(NewsReady.com) – A former soldier jailed for killing a Black Lives Matter protester four years ago has been pardoned. Daniel Perry shot USAF veteran Garrett Foster at a demonstration in Austin, Texas. He was convicted of murder and jailed, but now Governor Greg Abbott (R) has overturned his sentence.
On July 25, 2020, Perry, a 30-year-old US Army sergeant, was driving through Austin when he encountered a crowd of protesters at a BLM demonstration. As he tried to drive through the crowd, Foster, who was 28, approached his car holding a Kalashnikov rifle; Perry shot him dead.
Both men were legally armed under Texas law. Perry told police Foster had aimed his rifle at him and he’d fired in self-defense, fearing that Foster planned to shoot him. Witnesses contradicted this, and when police recovered the rifle, it had no round in the chamber and the safety was on. At his trial, prosecutors relied on social media messages Perry had sent, some of them a year old, that used racist language or referred to shooting “looters” or rioters. Last April, he was convicted of murder, and sentenced to 25 years in prison.
Perry’s case quickly became a cause for many Conservatives, and Governor Abbott faced calls to pardon him. Representative Ronny Jackson (R-TX) called on Abbott not to “let a Soros-owned Austin liberal DA destroy our justice system in Texas,” and asked him to give Perry an immediate pardon. In response, the governor said he wanted to grant a pardon and asked the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles to examine his case.
On May 16, the board voted unanimously to pardon Perry and restore his Second Amendment rights. Abbott immediately granted a pardon and Perry was released that day. The governor commented that his state has some of the nation’s strongest stand-your-ground laws, and said they “cannot be nullified by a jury or a progressive District Attorney.”
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