Washington ? Democratic lawmakers denounced federal authorities Tuesday for not intervening in the Jena Six case, citing racist noose-hanging incidents far beyond the small Louisiana town where a school attack garnered national attention.

The House Judiciary Committee held a hearing with federal officials and community activists examining the case of the six black teenagers charged with the beating of a white student. The incident happened after nooses were hung from a tree on a high school campus there – a symbol of the lynching violence of the segregation era.

Democratic lawmakers, many of them black, blasted federal authorities for staying out of the local prosecutor’s case against the six, particularly that of Mychal Bell, who is currently in jail after a judge decided he violated the terms of his probation for a previous conviction.

“Shame on you,” Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Texas, said to Justice Department officials, directing most of her fury at Donald Washington, the U.S. attorney for Louisiana’s western district – and the first black person to hold that position.

“As a parent, I’m on the verge of tears,” Jackson Lee said.

“Why didn’t you intervene?” she asked repeatedly, raising her voice and jabbing her finger in the air as some in the audience began to applaud.

The Department of Justice has created a task force to handle noose-hanging investigations in five states.