Free Titan Kelly, wrongly convicted for returning expired tear gas to crooked cops!

Update: The petition below, first opened on October 12, 2021 after the brutalization of Jermaine Vaughn, closed for signatures on November 9 the same year.

Indianapolis is wracked with injustice under Democratic–Republican control. On Thursday, October 28, Titan Kelly was convicted on two counts of “battery against a public safety official” for returning expired tear gas canisters to IMPD officers who fired them during the uprising against racism.

A panel appointed by the City to review the actions of IMPD during the rebellion found that IMPD’s actions led to the damage done to downtown businesses: “It was only after officers began deploying gas that the crowd began to engage in property damage.” Despite this finding, the Democratic City-County Council continues to give the police more money to terrorize us.

None of the cops who fired tear gas—a substance banned from use in actual war—at peaceful protesters exercising their supposed “right” to assemble have been charged with felony battery, despite the documented fact that many people suffered injuries due to their wanton police violence. Only a handful of officers who have been caught explicitly on film brutalizing people have been charged—and only because they lied about it on police paperwork later on. None have yet been convicted of their clearly documented heinous crimes against the people.

Marion County Superior Judge Clayton A. Graham, a Republican judge, sent Kelly immediately to jail after conviction, a rare step for low-level offenses. Kelly is a trans person being housed in the men’s jail, where deputies have demonstrated a putrid disregard for human life. At the time of this writing, Marion County Sheriff’s Office continues to withhold life-saving medication from Kelly. The jail death rate in Indy is double to triple that of the national average. Indiana’s jails are little more than death camps for people of oppressed races, nationalities, genders, and class.

These problems are deeply-rooted and cannot—or will not—be reformed out of the criminal justice system. The system of capitalism and processes of mass incarceration, gentrification, impoverishment, displacement, and ethnic and class cleansing of the land are tightly woven, and its effects are keenly felt in Indianapolis. The people of this place deserve better than this.

While our criminal injustice system charges peaceful protesters with battery for trying to keep their comrades safe during an uprising against racism, we charge that system with genocide.

• End the war on Black America!
• End the war on trans people!
• Unite to create a better society!

• Free Titan Kelly!
• Free Jermaine Vaughn!
• Jail all terrorist cops!

Read more about the struggle to free and drop charges against Jermaine Vaughn and to remove IMPD Chief Taylor here.

Signatories, listed alphabetically

ANSWER Indiana
Indy10 Black Lives Matter
Indy SURJ – Showing Up for Racial Justice
Jewish Voice for Peace – Indiana
Party for Socialism and Liberation – Indianapolis
Queering Indy
St. Paul’s On The Way

Community signatories