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A teen convicted in the “Jena Six” beating case shot himself in the chest and was taken to the hospital Monday, days after his arrest on a shoplifting charge, police said.

Mychal Bell’s wound isn’t life threatening, said Monroe Police Sgt. Cassandra Wooten. The 18-year-old used a .22-caliber firearm in the shooting around 7:40 p.m., she said.

Wooten believes Bell was upset over media coverage of the arrest last week.

“I think he was upset over the incident … and didn’t want to be in the news again,” she said.

Bell was one of a group of black teenagers who once faced attempted murder charges in the 2006 beating of a white classmate at Jena High School. The charges for all of the defendants were reduced.

The severity of the original charges brought widespread criticism and eventually led to more than 20,000 people converging in September 2007 on the tiny central Louisiana town of Jena for the largest civil rights march in decades.

Bell was in the news again after he was arrested on Dec. 24 and booked on charges of shoplifting, resisting arrest and simple assault, police said.

Police said Bell tried to steal several shirts and a pair of jeans from a department store and fled when a security guard and off-duty police officer tried to detain him. After they found him hiding under a car, Bell “swung his arms wildly” and one of his elbows struck the security guard with a glancing blow, according to a police report. He was freed on $1,300 bond.

Wooten said Bell was taken to a hospital in Monroe, where a nursing supervisor wouldn’t release his condition. Wooten didn’t have further details on the shooting.

One of Bell’s attorneys in the assault case didn’t immediately return a call Monday seeking comment on the shoplifting case.

In the Jena case, Bell eventually pleaded guilty to a juvenile charge of second-degree battery.

Bell, the only one of the six who has been tried, has been living in a foster home in Monroe and attending school.

© 2008 Associated Press. Displayed by permission. All rights reserved.

Freddie Hubbard

Billboard
Jonathan Cohen, N.Y.

Jazz trumpeter Freddie Hubbard, who played with legends such as John Coltrane, Ornette Coleman, McCoy Tyner, Art Blakey and Herbie Hancock, died today (Dec. 29) in Sherman Oaks, Calif.

Hubbard, who had suffered a heart attack on Nov. 26, was 70.

Born in Indianapolis, the artist moved to New York in 1958 and quickly began playing and recording with Coleman, Coltrane and Eric Dolphy. In 1961, he released “Ready for Freddie,” the first of many collaborations with saxophonist Wayne Shorter.

Hubbard’s “hard bop” stylings can be heard on some of the landmark free jazz albums of the 1960s, including Coleman’s “Free Jazz” and Coltrane’s “Ascension.” In the 1970s, he recorded more commercial-leaning albums for CTI Records, and maintained an active presence in the studio and onstage throughout the 1980s.

Hubbard was bestowed with the National Endowment for the Arts’ Jazz Masters Award in 2006.

According to a spokesperson, a New York memorial is being planned.

Freddie Hubbard & Art Blakey - Moanin’

BET, TV One Plan Extensive Inauguration Coverage
By DAVID BAUDER, AP Television Writer David Bauder, Ap Television
Writer Sun Dec 28, 6:24 pm ET

NEW YORK – BET and TV One, the television networks aimed primarily at a black audience, haven’t paid much attention to presidential inaugurations before. This time will be different.

Both are planning extensive coverage for Jan. 20, when Barack Obama is sworn in as the nation’s 44th president. While it will be followed as a news event, network executives said the installation of the first
black president will be as much a celebration as a story.

“This is an opportunity to be the best we can be,” said Stephen Hill, BET’s programming chief. “We see this as an opportunity to inform and inspire our audience, which is what we always try to do.”

BET marked President George W. Bush’s last inauguration with a news brief, to say “Oh, it happened. What a shame,” he said.

This time, BET will cover the swearing-in and parade from four locations, including ground and rooftop sites on Pennsylvania Avenue. Anchoring the coverage will be Hill Harper of CBS’ “CSI: NY,” former
CBS “The Early Show” host Rene Syler and Jeff Johnson, who hosts a weekly BET news program.

The networks will take a particular interest in speaking to people who have traveled to Washington to witness the event. On election night, their ratings peaked shortly after the general news networks declared Obama the winner — when black viewers turned to the stations to soak it in with the people on the air.

“They talked about the emotion of it,” said Johnathan Rodgers, TV One’s president. “Everyone talked about their own relatives and how they grew up. Almost everyone could not believe that it happened in
our lifetime.”

TV One plans to follow the inauguration for 21 straight hours, from 6 a.m. EST on Jan. 20 to 3 a.m. EST the next day. Radio talk-show host Joe Madison and Art Fennell of CN8, the Comcast Network, will be the hosts. It’s already a big week for TV One: Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday the weekend before marks the fifth anniversary of the network’s launch.

With all that time on the air, TV One will do its best to give its audience a real flavor of being there, Rodgers said.

“We will show the parade,” he said. “We will not overwhelm the parade with a lot of pundits and other stuff.”

The connection between King’s work and Obama’s election will be a major theme for the networks; BET will speak to King’s children for their thoughts on Obama and is making a special, “King to Obama: Repurposing the Dream.”

BET is preparing several reports to air during the coverage, including a look at Michelle Obama; on the people who helped elect the new president; on his international appeal; and on his security, asking,
“Who is willing to take a bullet for a black man?” BET, as the older of the two networks and the one with the wider reach, believes it has an advantage over TV One because BET is the only one with a news division.

BET will include simple historical explainers about presidential inaugurations throughout the day; the network reasons that many who will be watching have never seen one before.

“This is the first time in a long time a lot of people in our audience feel they are really part of the process of selecting a leader for the United States of America,” Hill said.

BET is planning a prime-time entertainment special taped earlier, “Yes We Will: The BET Inaugural Celebration, ” and will also sponsor its own inaugural ball, which will be featured in live cut-ins. TV One is reporting from the scenes of Obama’s inaugural balls from 10 p.m. EST to midnight.

General news networks are still formulating their coverage plans. It’s unclear whether reporters will be assigned specifically to cover the black perspective on that day, but it obviously will be a big part of
the story, said Paul Friedman, CBS News senior vice president.

“I don’t know how you don’t cover that story virtually all the way through,” he said.

In this episode we salute the celebration of President Elect Barack Obama.
As well, we take you inside the Smithsonian Anacostia Museum and present clips from the dedication memory ceremony to Robert “Dyke” Reed of Trouble Funk. To include Charles Hankerson, Maurice Shorter, Buggy of BYB, Kato Hammond, Big Tony Fisher and Taylor Reed.

Experts agree that Barack Obama has it going on when it comes to looking his best, and no one else can do the rolled-up sleeves thing like he can.

~CBS News

The full trailer for the film NOTORIOUS, in theaters 1.16.09.

The famed performer Eartha Kitt died of colon cancer in Connecticut on Christmas. She was 81.

TMOTT TV’s Big Bangs are a serious of clips with host Chuck Byrd, delivering history lessons regarding the noisemakers who derived from the DC trenches.

The Gangsta Lean