'Jena 6' Teen in Hospital After Shooting Self

Mychal Bell, one of the “Jena six” who were the focus of a racial controversy in 2006, survived a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the chest and is in a Louisiana hospital, the Monroe News Star reports. Bell shot himself after being arrested for shoplifting on Christmas Eve and said “that he shot himself because he was tired of all the media attention” after that arrest, police reports said.

Bell was arrested less than one month after his release on charges stemming from the beating of a Jena High School classmate. His attempt to steal $370 worth of merchandise from a Dillard’s department store also landed him charges for battery and resisting arrest, police said.
(More Mychal Bell stories.)