Tory Lanez‘s fans have launched multiple petitions to appeal his conviction on three felony charges in connection to Megan Thee Stallion‘s 2020 shooting.
At least three such petitions have been created on Change.org since a Los Angeles grand jury returned the guilty verdict on Friday (December 23). The petition with the most signatures, created on the same day Tory Lanez was remanded into custody, was rapidly approaching its goal of 25,000 signatures, with over 24,600 collected at press time.
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The campaign was accompanied by a lengthy argument calling multiple aspects of the trial into question, including the jury selection process, the charges levied against Tory, and Megan Thee Stallion and Kelsey Harris’ “drunken memories.”
“Tory Lanez was found Guilty of all charges and it is a true miscarriage of justice!,” petitioner Yasin Touré wrote. “The state did not prove that Lanez undoubtedly committed any crime. Reasonable doubt loomed over a 10 day trial as the prosecution was unable to show us that there were not alternative explanations of the events. A circus of speculation, insufficient evidence, inconsistencies, and drunken memories left us without much moral certainty of any truth.”
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The petition went on to call Megan Thee Stallion’s honesty into question, asking why she did not originally identify Tory Lanez as her shooter and also pointing to past interviews where she denied having had an intimate relationship with the Canadian singer.
Towards the end of the statement, Touré also suggested, as Tory Lanez’s father had, that JAY-Z had somehow influenced the jury’s decision.
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“This case is also about branding, marketing, label heads and a music industry that pushes narratives based on who they have personally invested millions into. Could Jay-Z or RocNation be involved?? The justice I want for Megan is for the full truth to come out, rather than the scrambled truth we are left with. Who really hurt Meg?
He continued: “Was this case taken because of a political pressure to fake protect black women? African-Americans went along with hashtags that didn’t protect anyone & instead caused divison between black women and black men. A trick that we so easily fall for. This petition is not to tear down nor chatise Megan Thee Stallion, but it is about asking our justice system to do the right thing. An the injustice for one of us is an injustice for us all. Simply, the case against Tory Lanez deserves a more thorough investigation.”
In addition to Yasin Toure’s petition, a second petition created on December 24 has collected 118 signatures, at the time of this writing; with a third post-verdict petition created on the same day carrying less than 100 supporters.
Tory Lanez was found guilty of felony assault with a semiautomatic firearm, possession of a concealed, unregistered firearm and discharging a firearm with gross negligence. He now faces a maximum of 22 years in prison and deportation to his native Canada.
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His sentencing hearing has yet to be scheduled.
