Support to save Tyler W. Edmonds

Tyler Edmonds is a 14 year old; honor student with a perfect disciplinary record. He is a boy of great manners with a gift and huge desire for learning. He is a trusting child who loves his family and thrives for any approval he receives from them and all who come to know him. He is a young lad from Mississippi who loves the outdoors, bugs, dinosaurs, Dr. Seuss and stamp collecting. Tyler is a typical kid who should be chasing ice cream trucks, jumping in mud puddles and dunking hoops in the driveway of his home.

Instead Tyler was arrested at age 13 and has been sitting in the Mississippi Oktibbeha County Jail since May 12, 2003. He receives little, to no schooling and rarely gets to go outside. He now sees his family only once a week and has only the memories of the great outdoors and kids play to hold on to. Tyler is only 14 but is now considered an adult.

He is being charged as an adult along with his half sister, 26, in the 2003 shooting death of her ex-husband. Tyler claims his sister tricked him into falsely confessing that he was involved in the killing. Since then, he has been denied bond three times and now spends his days and nights awaiting trial surrounded by adult inmates.

The facts are that no child is an adult and therefore should be treated as the child he is, still growing and learning. Innocent until proven guilty should not mean that a child be locked up with adult prisoners, no family, no schooling, no counseling and no fresh air.

A child tried and convicted should never be punished as an adult, sent to adult prisons, only to receive no rehabilitation or therapy. To face rape, physical abuse, drug use, gang interaction and possible suicide is not how we should treat our children.

Please sign this petition to support and help save Tyler as the child he is. Please sign to protect Tyler from the adult punishment he does not deserve.