Hi Everyone!

First of all, thank you so much for all your dedication to Latoya’s campaign and advocacy for her release. Her community of loved ones and people truly concerned for her safety is remarkable, and it has been a pleasure getting to develop relationships with some of you.

We are writing to provide you all with an update about what has happened in the past few months. In October 2022, Latoya’s parole was denied for the fourth time. Despite calls to and conversations with the Gwinnett County District Attorney’s Office, Gwinnett County District Attorney Patsy Austin-Gatson never wrote Latoya a letter of support for her release. This came to us as a shock, especially given previous correspondence with DA Austin-Gatson in which she seemed open and receptive to hearing Latoya’s case for release. The Georgia Board of Pardons and Parole wrote that Latoya had not served enough time in prison, even though Latoya has been incarcerated away from her family and community for more than two decades.

Since the parole denial, we have been staying updated with Latoya’s condition at Arrendale State Prison and continuing to build our coalition with Latoya’s community and supporters. Currently, one of our primary concerns is Latoya’s safety in regards to a bacterial contamination of the prison’s water system. As a result, Latoya had been sick with an h pylori bacterial infection. Although she was given antibiotics and medication, the Arrendale administration is denying the existence of a contamination problem. Latoya is currently on the mend and is feeling better.

After a reflection event we hosted with some of Latoya’s outside community members in November, we had a chance to speak with some of them about their ideas. As we ease into 2023, we have been trying to organize a long term campaign for Latoya. This campaign will comprise multiple phases from April to June that will allow us to provide assistance & visibility to different aspects of Latoya’s story.

We plan to have the culmination of this campaign be an in-person community event in June or early July. This event will allow us to gather together in defense of Latoya and publicly demonstrate how vast Latoya’s community of supporters is. We hope to continue to apply pressure on DA Austin-Gatson to support Latoya’s release.

Given that this campaign will span a couple of months, we have various asks from you all for various stages of this campaign. Our asks are as follows: 

1. Sign up for our Newsletter via Mailchimp so you can stay updated on details about the #BringLatoyaHome campaign and our plan for the in-person community event
2. Follow us on Instagram (@thedevicoop) and on Medium for easy access to our updates on the #BringLatoyaHome campaign and our other survivor defense efforts
3. Familiarize yourself with our September 2022 #BringLatoyaHome Toolkit and distribute materials amongst your own networks
4. Sign Latoya’s Freedom Petition and share it with your network

If you have any further questions or ideas to build support for Latoya, please email us at andrew@thedevicoop.org and jenani@thedevicoop.org.

Thank you,

tdc organizers for the #BringLatoyaHome campaign