*Many people are wondering how this happened. How does a woman who killed the man who sexually abused her as a child, get life in prison? And as we speak, a MoveOn.org campaign has gathered more than 49,100 of their 50,000 signatures goal, calling for the release of 25-year-old Cyntonia Brown.
You may have seen the 2011 documentary, Me Facing Life: Cyntonia’s Story, developed by the founder of End Slavery Tennessee, Derri Smith. The film walks us through Cyntonia’s story.
Smith says about Brown, ?She did kill someone, she deeply regrets it, but she was a child and she was being exploited.”
In 2004, when Brown was 16, she was being trafficked by an abusive man. Johnny Allen picked her up on the street, but instead of helping her, he sexually abused her.
According to The Independent,
Brown said that she was afraid of the 43-year-old because he was behaving strangely and owned a number of guns. She shot Mr. Allen in the head because she was afraid he was going to hurt her, she claimed.
But prosecutors did not buy that story and successfully argued Brown was robbing Mr. Allen, a real estate agent, when she killed him. They say she left with his trousers, which contained his wallet, and some guns.
Brown has been given a 51-year prison sentence for Allen’s first-degree murder.
The online petition states, in part…
“He had the upper-hand being the adult and should have made the decision to help her seek a better way instead of co-signing on her destruction by soliciting sex.”
Some comments on the page say more information is needed; while others say the punishment seems greater than the crime — based on the info given.
According to Derri Smith…
Laws in Texas have changed in recent years, and Smith believes Brown would not be convicted if she were put on trial today. ?[There’s] no such thing as a child prostitute or a teen prostitute,” she says. “I think we’ve had to have a cultural mind shift.?
This is all the information we have at this point. Your thoughts?
