Secoriea Turner’s mother calls Rick Jackson’s campaign ad ‘pure evil’ as family demands its removal

Lawyers relayed Charmaine Turner’s reaction at Thursday’s press conference, and the campaign has not committed to withdrawing the advertisements.

Attorneys for the family of Secoriea Turner demanded Thursday that Republican gubernatorial nominee Rick Jackson remove campaign materials featuring the slain 8-year-old’s photograph and, in a television ad, 911 audio connected to her death. The ads cite her 2020 killing to criticize former Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms, Jackson’s opponent in Georgia’s governor’s race.

At a news conference in downtown Atlanta, attorneys Shean Williams and Mawuli Davis said they had previously asked Jackson’s campaign to stop using Secoriea’s photograph in a mailer. The child’s image and audio associated with the shooting subsequently appeared in a television ad, they said. The family never authorized the campaign to use those materials.

Secoriea’s mother, Charmaine Turner, was too distraught to attend Thursday’s news conference, the attorneys said. One lawyer shared her response to the commercial: “This is pure evil for someone to use my daughter’s image to run for an office.” The family wants the television ads withdrawn and has also called for a public apology.

In a statement shared with FOX 5 Atlanta, Jackson campaign spokesman Garrison Douglas said the Turners were “not a political talking point.” He said preventing similar tragedies was among Jackson’s reasons for running and blamed Bottoms for failures during her time as mayor. He also urged Bottoms to support a settlement of the family’s lawsuit against Atlanta. The campaign did not say whether it would pull the ads.

Bottoms’ campaign previously said the family’s grief should not be exploited for politics and that the former mayor continues to think about Secoriea and her relatives. The family’s attorneys said that seeking accountability for the child’s death should not be taken as an endorsement of a candidate or political agenda.

Secoriea was shot and killed on July 4, 2020, while riding in a vehicle near an armed barricade by the Wendy’s where Rayshard Brooks had been killed by police weeks earlier. Julian Conley was convicted in September 2025 on three counts of felony murder, five counts of aggravated assault, and weapons charges in the case and sentenced to life without parole plus 25 years.