Texas governor pardons ex-Army sergeant convicted of killing Black Lives Matter protester

Optional@lemmy.world to News@lemmy.world – 400 points –
Texas governor pardons ex-Army sergeant convicted of killing Black Lives Matter protester
apnews.com
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Just a reminder that this murderer killed a libertarian active duty army Sargent veteran airman that saw police violence as wrong. Abbott is celebrating the murder of a soldier killed at home.

Edit: I incorrectly identified Garrett Foster's honorable service.

He's celebrating the murder of a "liberal" dissident, which cancels out any and all positive qualities in the MAGA fascist mind.

Moreover, he wants far right murderers and those who aspire to be far right murderers to know that he has their back, "when the time is right."

The GOP is both a criminal enterprise and a seditious terrorist organization, and they intend to seize the levers of power by force very soon.

he wants far right murderers and those who aspire to be far right murderers to know that he has their back, “when the time is right.”

It's a powerful message for aspiring far right murderers, and yes they plan to seize power using deadly violence next time. Look for it. Be prepared.

I think you have the facts slightly wrong. According to wikipedia Daniel Perry, the man being pardoned, was at the time an active duty army sergeant. Garrett Foster, who he murdered, was an Air Force veteran.

Yeah and in texas army outranks Air Force. If you want a government sympathetic to airfolk you want Ohio or Nevada.

Wow that's peak disgusting. USA is truly being taken over by MAGA sociopaths.

It was built on racism. People who voted and acted for segregation still hold positions of power, there was no need to take anything over because they've always been there.

Don't call it a comeback 🎤

Honestly, I wonder how much more damaging Booth's assassination of Lincoln was than we had realized. Would Lincoln have treated the South more appropriately than Johnson did?

Not just that, but imagine Frederick Douglass as the first black president.

Was that....likely to have happened?

Likelier if traitors had been disqualified from holding offices of power. There was a movement behind him for the presidency. He had a chance. Instead, we got a line of some of the worst, yet most forgettable presidents, for decades.

Lincoln wanted to send the freed slaves back to Africa. He wasn't as good of a guy as history class made him out to be.

Lincoln wanted to send the freed slaves back to Africa. He wasn't as good of a guy as history class made him out to be.

You cannot simply apply modern ethics to the views and actions of people in the past like that. Nuance is required. Our thinking as a society changes over time, and our views as individuals are inherently constrained by what we experience and learn, and by the views of those around us.

For his time, Lincoln was progressive. He was an abolitionist who brought about the end of US chattel slavery.

Lincoln was a centrist. John Brown was a progressive. The radical wing of the Republican party wanted to give the freed slaves their own land so they could earn a living and let them vote, and there were enough of them in Congress that it nearly happened. Even in the context of the times Lincoln was kind of backwards. He was more concerned with placating the southern states than giving black people rights.

John Brown was an extremist. This isn’t to demonize him, he was obviously in the right to fight against slavery, but unfortunately systemic progress happens within the system. Extremists can help create the environment for that systemic change to happen, but they can also stymie it depending on their methods and the prevailing ideas of the time. John Brown’s contribution was important, but he was never going to be a reasonable candidate for national office.

Calling Lincoln a centrist because there existed a more radical wing of his party is nonsensical. That’s like saying 1 is not a positive number because 2 is further from 0. Not a single southern state supported him, to the point that his election triggered a war over slavery. He was very firmly an abolitionist, which was certainly a more popular position than it had been previously in American politics, but was far from centrist.

Lincoln wasn't an abolitionist. He said so himself. "If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone, I would also do that.".

His priority was preventing (and, later, winning) the war to maintain the union. He didn't seem to care about slaves at all.

He was right smack dab in the middle of the slavers and the abolitionists. He just wanted everyone to get along. He was a centrist.

This should be plastered every single day from now through election day. Texas has enough people to vote out these scumbags; it's just motivating them to go out and vote.

Empowering voters counters defeatism and apathy.

Perry has been held in state prison on a 25-year sentence since his conviction in 2023 in the killing of Garrett Foster.

Daniel Perry went to the protest with the intention of getting into a fight or killing someone. He was characterized in the trial as a militant racist. His release is beyond despicable.

https://www.austinchronicle.com/news/2023-04-07/might-have-to-kill-a-few-people/

He's exactly who the MAGA fuckheads want roaming the streets leading up to this election.

Thank you for this link. The first article I read on this only gave Perry's side of the story, so my first impressions were that he was an uber driver who turned a corner not expecting to see a protest, the protestors were worried about the car, and that one of them aimed a rifle at him.

Nothing about his messages about wanting to kill some protestors, nothing about the witnesses all saying that the victim did NOT raise his weapon, nothing about the rifle being recovered with no round chambered and safety still on.

Disgusting act, disgusting reporting, disgusting pardon. Thank you for your comment and link, truly.

Being already very familiar with this POS, I just grabbed the first one that came up on DuckDuckGo. I’m surprised that’s how it read. I’ll remove it.

No no no, I think you misunderstood me. I'm saying that your link was much much better at telling the full story, and it was the other articles I read (posted elsewhere) that failed to tell the whole story. It was those other articles that were disgusting reporting.

Edit to put the link back up, because I think it's important: https://www.austinchronicle.com/news/2023-04-07/might-have-to-kill-a-few-people/

I read the link this morning, and after having already been informed on his trial, this is how I expected it to read. Sorry about the confusion.

Republicans hiding facts and doing evil deeds. Name a better trio.

Austin Police Department officers questioned Perry and let him go.

Killing people the cops don't like isn't an arrestable offense. As long as they give some flimsy justification, they should just trust the killer.

2 more...

A Republican in his third term, Abbott has typically issued pardons only for minor offenses, and he notably avoided a posthumous pardon recommendation for George Floyd for a 2004 drug arrest in Houston. It was Floyd’s killing by a white police officer in Minneapolis in 2020 that set off national demonstrations. 

Abbott ordered the board to review Perry’s case shortly after the trial, and said he would sign a pardon if recommended. Under Texas law, the governor cannot issue a pardon without a recommendation from the board, which the governor appoints.

Texass you are showing us who you are.

If this is the man in thinking of, his initial statement to police it was clearly not self defense. After he was arrested he changed his story to make it sound like self defense. What physical evidence existed implied his first story was more likely. They played the video of him confessing to unprovoked murder to the jury. Abbott never acknowledged his original statement as existing or any of the evidence. He let a murderer out on texas's streets for political gain.

Fox news appearance in 3.. 2..

He can go on a traveling speaking tour with Kyle Rittenhouse.

Wait, not only the POTUS can pardon people (to me, already insanity waiting for more abuse), but your state governors TOO?

Jesus Christ.

To be fair, the people who agreed to it weren’t expecting such balls-out corruption.

They were thinking maybe a case gets revealed to be corrupt and instead of waiting years for retrial they can just hit the delete key.