‘Jena Six’ defendant accused of assault at school in Texas
A “Jena Six” defendant was arrested Wednesday and charged with assault after a fight with a fellow student at his current high school in Texas, his mother said.
Bryant R. Purvis, 19, now living in the Dallas area, was charged with assault causing bodily injury and is being held in the Carrollton, Texas, city jail without bail pending a bond hearing this morning, a jail official said. The charge is a Class A misdemeanor, with a maximum penalty of no more than $4,000 and a jail sentence of no longer than one year, or both.
Tina Jones, Purvis’ mother, said her son got into an altercation with another student at Hebron High School early Wednesday after he was told that the student had vandalized his car the night before.
“I wish he could just get in a place where he could walk away from the situation,” Jones said of her son. “I understand he gets frustrated. But he needed to walk away from this situation, being that he’s already in a situation. It’s very frustrating and upsetting to have to go through so much.”
Jones said what happened really wasn’t a fight. Purvis went up to the other student, “grabbed him by the collar and pushed his head on the table, talking to him,” she said.
“Bryant was very upset because he had a (basketball) game Tuesday night, and when (he went out to his car after) the game, someone made both tires on the passenger side flat,” Jones said.
“And (Wednesday) morning someone told him who done it. That’s the reason the altercation happened. And a few days before that happened, he was driving my brother’s truck, and someone stole the tires and busted the windows out of it,” she said.
Alberta Norman, a parent of another Hebron Hawks basketball player, said she was surprised when her son told her about Purvis’ arrest.
“Bryant was a good kid,” she said. “He was having a great year. Kids, sometimes they make bad decisions. We’re just sad about it. He had come out of his shell and was really enjoying himself.”
Purvis was a starter for the school’s basketball team, and Norman said the team was hoping to end the year in the finals. There are two more games until the end of the season – Friday and next week.
Norman said Purvis’ ties to the Jena Six case have never been an issue.
Purvis was one six black Jena High School students initially charged with attempted murder in connection with a Dec. 4, 2006, assault on white student Justin Barker at the school. Soon after Purvis’ arrest, Jones said she sent him to live with his uncle, Dallas Cowboys defensive lineman Jason Hatcher, so he could stay out of trouble and out of the limelight.
Purvis had stayed out of the spotlight for most of the year following the high-profile case, but did appear on Black Entertainment Television’s Hip-Hop Awards. Purvis and fellow defendant Carwin Jones helped present the Video of the Year award during the October awards show.
The Jena Six case has received attention worldwide and led to what many have called the first major civil rights demonstration of the new millennium, on Sept. 20, 2007, when at least 20,000 marched through Jena.
“We are just past that whole thing,” Norman said, referring to Purvis’ connection to the Jena Six. “He has great support from his family and teammates. That was never a cloud or anything. He was trying to move on so he could have a good senior year, graduate and go on with his life.”
Any time there is a physical altercation at the school, police are called and arrests are made, Norman said.
Jones said the principal has told her that Purvis will be suspended for three days and will face 10 days of in-school suspension. After that, he will be back in school normally.
As far as the charge he faces in court, she said she is confident the judicial system in Texas will treat her son fairly.
“It’s just another struggle that we have to go through,” Jones said of this incident. “I’m very upset right now with this situation. We are really, really going through a lot already with the Jena Six. I wish this had never happened. But it is what it is, and now we have to deal with it.”
She still contends that her son had nothing to do with the attack on Barker, although she knows some will assume that because of this recent incident at Hebron High he is guilty in the Jena High incident.
Officials at the Carrollton Police Department wouldn’t release information about the arrest Wednesday evening, saying information would have to come from the public information officer this morning.
Messages left Wednesday night for Darrell Hickman, Purvis’ attorney, went unreturned. But during a December interview, the Alexandria attorney said he was hopeful that LaSalle Parish District Attorney Reed Walters would drop the charges against Purvis.
“I still feel that Bryant is totally innocent in this case,” Hickman said. “Only one person out of a number of witnesses indicated they saw Bryant involved. I don’t think they have a strong case against him at all.”
Purvis is scheduled to go to trial before 28th Judicial District Court Judge J.P. Mauffray Jr. on March 24 in connection with the Jena High attack, though Hickman has said that is “not a realistic date.”
He currently faces charges of aggravated second-degree battery and conspiracy to commit the same. If convicted of both charges, he faces a maximum sentence of 221⁄2 years in prison.
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