One week following the time when Mychall Bell got busted for shoplifting, Bell, a Jena Six teen, was hurriedly ran into a hospital last Monday. According to the AP, the cause of death was a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the chest.

Bell was once a member of the six black teenagers who faced adult crime charges in the 2006 beating of a white classmate in the town of Jena.The beating followed months of racial tensions in the community to blacks at Jena High School. Also, the case of the “Jena 6″ attracted a  lot of attention nationally.

Police officers thought that Bell was troubled over media coverage for getting arrested for stealing from a Dillard’s son on Christmas Eve, thus resulting to his suicide. However, according to his lawyer, everything was an accident. Bell was merely cleaning a gun when he shot himself in the shoulder but he had never attempted to kill himself.