A US Army sergeant who was convicted of killing a US Air Force veteran taking part in a Black Lives Matter demonstration in 2020 is being sought out for pardon, according to the governor of Texas.
On Friday, Sgt. Daniel Perry, a soldier assigned to Fort Hood in Killeen, Texas, was found guilty of murdering Garrett Foster during the demonstrations that followed George Floyd’s passing in June 2020.
Yet Texas Governor Greg Abbott declared he was already looking to pardon the gunman before Perry was even given a sentence.
‘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,’ Abbott said in a message posted on Twitter.
Perry was working as an Uber driver in Austin, about 70 miles from Fort Hood. At that point in time, protesters had been taking to the streets for weeks in the Texas capitol after George Floyd’s death on May 25, 2020.
The confrontation between Perry and Foster took place after the Army sergeant drove his car towards a crowd of protesters. Among the crowd was Foster, who was carrying an AK-47 rifle.
Perry rolled down his car window and shot Foster four times with a revolver. The Army sergeant then drove away as another protester fired back at his car.
Perry called 911 himself to report the shooting. He told investigators that he feared for his life because Foster was pointing his rifle at him.
Foster was rushed to the hospital, where he died from his gunshot wounds.
David Fugitt, the Austin Police Department homicide detective that investigated the case, did not arrest Perry after the shooting, agreeing with his claims of self-defense.
He later submitted an affidavit to District Judge Cliff Brown claiming Travis County District Attorney José Garza’s office pressured to present less exonerating evidence to the grand jury tasked with reviewing the case against Perry.
Attorneys for Perry tried to use Fugitt’s affidavit to get the case thrown out, but Judge Brown denied the motion.
The defense then focused proving Perry acted in self-defense. Texas’s ‘Stand Your Ground’ law protects people who shoot others in self-defense, but it makes an exception ‘if the actor provoked the other’s use or attempted use of unlawful force,’ according the the state’s Penal Code.
According to Perry’s attorneys, Foster pointed his AK-47 at the Army sergeant after his car drove towards the group of protesters.
‘That’s when I got my weapon and pulled the trigger as fast as I could, and then drove away and called 911,’ Perry told an investigator in a videotaped interrogation immediately after the shooting.
However, prosecutors were able to produce multiple witnesses who testified under oath that Foster never raised his rifle at Perry.
Prosecutors argued that Perry sought out a confrontation with protesters, and pointed to social media posts and messages he sent in the days leading up to the shooting.
‘I might have to kill a few people on my way to work, they are rioting outside my apartment complex,’ reads one post from June 2020.
‘I might go to Dallas to shoot looters,’ Perry texted a friend around the same time. ‘I wonder if they will let me cut off the ears of people who decide to commit suicide by me.’
The jury deliberated over the course of two days before returning their verdict. Perry was found guilty of murder, and not guilty of assault with a deadly weapon – a charge related to driving his car toward protesters, on Friday, April 7.
Whitney Mitchell, Foster’s fiancée, was seen silently crying in the courtroom as the guilty verdict was read by the jury foreman.
‘We’re happy with the verdict,’ Foster’s father told reporters after the hearing on Friday. ‘We’re very sorry for his family as well because there’s no winners in this.’
Perry’s attorney stated that his client intended to appeal the conviction. His sentencing was scheduled for Tuesday, April 11.
But before a sentence could be handed down, Texas Governor Greg Abbott stated that he intended to pardon Perry.
Governor Abbott said that he cannot issue a pardon before the state Board of Pardons and Paroles reviews the case, but he asked them to expedite their decision for Perry’s case.
‘I look forward to approving the board’s pardon recommendation as soon as it hits my desk,’ the governor said in a statement posted on Twitter on Sunday.
District Attorney Garza said that the governor’s announcement was ‘deeply troubling.’
‘In our legal system, a jury that gets to decide whether a defendant is guilty or innocent – not the Governor,’ Garza said in a letter released on Sunday.