Republican Texas. Gov. Greg Abbott issued a full pardon for a man who was convicted of murdering a protester at a Black Lives Matter demonstration in 2020 in Austin.
A jury found Daniel Perry guilty of murder in April 2023 after deliberating for 17 hours in the eight-day trial.
Perry claimed that he shot Garrett Foster in self-defense as protesters were banging on his car. Foster, who was a former mechanic in the U.S. Air Force, was legally armed with an AK-47. Perry said that Foster had aimed the gun at him when Perry shot and killed the man.
Prosecutors relied on witness statements that contradicted Perry's account and also on posts that he had made on social media that they characterized as racist.
