2 minute read
Edmond Life and Leisure - February 6, 2025
For Francis Tuttle instructor
Clearing wrongly convicted man leads to honor & acclaim
A team of journalists that includes Francis Tuttle Technology Center instructor Waleed Salim received one of the highest honors for their story about a wrongfully convicted man.
Salim, who teaches Broadcast and Video Production, and a team of journalists for KFOR News 4 received an Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University award. They were recognized at a ceremony at Columbia University in New York on Jan. 22.
Their award-winning story focused on Glynn Simmons, an Oklahoma man who spent 48 years in prison for a murder in Edmond that he did not commit. He was declared actually innocent in December of 2023
“We’re just excited that he got out and that he gets to live a life, even as an older man now,” Salim said. “And the work we did helped him do that. It’s definitely cool to receive this honor and be recognized, but the big thing is that he’s out now.”
Salim said he recalls the moment when the story began. Simmons had sent letters to local news stations declaring his innocence, something he had maintained since he was convicted following a two-day trial in 1975.
“He was writing to all the TV stations saying that he was innocent,” Salim said. “We had a web producer who saw it and got interested in the story.”
The weekend of Oct. 12, 2002 – OU-Texas weekend – Salim and reporter Ali Meyer covered the game in Dallas before returning to Oklahoma City. He then immediately hopped a flight to Louisiana to corroborate what Simmons had been saying: he wasn’t even in Oklahoma the evening of the murder.
“So I went to Louisiana and talked with his family and friends who said he was there when this all took place,” Salim said. “He could not have possibly been in Oklahoma to murder anyone.”
That footage and several hours’ worth of reporting work done by KFOR over the course of 20 years was put together in a special segment called “The Wrong Man”. It detailed Simmons’ case and highlighted details that suggested he should go free.
