In response to a false meme that’s been slowly creeping around the internet, Tay-K manager Ezra Averill confirmed in an Instagram story today that the 17-year-old rapper is not facing the death penalty for the string of murder and robbery charges he is facing. Tay-K is currently in prison awaiting trial.
The meme, which was reposted by T.I., compared Tay-K’s situation to Dimitrios Pagourtzis, the suspected shooter of the recent Santa Fe High School shooting, which left ten people dead. Pagourtzis is also 17 years old. The meme highlighted how the two boys are supposedly being treated differently by the justice system, claiming Tay-K is facing the death penalty for two capital murder charges and one aggravated robbery charge while Pagourtzis was not facing the death penalty and would have the possibility of parole in 40 years.
The meme is blatantly false. First of all, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in March 2005 that the death penalty is unconstitutional for those who had committed their crimes while under 18; in 2012, the Supreme Court further ruled that it’s illegal to impose mandatory life sentences if the crime was committed while the suspect was under 18.
As for Pagourtzis, Business Insider reports that he is currently being held without bond at the Galveston County Jail on charges of capital murder and aggravated assault on a peace officer. He has confessed to the crime.
According to PolitiFact, both Tay-K and Pagourtzis are potentially facing the same sentence: life in prison with possibility of parole after 40 years.
As for Tay-K, he is currently awaiting trial in a series of murder cases. In 2016, when he was 16, he was allegedly involved in the home invasion and fatal shooting of a 21-year-old. He is also a suspect in an April 2018 robbery and fatal shooting of a 23-year-old man in San Antonio, Texas, as well as a suspect in the attack and robbery of a 65-year-old man in Arlington, Texas. He will be tried as an adult in the case stemming from the 2016 home invasion, and his request for bond was denied.
Tay-K is one of the artists affected by Spotify’s new hate content and hateful conduct policy, which has resulted in the rapper’s music being de-listed from Spotify’s curated playlists. XXXTentacion and R. Kelly have also been affected similarly.
