing to see it make you???...Not a good thing!

The girl was released because it was past her time. She was held over because of disciplinary violations. She was NOT released early because they thought she was sentenced wrongly!!

From the article: Although she had reached her length of stay

Edited April 2, 2007 by Axxman

[mawoni]

Maybe you need to read the last articl LadyC. If the sentencing was justified why was the girl released??? If it was totally justified then they would not have released the teenager and would have stuck to the sentence. You should open your eyes to the racism that is in this world. What does refusing to see it make you???...Not a good thing!

The girl was released because it was past her time. She was held over because of disciplinary violations. She was NOT released early because they thought she was sentenced wrongly!!

From the article: Although she had reached her length of stay

[Guest LadyC]

was the sentence really injust? or do you just choose to ignore the facts?

DO YOU understand that she was NOT sentenced to 7 years behind bars? she was sentenced to complete some mandatory requirements, which most people complete within a year, and that if she failed to meet those requirements she would still have to be released at age 21.

do you understand that she did not simply give a little push to some person to get them out of the way, but hit them with a full body slam that sent the person (a public servant, not just another civilian) sprawling on the ground?

do you understand that she was OFFERED PROBATION, in which she would have never served a single day in jail, but that her mother REJECTED the probationary sentence and insisted on a full trial?

she WAS treated equally. she was offered the same sentence that the white teenage arsonist got, and refused it. actually, her mother did the honors of refusing it for her, since she's a minor. maybe if you think it was an unjust sentence you should go yell at the mother.

oh, and by the way, if you don't understand the concept of 'reverse racism', that's not my problem. it exists. it is a term used to describe the persecution of white folks for treating black people the same as they do white folks, when the black folks (or brown or yellow or green) want special priviledges.

[mawoni]

was the sentence really injust? or do you just choose to ignore the facts?

DO YOU understand that she was NOT sentenced to 7 years behind bars? she was sentenced to complete some mandatory requirements, which most people complete within a year, and that if she failed to meet those requirements she would still have to be released at age 21.

do you understand that she did not simply give a little push to some person to get them out of the way, but hit them with a full body slam that sent the person (a public servant, not just another civilian) sprawling on the ground?

do you understand that she was OFFERED PROBATION, in which she would have never served a single day in jail, but that her mother REJECTED the probationary sentence and insisted on a full trial?

she WAS treated equally. she was offered the same sentence that the white teenage arsonist got, and refused it. actually, her mother did the honors of refusing it for her, since she's a minor. maybe if you think it was an unjust sentence you should go yell at the mother.

oh, and by the way, if you don't understand the concept of 'reverse racism', that's not my problem. it exists. it is a term used to describe the persecution of white folks for treating black people the same as they do white folks, when the black folks (or brown or yellow or green) want special priviledges.

Anyway, I don't want to go round in circles . My point was just that the sentencing was hash hence the uproar. Whether you define racism as reverse or whatever is not the issue. All I stated was that racism is racism whether its against black or white people. How people want to 'label' it is not the issue. I remain of the belief that the sentencing was unjustifed .

[Guest LadyC]

go around in circles? no, you just want to beat a dead horse that has nothing to do with it.

her sentence wasn't harsh. she was offered probation. she refused it. she got what she asked for, and didn't even have to serve out her minimum requirements. but you'd rather scream racism than look at the facts of the case.