In response to the incident, several Black students, among them star players on the football team, staged a sit-in under the tree. The principal reacted by bringing in the white district attorney, Reed Walters, and 10 local police officers to an all-school assembly.

The DA tells the principal to call the students in the auditorium. The DA tells the Black students, he's looking directly at the Black students and told them to keep their mouths shut about the boys hanging their nooses up. If he hears anything else about it, he can make their lives go away with the stroke of his pen.

DA Walters concluded that the students should “work it out on their own.” Police officers roamed the halls of the school that week, and tensions simmered throughout the fall semester.
In November, as football season came to a close, the main school building was mysteriously burned to the ground.

On a Friday night, Robert Bailey, a 17-year-old Black student and football player, was invited to a dance at a hall considered to be “white.” He was punched in the face, knocked on the ground and attacked by a group of white youth. Only one of the white youth was arrested—he was ultimately given probation and asked to apologize.

The night after that, a 22-year-old white man, along with two friends, pulled a gun on Bailey and two of his friends at a local gas station. The Black youths wrestled the gun from him to prevent him from using it. They were arrested and charged with theft, and the white man went free.
The following Monday students returned to school. In the midst of a confrontation between a white student, Justin Barker, and a Black student, Robert Bailey—where Bailey was taunted for having been beaten up that weekend—a chaotic fray ensued. Barker was knocked down, punched, and kicked by a number of Black students. He was taken to the hospital for a few hours and was seen out socializing later that evening.

Six black Jena students were arrested and charged with second-degree attempted murder. All six were expelled from school.