Nooses spark violence, split town

JENA, Louisiana (CNN) -- Mychal Bell was like a lot of boys his age, his mother says
The always-smiling 16-year-old often spent weekends on the couch, munching Little Debbie snack cakes, watching football and dreaming of the day he would join his heroes in the NFL.
That was before police arrested the star running back and five other teens -- dubbed the "Jena 6" -- on attempted murder and conspiracy charges after a December 4, 2006, fight at the local high school. Three of the six, including Bell, later had their charges reduced to aggravated battery.
Bell, now 17, sits in a cell in Jena, waiting to learn later this month whether he will spend the next two decades in prison.
"He's not the same. He's grown up a lot since he's been in there. He's not the same ol' smiling Mychal he used to be," his mother, Melissa Bell, says. "I pray that the judge will go easy on him."
Mychal Bell wasn't convicted of attempted murder. The charges were diluted to aggravated battery and conspiracy, but undiluted is the outrage over the fates of Bell and the rest of the Jena 6. Watch deputies subdue Bell's father after the conviction »
Many in this sleepy town of 3,000, where 12 percent of the population is black, are calling Bell's June conviction a case of Jim Crow justice.
They question why Bell's public defender never called a witness in the trial. They question the all-white jury that took three hours to convict him. They question charges they say are wildly overblown. They question why the teen was tried as an adult.
And they say the fight never would have happened if not for the nooses.
A threat or a prank?
In September 2006, as the school year kicked off, a black Jena High School student asked the vice principal if he and some friends could sit under an oak tree where the white students typically congregated.

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