The Sounds of Silence

[July 25th, 2007]

Five teenage boys from Jefferson High School who were charged last spring with third-degree felony assault after school administrators discovered a YouTube video of them throwing punches at another student had their first day in juvenile court last week.

Defense attorneys for the boys, ages 16 and 17 at the time of the video, had their initial chance at the July 17 hearing to seek what's called a formal accountability agreement for their clients. Such agreements are more or less voluntary contracts for community service, treatment akin to pre-trial diversion. But the Multnomah County District Attorney's office opposes that option.

In contrast to the small burst of media reports that appeared after the online video's May discovery, the courtroom proceedings have generated little, if any, attention. The incident resulted in the students' temporary suspension from Jefferson, according to a letter sent home to parents at the time. The disciplined students also had to perform community service and write letters of apology, according to their defense attorneys.

One of those students' attorneys says the media attention raised the stakes—at the students' expense.

"These kids don't have juvenile records,'' says lawyer Wendell Birkland. "They don't have gang affiliations. If this case hadn't received the kind of publicity it did, I think it's reasonable to assume it would have resulted in an FAA [formal accountability agreement] immediately."

Caught on the video were a few students who, after taking jabs at another student in one of the high school's bathrooms, made hand gestures at the video camera. That raised the possibility in the minds of police that the incident was gang-related. All of the students in the video were black. Other students interviewed last spring said the beating was more or less horseplay.

That didn't stop reports that implicated the entire school.

"The incident is another blow for Jefferson, which for years has tried to shed gang stereotypes and has been troubled in both academics and enrollment," a news account in the May 10 Oregonian read.

The county DA's office certainly treated the video seriously. Prosecutors consider the incident a gang "jump in" or initiation tantamount to assault and filed petitions against six students. The sixth student couldn't appear in court last week and will go before a judge separately. Petitions are like formal complaints in an adult court. The maximum penalty, if convicted on the current charge, is five years' detention.

A new review hearing was set last week for October, at which point a judge will determine whether the petition should be dropped in favor of a formal accountability agreement.

According to data released last month by the county's Department of Community Justice, the proportion of African Americans ages 12 to 17 who were brought before the criminal justice system in 2006 was three times greater than their 9.6 percent share in the county's juvenile population.

Portland Public Schools spokesman Matt Shelby says the district cannot discuss specific incidents of student discipline. At the district's request, YouTube removed the video from its site, but it remains available at kgw.com.

"They're all friends," Birkland said of his client and all the others in the video. "This is all blown out of proportion."