ShaQuanda Cotton

ShaQuanda Cotton

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Woman Jailed at 14 for Allegedly Shoving White Teacher’s Aide Releases Memoir Detailing Life in the Aftermath

ShaQuanda Cotton, who in 2006 was sentenced to up to 7 years confinement at a Texas juvenile detention facility as a black teen following accusations that she pushed a white teacher’s aide, announces

On September 30, 2005, 14-year-old ShaQuanda Cotton attempted to enter a school building to take a prescribed medication before classes began. An encounter with a teacher’s aide on her way to the nurse’s office that morning led to her arrest, and months later the teen was adjudicated delinquent by a Lamar County court for assault on a public servant. What began as an ordinary day at school resulted in her being removed from the care of her mother and sentenced to an indeterminate term of up to seven years in a Texas juvenile detention facility. Cotton, now 30, recently published a personal account of the ordeal after years of being subjected to rumors and vitriol in the small town of Paris, Texas.