Jackson Jambalaya

http://www.clarionledger.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070512/NEWS/705120351/1001/news

Faye Peterson, Federal District Court Judge Tom Lee, and the faculty and administration at Jackson State University: a pox on all your houses. Thanks for working together to make sure a school shooter goes free.

This involves Mr. Mack, last seen shooting a fellow student at JSU. In this particular story, the sentencing of Mr. Mack by a federal judge is reported. You may ask why he was not prosecuted at the state/county level. Well, it seems he was not indicted by a Hinds County Grand Jury. No shame for the DA there. Sometimes you just don't have a strong enough case to take to a grand jury.

However, what case was presented to the grand jury for indictment? Apparently not much of one. The case against Mack was presented to a Hinds County grand jury, but he was not indicted.

"Hart, of Inverness, said he was never called to testify for the grand jury. Neither was Butler, a retired Jackson police officer.Federal prosecutors stepped in and charged Mack with being a felon in possession of a firearm and of possessing a firearm with an obliterated serial number.He pleaded guilty to the charges last year. "

There you have it. The DA did not call before the grand jury the man that was shot by Mack and could clearly identify him. She also did not call Officer Butler, who arrested Mr. Mack and saw most if not all of the incident beginning with Mack pulling his gun and firing at Mr. Hart. Mr. Mack then aimed his gun at Mr. Hart, who was unarmed and wounded, and fired at his chest and would've killed him but for the gun jamming (I hope Mr. Hart now goes to church every week).

However, the grand jury did not see this testimony because our illustrious DA didn't present to the grand jury the victim and the arresting police officer. The result is Mr. Mack walked free in Hinds County from bringing a gun to JSU and shooting a fellow student and clearly trying to kill him.

The DA also did not charge him with (which would have been much easier to prosecute) carrying a gun on school campus in violation of Section 97-37-17(2) of the Mississippi Code of 1972.

My first question is why weren't these witnesses presented to the grand jury? Is this incompetence or corruption? Corruption? Is that too strong a charge? Is Kingfish out of control? Well, the story does say that, "Swayed by numerous letters of support from deans and professors at JSU Judge Lee reduced the recommended sentence."

Everyone knows that all of these JSU deans and faculty members are connected (I'd love to know why Cleon Butler is working for JSU when his crazy ex girlfriend murdered one of their professors in cold blood) through professional and political relationships. I wonder how much pressure they put on the DA. There is NO EXCUSE for not presenting Hart and Butler to the grand jury nor charging him with having a gun on a college campus in violation of state law.This is either incompetence or corruption.

The result is, a cokehead who is a student at JSU walks onto campus with a stolen gun that has been sanitized and shoots another student and not only does not go to trial or is indicted by the county, but the case is presented to a grand jury by the DA in a way that makes it look like the DA is intentionally trying to drop the case, especially when he is not charged with more easily prosecuted offenses.

However, the D.A. is not the only one to blame for this travesty of justice. Judge Lee, who should know better, was "swayed" by the support for this low-life from the JSU community. So much for school safety. Nice to know that if I am going to school at JSU that my professors and administrators don't care about the safety of me and my classmates.

This whole case stinks and everyone involved should be beotch-slapped, from the staff at JSU for abdicating their moral responsibility to their students, to Faye Peterson and her office for an obvious display of incompetence or corruption, to the federal judge, Tom Lee, who went very easy on this thug.

A pox on all of you.