God is good.  I went to church Monday night, like I do every Monday night looking forward to fellowship with the brothers in our men's meeting. When I walked through the doors and shook off my umbrella from the rain that had set in, I saw two men that I knew talking to a tall slender gentleman whose face I did not recognize.  I worked my way into the conversation because I hadn't been to Friendship-West in a couple of weeks and I was just glad to see anybody.  Then one of the brothers said, "Shawn, have you met Tyrone Brown?" For those of you who do not know who Tyrone Brown is, you can catch up with his story here, here or here. In short, a Dallas judge sentenced Mr. Brown to life in prison after testing positive for marijuana while on probation for armed robbery.  Tyrone was 17 at the time, and served 16 years and 10 months before being released from prison a week and a half ago. Just two months ago Judge Victor Lander stood at our Sunday Service while Lt. Governor David Dewhurst was in attendance and petitioned for Tyrone's release.  The next night at ...

More information is coming out which is one of the good thing of the attention that this story has gotten. Here is Judge Superville's side from the Paris News. Hopefully the healing process is about to begin. Superville: Look at all the facts By Mary Madewell The Paris News Published March 25, 2007 County Judge Chuck Superville says he fears for the community’s safety and is calling for the national media and other organizations to investigate the facts before drawing conclusions about the Shaquanda Cotton case. The judge said a March 12 story in The Chicago Tribune unfairly painted the community as racist and a recent protest as well as the threat of future protests by organized groups with national media coverage could “spin this thing out of control.” Superville said he has refrained from commenting until now because of his position as the judge in the Cotton case, but that he believes he has a higher duty as county judge to maintain order in the community. “I call on the media and others involved to go to the public record to get the facts of the case before they rush to judgment,” Superville said Saturday. Superville said after a three-day jury trial, ...

I have had a chance to speak to a number of residents in Paris, Texas regarding the fallout from the sentencing of a 14 year-old student invovled in shoving a hall monitor at school.  The story has taken on a life of its own on the internet, television, and here in Dallas it became more widely known as a result of the Rickey Smiley Morning Show on Friday.  I thought I'd take a moment to go over a few of my own opinions regarding some of the events surrounding the protests, the accusations, and overall perceptions of the residents of Paris.   Many of you who read this blog know that Paris Texas is my hometown. 10.  Paris Independent School District underestimated some in Black Community The Paris Schools have been accused of racism and bias in a number of specific incidents over the past three or four years.  Many of the claims were frivolous and involved problem children whose parents were trying to get over for them.  However there were some disciplinary actions taken against black students that were inappropriate, perpetuated by teachers and administrators that I have known and respected.  The district thought that by reassigning those involved the ...

Please keep the family of Senior Cpl. Mark T. Nix in your prayers.  The 33-year-old Dallas Police officer was killed on Friday in a shootout in West Dallas.  

Broken Schools  Last summer my cousin Tina alerted me to some protests that were going on in Paris.  To her knowledge, the Black Panthers and Texas NAACP were participating in the demonstrations along with community leaders that would target the Paris Independent School District (PISD).  Everything that I knew about the unrest I had read in the African American News and Issues weekly paper.  We were not at the time fully aware of details surrounding Shaquanda and Creola Cotton's situation, but Tina did call her to try to get a better understanding of what was going on.  We decided to try to find out more before getting involved.   "I've lived here all my life, and I don't see that.  My kids went to Paris High School, and they never had one minute of a problem with the school system, the courts or the police." Mary Ann Fisher - Paris City Council/Mayor Pro Tem Mrs. Fisher's quote comes from Howard Witt's Chicago Tribune Article detailing the goings on in Paris. Incidentally, Mrs. Fisher's husband George is a trustee on the Paris School Board and was mayor when I lived in Paris.  The Fisher's son and daughter were great ...

I'm going to come address the situation in Paris from three different angles: Broken Homes Broken Schools Broken Justice  Disclaimer:  I do not know Shaquanda Cotton nor her mother Creola Cotton.  I am a graduate of Paris High School and I have two nephews and a godson currently enrolled at Paris High School.   I'm bringing my own perspective to the story from news reports and anecdotal conversations over the previous months. Broken Homes  The case of Shaquanda Cotton has become bigger than any one individual, any one school, and any one town.  As a matter of fact, the article of the Cotton family's plight was one of the most popular articles at digg.com yesterday.  But individual lives are at stake, the lives of our children. One of the challenges with cases like Ms. Cotton's is that trying to understand them from any one point of view diminishes their magnitude and scope, and often leads to misplaced energy.  Racism in the schools is real; I'll deal with that tomorrow.  Our justice system is unjust; that's for Monday.  But today, I have to talk about the broken homes in the black community and our broken kids who we are sending ...

The Dallas South Challenge is on, and Kevin Posey is the leader in the clubhouse with 56 points.  Mr. Posey's basketball brain was the biggest, predicting 15 of the 16 teams left in the tournament.  The top three point earners stack up like this. 1.  Kevin Posey      56 points 2.  Kevin Andrews   54 points 3.  Gerome Bonner 53 points  It ain't over, till it's over!!! 

It was a strange story from the beginning, a story that my mom was skeptical of from the very beginning.  We watched Fox 4's report of the two missing Terrell women on last nights 9 o'clock newscast.  By the time I watched the story again, it seemed like this would be something good to blog about.  Before I could get out a couple of good sentences and download pictures of the young ladies, Fox 4 reported that the girls had been found in Lampasas.  My first thought was where is Lampasas?  My mom still wasn't buying it. Then tonight we saw that Fox was reporting that the girls' story was made up because they missed curfew.  It's unfortunate that so many people who prayed all night with the family and searched the woods of N. Dallas were repaid with the news that they had been hoaxed.  One of the girls' visibly upset father reported to the media what had transpired, and apologized on behalf of the girls and their families.   What a shame. Mesquite has decided not to press charges. 

Many of you know that I was born and raised in Paris, Texas.  For months, I have been following a truly disturbing situation that has been unfolding in my hometown.  The news of this story made it's way to the Chicago Tribune last week (click link to get the Tribune's Account).  It's the story of now 15-year old Shaquanda Cotton. Shaquanda, a young black female, was sentenced to 7 years in prison for shoving a 58 year-old hall monitor at school when she was 14.  Shaquanda was a first time offender, so the harshness of sentence handed out by Lamar County Judge Chuck Superville more than troubling.  According to the Tribune story, "95 percent of the 2,500 juveniles in their custody are chronic, serious offenders who already have exhausted county-level programs." In contrast, three months earlier, Superville sentenced a 14-year-old white girl, convicted of arson for burning down her family's house, to probation.  Didn't we just cover this with Tyrone Brown who was sentenced to 99 years for smoking marijuana while out on probation for armed robbery? And in the same court a white man who pled guilty to murder violated his probation by smoking crack, repeatedly failed drug tests, ...

Fox 4 News reports that the two women from Terell missing since Saturday have been found safe in Lampasas.  The women had been last seen on their way to Mesquite to view a movie.  The report of them being found came less than 2 hours after Fox led their newscast with a story on the missing women.  More to come