Gary Tyler
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Gary Tyler (born July 1958) has been a prisoner since 1975. Gil Scott-Heron sang about him in the song "Angola, Louisiana," on the 1978 album "Secrets." Tyler was also the subject of an important early song by British reggae band UB40.
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[edit] Conviction
Tyler was a child on a schoolbus of black children, which was attacked by an angry white mob furious at school integration.
Aged 16, Tyler was arrested for the 1974 murder of 13 year-old Timothy Weber, who was shot during this incident. He was subsequently convicted by a Louisiana court and sentenced to capital punishment, death by electrocution.
Since then, Louisiana's death penalty was ruled to be unconstitutional. Tyler was resentenced to life in prison. He is currently serving his sentence at the Louisiana State Penitentiary in Angola, LA.
[edit] Controversy
Human-rights organisations have consistently argued that the legal process was flawed with racism([1]) and Amnesty International have described him as a "political prisoner" (ibid).
Tyler's supporters make many claims in his defence, that are deemed to indicate a miscarriage of justice. Some of the indisputable facts of the case include:
- The Louisiana jury was all-white
- The 1981 appeal court decided that Tyler was "denied a fundamentally fair trial," but declined to order a retrial
- All witnesses against Tyler have since recanted their testimony and now say they and their families were threatened by the police. Some of them claim they were told what to say by the prosecutors.[2]
- Governor Kathleen Blanco refuses to pardon Gary Tyler
- A gun was found during the subsequent search of the bus but it turned out that that gun (which has disappeared since then) was stolen from the firing range used by the officers of the sheriff's department.
- The bus driver continually insists that he believes the shot was fired from outside of the bus. [3]
- The bus driver observed the search of the bus, and insists that the gun was not found on it.[4]
[edit] Tyler and UB40
UB40 included the song "Tyler" on their 1980 debut album, Signing Off. While the song namechecks the subject only as "Tyler", the version recorded on the live album UB40 Live (1983) is introduced by Ali Campbell including Tyler's first name.
Ali Campbell remarked in an interview in August 2007 that the next UB40 album will be named Gary Tyler.
TYLER
Appeal to the governor of Louisiana
You may get an answer the process is slow
Federal government won't do much to help him
It's been nearly five years
And they won't let him go
(Chorus)
Tyler is guilty the white judge has said so
What right do we have to say it's not so
Tyler is guilty the white judge has said so
What right do we have to say it's not so
Testify under pressure, a racist jury
Government lawyers its all for show
With rows of white faces
False accusations
He's framed up for murder
They won't let him go
(Chorus repeat)
Police gun was planted, no matching bullets
No prints on the handle, no proof to show
But Tyler is guilty the white judge has said so
They show him no mercy
They won't let him go
(Chorus repeat)
(Repeat 1st verse)
(Chorus repeat)
NOTE: the line "It's been nearly five years" is a little out of date now.
[edit] Tyler and Chumbawamba
The british band Chumbawamba included the song "Waiting For The Bus" on their 2008 album The Boy Bands Have Won. The song tells the story out of Tylers view.
My name is Gary Tyler, Louisiana-born
Shadow of the poplar tree on fields all ripe with corn
Sixteen years I counted on the rising of the sun
I’m just waiting for the bus to take me home
Of all the Disunited States divided black and white
Louisiana taught me how to think and how to fight
Sixty of us kids aboard the number 91
I’m just waiting for the bus to take me home
Bus was barely moving we were set upon and stopped
Watched 200 white boys throwing bottles, cans and rocks
Trapped and scared together there was nowhere we could run
I’m just waiting for the bus to take me home
Boy outside the bus, an automatic in his hand
We heard a single shot and then we all just hit the ground
I never pulled a trigger and I never held a gun
I’m just waiting for the bus to take me home
White boy lay there bleeding cops they searched the bus
Never found a thing to say that it was one of us
Took us down the station they were beating us for fun
I’m just waiting for the bus to take me home
Gun produced from nowhere pinned the crime on me
A lynchmob for a jury meant they’d never set me free
Thirty years in prison for a crime I haven’t done
I’m just waiting for the bus to take me home
Waiting here the world has turned a thousand times or more
Stranded like the man who never knew they’d stopped the war
Waiting for the pardon but the pardon never comes
I’m just waiting for the bus to take me home.
