[Content warning: graphic descriptions of violence and abuse]

Natyasha Demery is a criminalized survivor of domestic violence who has been incarcerated for more than 14 years for defending herself against her abusive girlfriend. Over the course of their relationship, Natyasha’s abuser threw her through a glass table, burned her with a lit cigarette, and once stomped on her with enough force to leave a Timberland boot imprint on her thigh. She punched Natyasha in the face, blackened her eye, and bruised her arms and legs. After months of abuse, Natyasha defended herself from one of her girlfriend's violent attacks and shot her. Instead of being recognized as a survivor of violence, Natyasha was prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law and sentenced to life in prison for felony murder, with the possibility of parole only after thirty years. She has not seen the free world since 2006.

On the night of the incident, Natyasha's girlfriend picked her up from the club she was working at and saw Natyasha flirting with another woman. They started arguing on the drive back to the apartment they shared in Georgia’s Cobb County, as Natyasha's girlfriend often got jealous when she saw Natyasha talking to other people. After her girlfriend stopped at a Waffle House to get food, she refused to let Natyasha back in the car. Natyasha eventually took a cab home, and once there she tried to retreat to the spare bedroom to go to sleep. But her girlfriend unlocked the door and continued the argument, yelling at Natyasha that she had to leave their apartment, pushing her against the wall, and punching her in the mouth. Natyasha did not hit her girlfriend back — she ran past her, crawled over the bed in the main bedroom, and grabbed her girlfriend's loaded gun from the floor. Natyasha held the gun to her girlfriend, wishing simply to be left alone. But agitated from the violence of their relationship and the violence of the night, and reasonably fearing that her girlfriend would assault her again, she shot and killed her girlfriend.

Natyasha’s trial was then marked by a series of injustices. The prosecutor lied repeatedly throughout Natyasha’s trial, weaponized racial stereotypes, and ignored undisputed expert medical testimony that Natyasha feared for her life when she shot her girlfriend. Evidence of the abuse that Natyasha endured (a photograph of her injuries and notes she had written over the course of the relationship that described her girlfriend’s violence) was not presented in court because it was lost or deemed ineligible. The jury that sentenced Natyasha was composed of mostly white men in a then-conservative county. They ignored the judge's instructions and chose to convict Natyasha of the crime they thought carried the strictest punishment. Natyasha will not be eligible for parole until she has served 30 years behind bars.

the devi co-op, a grassroots coalition of Georgia community members seeking to liberate criminalized survivors of gender-based violence, calls on the Cobb County District Attorney Flynn Broady to vacate Natyasha’s conviction, resentence her to a sentence length she has already served, and initiate court proceedings to get her out of prison. Sign this petition to tell Broady to #BringNatyashaHome.

Please note: if you choose to sign, change.org provides an opportunity for you to 'chip in' money. This money goes to promote the petition on change.org so that it reaches more people, not to Natyasha. You can find more petitions at https://www.thedevicoop.org/survivor-defense/survivor-stories-and-petitions/