On Saturday, Texas Governor Greg Abbott (R-Texas) posted on Twitter that he is working to “swiftly” pardon an Army veteran who was convicted of murder for shooting a Black Lives Matter rioter who attempted to shoot him first.
As the Daily Caller recounts, 37-year-old Daniel Perry, a Sergeant with the United States Army, was working as an Uber driver on the night of July 25th, 2020. Perry was driving through the streets of the capital city of Austin when a mob of Black Lives Matter and Antifa rioters suddenly surrounded his car and began threatening him. One of the rioters was 28-year-old Garrett Foster, who was armed with an AK-47. Photographs from that night confirm that Foster aimed his rifle at Perry through the window, at which point Perry drew his pistol and fired at Foster, killing him.
Despite his lawyers’ arguments in favor of self-defense, an Austin jury found Perry guilty of one count of murder, while failing to convict him of an additional count of aggravated assault. The trial lasted for just eight days while deliberation lasted for about a week. Perry’s sentencing is scheduled for Tuesday, and he faces between five years to life in prison.
However, shortly after the jury’s decision was announced, Governor Abbott declared his intention to seek a pardon for Perry, noting that “Texas has one of the strongest ‘Stand Your Ground’ laws in self-defense that cannot be nullified by a jury or a progressive district attorney.”
In Texas, the governor is allowed to request a specific pardon from the state’s Board of Pardons and Paroles. Abbott says that he has asked the board to expedit his request on Perry’s behalf, and that he will approve the board’s parole recommendation “as soon as it hits my desk.”
Perry’s case has been compared to the more widely-publicized trial of Kyle Rittenhouse, a teenager in Kenosha, Wisconsin who shot three Black Lives Matter and Antifa rioters in self defense when each of them tried to attack him, ultimately killing two and injuring a third. Despite unsubstantiated accusations of racism or instigation by Rittenhouse, he was acquitted on all charges and has since become a national symbol of self-defense.
Both the Perry and Rittenhouse incidents took place amid the backdrop of the Black Lives Matter and Antifa riots during the summer of 2020; during that time, black nationalist and Anarcho-Communist domestic terrorists committed mass acts of vandalism, assault, and murder across America after the death of George Floyd, an African-American man who died of a fentanyl overdose while in police custody in Minneapolis. The riots saw many cities burned down, including the destruction of hundreds of private businesses and dozens of historic monuments and statues, and led to over two dozen dead civilians and over $2 billion worth of damage nationwide.