Shaquanda Cotton

Hundreds took to the streets of Paris, Texas yesterday to protest the seven year prison sentence handed down to a 14 year old girl accused of shoving a hall monitor at a local school. Shaquandra Cotton, now 15, says the teacher's aide pushed her first and denied her permission to enter school before the morning bell in 2005.The girl has already spent more than a year at the Ron Jackson Correctional Complex in Brownwood, about 300 miles from her Paris, Texas, home. The facility is part of an embattled juvenile system that is the subject of state and federal investigations into allegations that Texas Youth Commission staff physically and sexually abused inmates.Her family and civil rights activists say they want her home now. They are condemning the sentence as unusually harsh and shows a justice system that punishes youthful offenders differently based on race.“My daughter has been (at Brownwood) a year now,” Creola Cotton, standing in front of the Lamar County Courthouse, told the Herald Democrat, “It’s time for her to come home.”


From her blog: Shaquanda Cotton
Location: Paris : Texas : United States
About Me: I am a 14-year-old black freshman who shoved a hall monitor at Paris High School in a dispute over entering the building before the school day had officially begun and was sentenced to 7 years in prison. I have no prior arrest record, and the hall monitor--a 58-year-old teacher's aide--was not seriously injured. I was tried in March 2006 in the town's juvenile court, convicted of "assault on a public servant" and sentenced by Lamar County Judge Chuck Superville to prison for up to 7 years, until I turn 21. Just three months earlier, Superville sentenced a 14-year-old white girl, convicted of arson for burning down her family's house, to probation.

You can leave a note for Shaquanda Cotton at her website:
http://freeshaquandacotton.blogspot.com/