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In the backyard of President George Bush’s home state of Texas, a racist legacy continues. But Shaquanda Cotton, the 14-year-old black student who was convicted of shoving a hall monitor at a Paris high school in a dispute over entering the building before the school day had officially begun, was released by the Texas Youth Commission (TYC) on Saturday, March 31. She was detained at the Brownwood facility, where she was mandated to serve a seven-year prison term. 

Creola Cotton, who is reportedly thrilled to have her daughter home again, was not available for comment. 

State Rep. Harold Dutton (D-Houston) and State Sen. Royce West (D-Dallas) played key roles in obtaining Shaquanda’s release. 

Calls to both Dutton and West were unanswered by the AmNews’ press deadline. 

A week earlier, West and Duncan had asked TYC conservator Jay Kimbrough to review Cotton’s case and make a determination. It seems the scandal-ridden juvenile system recently was placed under conservative leadership, and a commission was formed to investigate more than 1,000 cases involving youth whose confinements had been extended by TYC staff. Gov. Rick Perry had appointed Kimbrough to investigate the agency accused of ignoring multiple allegations of sexual and physical abuse of young inmates. 

Allan Hubbard, the spokesperson for the county law office and district attorney, refused to give further comment to the AmNews, pointing only to his earlier comments reported in the Paris News. 

Aside from stating that Cotton reportedly had not made appropriate progress in behavioral and correctional therapy, Hubbard said, “We are glad she is getting out and are happy for her family, but we have concerns about the way it is happening. 

“We sincerely hope Shaquanda has learned her lesson, and we do not see her in the judicial system again,” Hubbard added. 

According to a source close to the family, “Shaquanda cried on the telephone to her mother after she learned she was going to get out.” 

Because of the Cotton case and others, Paris and Lamar County have been exposed to the hot glare of national scrutiny via the Internet and a wide array of media outlets. 

The AmNews previously reported that several of the most notorious public lynchings of black Americans in the late 19th and early 20th centuries were staged at the Paris Fairgrounds, where thousands of white spectators would gather to watch and cheer as Black men were dragged onto a scaffold, scalded with hot irons and finally burned to death or hanged. 

Cotton had no prior arrest record, and the hall monitor—a 58-year-old teacher’s aide—was not seriously injured. Notwithstanding, Shaquanda 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 seven years, until she turned 21. 

Most disturbing about Cotton’s case, is that three months earlier, the judge who sentenced Cotton had sentenced a white teenager convicted of burning down her family’s home to probation. 

This story first appeared in the Amsterdam News.