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FBI looking into Red River school bus incident</font size></center>
Shreveport Times
August 31, 2006
By Vickie Welborn
vwelborn@gannett.com
COUSHATTA – The FBI is looking into allegations that the civil rights of nine black Red River Parish schoolchildren have been violated by a white school bus driver.
Mike Kinder, resident agent-in-charge of the FBI’s Shreveport office, confirmed today that a civil rights allegation was made to his office. FBI Agent Ray Spoon interviewed some of the family members Tuesday.
“We’re looking into it to see if an actual civil rights violation is involved.”
The investigation will not be prolonged, Kinder said. “But we do what to look at it for the best interest of the citizens.”
The inquiry stems from allegations made last week that the children were assigned to the two rear seats of Delores Davis’ school bus while white children filled the remaining seats, sometimes two or one to a seat.
As a result of the allegations, Davis has been suspended without pay. And Red River schools Superintendent Kay Easley has given her several options, including resigning or retiring. Davis has done neither.
The veteran bus driver told Easley the seat assignments on her bus were established last year and were not an attempt by her to segregate the students along racial lines.
The Red River School Board is expected to consider a recommendation from Easley when it meets at 7 p.m. Tuesday.
Attempts late Wednesday afternoon to reach Iva Richmond and Janice Williams — mothers of the nine children who filed the initial complaint with the School Board — were unsuccessful. Someone answering the phone at Richmond’s residence said she was at church. Williams did not answer her cell phone.
Patricia Sessoms, Richmond’s niece, has been vocal since last week on the circumstances involving her cousins. But Wednesday, she declined to comment and referred questions to the National Action Network office in Arizona.
NAN was founded in 1991 by the Rev. Al Sharpton and other political and human rights activities. “They are our official spokesperson and legal representation,” Sessoms said.
The Rev. Jarrett B. Maupin II, NAN spokesman, said a representative of the national office will attend the School Board meeting Tuesday.
And efforts are being made to get Sharpton, who has been in Louisiana marking the one-year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, to Coushatta in the next week or so, Maupin said.
“We do believe their civil rights have been violated,” Maupin said of the children.
But he’s not calling it a black-white issue. “It’s an issue of right and wrong.”
The safety of the nine children was compromised when they were assigned to two seats at the rear of the bus, Maupin alleged.
He said he also stands by a white mother who has been unsuccessful in getting the School Board to react to her claim that a black bus driver struck her child. “We want the district to look into these issues,” Maupin said.
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