On this past Tuesday I told you about a man named Rodney Reed who is on death row in Texas for a crime he did not commit.
We are now just 12 short days away from Rodney being executed and we’re doing anything and everything we can do to help save this man’s life.
Just a few minutes ago we crossed 2 million signatures on the petition we created for him at FreeRodneyReed.com – making it the largest, fastest growing human rights petition of all time. Tens of thousands of our listeners have signed the petition and it has garnered the support of entertainers and athletes and supermodels, but it’s still not enough.
As high tech as our viral movement has been over the past few days, with our website getting millions of visitors from all over the world, some very low tech decisions have to be made to save the life of Rodney Reed.
If signatures alone saved Rodney’s life, he’d be saved already. We need the Governor of Texas, Greg Abbott, one of the most conservative men in this country, to issue a stay of execution. The Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles can awesome do the same thing. The local District Attorney can remove the death penalty from this case.
Hundreds of experts from all over the country have studied the evidence and have said that Rodney Reed is not guilty of this crime. The Innocence Project, which turns down nearly 95% of the cases that come their way, has taken on this case and declared that Rodney Reed is innocent. 4 of the most revered forensic scientists in the nation have studied the case and said that it is scientifically impossible that Rodney Reed committed this murder. People who testified in the case back in 1998 have recanted their testimony. Witnesses who were silent in 1998 have come forward.
In case you are not familiar with the case, Rodney Reed was found guilty of sexually assaulting and murdering a woman named Stacey Stites. The story is outrageous. It’s that Rodney Reed didn’t know her, had never met her, flagged her down in her truck on an old country road in the middle of the night, and committed these crimes.
But that story is full of lies. Stacey Stites has friends and family who now come forward who said she told them she was in a relationship with Rodney Reed.
Her fiancé, a brutal police officer named Jimmy Fennell, who was later convicted of kidnapping and sexually assaulting another woman, was overheard by his own friends and fellow police officers saying “she got what she deserved,” that he knew she was secretly dating a Black man, and had threatened to kill her.
But here we are anyway. All of that evidence was never entered into Rodney’s case. And we need the people in power to, at the very least, delay this execution.
So here’s what I am asking you do, OK.
Later this morning, when all of the government offices are open in Texas, I need to go to FreeRodneyReed.com. If you haven’t already signed the petition, sign it. Then scroll down just a little bit, we have 5 different numbers I am asking you to call.
When you call those numbers, the first voice you are going to hear is mine. I am literally going to talk you through what you need to say and do on each call to each office.
Yesterday we made over 15,000 phone calls.
Today that number has to get even bigger.
And when you call, be respectful, but firm, and let them know that the state of Texas is about to execute an innocent man named Rodney Reed and that you are begging them to stop this execution. It’s wrong. It’s immoral.
26 brave legislators in Texas, 13 Democrats and 13 Republicans have signed a joint letter begging the Governor to stop this execution.
The Catholic Church this morning issued a statement saying they aren’t asking for Rodney Reed to have mercy, because mercy is what you give guilty people, they are asking that Rodney Reed have justice. They are against the death penalty, but they said in this case, this is bigger than that. Texas is about to execute an innocent man.
I’ve gotta run, but please go to FreeRodneyReed.com, sign up, and make phone calls with us all day long. We have just 12 days to save this man’s life.
Take care everybody.
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Shaun King: We Need Your Help To Save Rodney Reed was originally published on blackamericaweb.com
