Gov. Abbott pardons Daniel Perry for 2020 fatal Black Lives Matter protest shooting after recommendation from pardons board | CNN
Gov. Abbott pardons Daniel Perry for 2020 fatal Black Lives Matter protest shooting after recommendation from pardons board | CNN
The Texas Board of Pardons has recommended a full pardon to Daniel Perry, a US Army sergeant who was sentenced to 25 years in prison after being convicted of murdering a protester at a Black Lives Matter rally in 2020.
Let me know if I got this correct.
- Perry drives his car, through a red light, into a crowd of protesters.
- After the collision, Garret Foster approaches the vehicle while legally openly carrying an AK-47
- Perry shoots and kills Foster.
- Perry's admits that the legal weapon was not being aimed at him. In his own words "I believe he was going to aim it at me … I didn’t want to give him a chance to aim at me, you know."
- Perry has a history of "racist and inflammatory social media posts"
- Perry's own defense team admits to him having "psychological issues, including complex post-traumatic stress disorder"
This is who Texas Governor Greg Abbott pushed to be pardoned? Is that correct?
I rewatched the video and this was interesting: https://twitter.com/pine_tree_riots/status/1410742168868704258
Looks like the protesters were blocking the road, and it's not that evident that he actually hit anyone. He also was taking a right turn on a red light, which is a legal thing to do.
I can see why #GregAbbott might have wanted to pardon him, although the case certainly isn't exactly cut-and-dry and it's fair to have different takes on this.
Pardoning him was the right thing to do. The protestors were illegally on the road, he didn't harm anyone, they swarmed his car, someone shot a gun, and Perry thought he was being attacked.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Perry faced between five and 99 years in prison for fatally shooting 28-year-old Air Force veteran Garrett Foster at an Austin, Texas, racial justice rally two months after the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis.
“Texas has one of the strongest ‘Stand Your Ground’ laws of self-defense that cannot be nullified by a jury or a progressive District Attorney.
Prosecutors said Perry, who was stationed at Fort Hood, initiated the fatal encounter when he ran a red light and drove his vehicle into a crowd gathered at the protest.
They highlighted a stream of racist and inflammatory social media posts Perry wrote prior to the shooting and the defense’s own analysis of his mental disorders and mindset.
“This man is a loaded gun ready to go off on any perceived threat that he thinks he has to address in his black and white world and his us versus them mentality,” a prosecutor said.
Perry’s defense team asked for a sentence of 10 years, citing his lack of criminal history, his psychological issues, including complex post-traumatic stress disorder, and praise from several of his military colleagues.
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