Cops: Nooses Dangled In Front Of Marchers

A teenager was arrested Thursday when police allegedly found hangman's nooses dangling from the rear of his pickup truck after he drove past a crowd of people who had attended a civil rights march earlier in the day.

The incident took place only hours after tens of thousands of civil rights marchers demonstrated in Jena, about an hour's drive from Alexandria, on behalf of six teens charged with beating a white schoolmate at Jena High School.

Jeremiah Munsen, 18, of Colfax, La., and a 16-year-old passenger in his truck were arrested Thursday night near a bus station where a group of people who had marched in Jena were waiting for buses to take them home.

Munsen, who is white, was booked on charges of inciting a riot, driving while intoxicated and contributing to the delinquency of a juvenile. A city attorney will decide whether charges against the 16-year-old boy from Dry Prong, La., are warranted, said Alexandria Police Sgt. Clifford Gatlin.

"I wish we had a charge in Louisiana for aggravated ignorance, because this is a classic case," Gatlin said.

Gatlin said the crowd of about 200 people at the bus station remained calm throughout the episode.

"They were just offended and appalled that somebody would be that stupid to do that," Gatlin added.

The 16-year-old, who was being held in a juvenile detention facility Friday, told police he had a "KKK" tattoo on his chest and said some of his relatives were involved in the Ku Klux Klan, according to a police report.

Officers found an unloaded rifle and a set of brass knuckles in Munsen's truck, police said.

Nooses figured into the controversy that drew tens of thousands of people to Jena on Thursday.

Last year, a black Jena High School student asked whether blacks could sit under a shade tree that was a frequent gathering place for whites. He was told yes, but nooses appeared in the tree the next day. Three white students were suspended but not criminally prosecuted.

Alexandria Mayor Jacques Roy, who met with many of the demonstrators at the bus station before they departed, said the visitors assured him they wouldn't let the incident taint their otherwise positive impression of the city.

"The citizens of Alexandria know who we are," Roy said. "I think we demonstrated that with great moral force" by hosting thousands of march participants this week.