Did the title of my post get your attention?  Nothing like some journalistic sensationalism to grab your attention. 
Here’s the scoop from an article I read on BlackVoices.com…

‘Jena Six’ Teen Pulls A Plaxico, Shoots Himself

Posted Dec 30th 2008 12:00PM by Jeff Douglas

This one is comes from the straight foolishness file.

A week after getting busted for shoplifting, Jena Six teen Mychal Bell was rushed to a hospital Monday with a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the chest, according to the AP.

Cops think Bell was upset over media coverage for getting arrested for stealing from a Dillard’s on Christmas Eve. His lawyer says it was an accident. Thousands thew their support behind this young man and others in 2007 with massive civil rights demonstration. …

Bell’s record was just cleaned for charges stemming from a racially-charged fight involving him and five other black teenagers at Jena High School in 2006. The case got national attention when prosecutors wanted to charge the teens with attempted murder.

Bell was cleaning a gun when it accidentally discharged, his attorney told CNN. He’s been staying with a foster family in Monroe, La.

I hope Mychal finds a way to turn his life around.  It’s kind of like Rodney King whom all our hearts bled for in the racially charged beating.  Behind all of that was already a man in trouble (caught him recently on Season 2 of Dr. Drew’s Celebrity Rehab show).

I swear I thought up my post title before I ran into this picture, but it just sums up my initial reaction so well. Kudos to the photographer (source- http://flickr.com/photos/35237093608@N01/1528508443).

Well, at least he got jail time, right??

Just pasting the image above (from the article I found here- http://a.abcnews.com/TheLaw/BlackHistory/story?id=4184706&page=1) brings tears to my eyes. I guess it’s just the reality of it all. Right in your face.

Do you think 4 months is adequate? Just curious. I’m not sure if putting time on a sentence “cancels out” the crime or the depth of the impact, but you could say that for a lot of crimes.

Associated Press ALEXANDRIA, La. — A Louisiana teenager who used nooses to intimidate black civil rights demonstrators was sentenced Friday to four months in federal prison.

Jeremiah Munsen, 19, of Colfax, had nooses hanging from the back of his pickup truck when he drove past people who had attended a massive civil rights march in Jena last September, according to federal prosecutors.

Munsen had faced up to a year in prison after he pleaded guilty in April to a misdemeanor charge of interfering with the marchers’ federally protected right to travel.

U.S. District Judge Dee Drell in Alexandria also sentenced Munsen to 125 hours of community service and one year of supervised release following his prison term, according to Assistant U.S. Attorney William Flanagan.

Munsen was sentenced on the same day that an anti-noose law took effect in Louisiana. The new law makes it a state crime, punishable by up to one year in prison, to try to intimidate someone with a hangman’s noose, a Deep South symbol of racial hatred.

The marchers were waiting in Alexandria for a bus home to Tennessee after protesting the criminal cases against six black teenagers charged with beating a white student at Jena High School in 2006.

A 16-year-old passenger in Munsen’s truck also was arrested, but Flanagan said he couldn’t comment on juvenile proceedings.

In a court filing last month, prosecutors said Munsen cooperated with investigators and asked Drell to impose a sentence that reflected his “substantial assistance.”

The Rev. Al Sharpton, who helped organize the march in Jena, said in a statement earlier this year that he applauded federal prosecutors for charging Munsen with a hate crime.

Munsen’s attorney, Billy Guin Jr., did not immediately return a call for comment.