“I just want the world to know that I am innocent,” said Philip Vance from a prison phone. Volunteers with the Free Philip Vance team braved frigid temperatures to hold a press conference on the 22nd anniversary of the robbery-turned-murder in a St. Paul suburb for which Vance was convicted and is now serving a life sentence.

Maintaining his innocence from day one, Vance has been incarcerated since 2004 after being convicted based on testimony by informants who have since recanted, saying they were coerced by corrupt police officers in the disbanded Metro Gang Strike Force. One informant was the sister of an investigating officer. After 12 years of ruthless operations, the Gang Strike Force was shut down in 2009 following federal investigations that found police exercising criminal behavior.

The press conference took place at the South St. Paul intersection near the location where Sabreen’s Supermarket once stood and where Khaled Al-Bakri, a 25-year-old store clerk, was killed on December 22, 2002. Calling in to the press conference from Minnesota Correctional Facility-Rush City, Vance held 22 seconds of silence for Al-Bakri before claiming his innocence for the murder, speaking about his long-anticipated exoneration and calling back for a question and answer session.

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