Protesters at District Attorney’s Office To Call for Dropping All Charges Against Tyquan Atkinson, Who is being Held in an Act of Spiteful Retaliation
(Philadelphia, May 26) On Friday, May 27, at 4 PM, friends, family members, and advocates with Philadelphia’s Participatory Defense Network will gather outside of District Attorney Larry Krasner’s Office at 3 South Penn Square to call for the release of 22-year-old Tyquan Atkinson, who has spent the last three years of his young life behind bars for a crime he did not commit.
On April 6, 2022, Tyquan was acquitted by a jury of all charges in connection to the murder of Nicholas Flacco. Despite being found not guilty, he continues to be held, shackled in isolation at the Philadelphia Industrial Correctional Center (PICC)
Tyquan faces sentencing for misdemeanor charges that he incurred while incarcerated when he never should have been held in the first place, for minor infractions that do not call for jail time, and charges rarely filed by the district attorney. Tyquan’s community firmly believes his continued incarceration is an
act of spiteful retaliation. It is a desperate move to unjustly imprison a young man whose exoneration shames the systems that hastily bent the available evidence to fit him for the murder of a police officer’s son. His years of incarceration, which coincided with a pandemic and egregious human rights violations, and the resultant punishment he received in jail due to the violation, is more than enough to cover the misdemeanor charge.
Philadelphia’s Participatory Defense Network includes the South Philly Participatory Defense
Hub, Haddington Participatory Defense Hub, Philly Youth Hub (YASP), West Philly Participatory Defense Hub, Best Outcomes Hub, North Philly Hub, Germantown Participatory Defense Hub, and the Digital Defense Project
Contact: Stacy Atkinson
Email: geanatkinson@gmail.com
Phone: 215-296-6600
SOURCE: Stacy Atkinson
