BlackhandMedia Mk II

He went down the alley because he heard a woman screaming and he thought he could help. The police shot Termaine Hicks three times in the back. Then they charged him with the r@pe he had run towards. He served nineteen years. South Philadelphia, the early hours of 27 November 2001. Hicks heard a woman being attacked in an alley and went in. Officers arrived moments later. They shot him three times. All three rounds entered his back. One lodged near his spine. The account the officers gave was that he had drawn a gun from his jacket pocket, pointed it and lunged at them. They produced a weapon they said they recovered from that pocket. Here is what the evidence actually showed, decades later. The gun was registered to another Philadelphia police officer as his personal off-duty weapon. The gun was covered in the victim's blood. There was no blood at all inside Hicks's jacket pocket, where the officers said it had been. The officers described him wearing a grey hooded top matching the attacker's description. His clothing was preserved. It was a coat, a striped polo shirt and a white t-shirt. There was no hooded top, and none was found at the scene. Detectives had viewed surveillance footage on the day showing the actual attacker in a hooded sweatshirt. That footage was not disclosed until after his trial. He was convicted of rape, aggravated assault and related offences and sentenced to twelve and a half to twenty-five years. He was denied parole in 2015 because he would not admit to it. On 16 December 2020 the Philadelphia District Attorney's office conceded that the officers had lied under oath and moved to vacate the conviction. He walked out after nineteen years. Pennsylvania is one of the states that does not compensate the wrongly convicted. He ran towards a woman screaming. They shot him in the back for it and then convicted him of her r@pe. He spent 19 years in prison before prosecutors acknowledged that officers had lied under oath and his conviction was overturned. This is why we have taken time to uncover and document the injustices too often buried, denied, and forgotten savvypurchase.samcart.com/pr…