Texas governor pardons Black Lives Matter protester killer, after prompt from Tucker Carlson

Perry was sentenced after prosecutors used his social media history and text messages to portray him as a racist who may commit violence again.

Prosecutors argued Perry could have driven away without opening fire and witnesses testified that they never saw Foster raise his gun. The sergeant’s defence attorneys argued Foster, who is white, did raise the rifle and that Perry had no choice but to shoot.

Perry, who is also white, did not take the witness stand and jurors deliberated for two days before finding him guilty.

Perry’s attorneys did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The shooting set off fierce debate in 2020, amid the demonstrations sparked by a white Minneapolis police officer’s killing of George Floyd, an unarmed Black man. Perry’s conviction three years later prompted outrage from prominent conservatives.

Before sentencing in the case, Carlson aired a broadcast calling the shooting an act of self-defence and criticising Abbott for not coming on his show. The next day, Abbott said he believed Perry should not be punished and told Texas’ parole board to expedite a review of the conviction.

Abbott appoints the Board of Pardons and Paroles and state law requires that it recommend a pardon before he can act.

After the verdict but before Perry was sentenced, the court unsealed dozens of pages of text messages and social media posts that showed he had hostile views toward Black Lives Matter protests. In a comment on Facebook a month before the shooting, Perry wrote, “It is official I am a racist because I do not agree with people acting like animals at the zoo.”

Perry served in the Army for more than a decade. At trial, a forensic psychologist testified that he believed Perry has post-traumatic stress disorder from his deployment to Afghanistan and from being bullied as a child.

At the time of the shooting, Perry was stationed at Fort Cavazos, then Fort Hood, about 110 kilometres north of Austin.

Lawyer Quentin Brogdon, who represented Foster’s mother, Sheila, was quoted in the New York Times saying: “The governor of the great state of Texas has turned the rule of law on its head.”

“It’s a fair question to ask whether the governor is doing this based on the merits of the case or based on the politics.”

AP