© Reuters. FILE PHOTO: Texas Republican Governor Greg Abbott, running for re-election as Governor of Texas in the 2022 US midterm elections, speaks during a rally in Conroe, Texas, US, on 29 February January 2022. REUTERS/Go Nakamura
(Corrects the fourth paragraph to show that the shooting victim is white)
By Rich McKay
(Reuters) – Texas Governor Greg Abbott said on Saturday he was seeking clemency for an Uber (NYSE:) driver convicted of murder just a day earlier in the July 2020 shooting death of a man at a protest. of Black Lives Matter in downtown Austin. The state capital
Abbott, in a post on Twitter, said he will pardon Daniel Perry, 37, who is also a sergeant in the US Army, as soon as a parole board request “hits my desk.”
Abbott, a Republican, noted that the governor can grant clemency only on the recommendation of the state Board of Pardons and Paroles, but that he can apply for pardons.
The case hinged on whether the shooting was in self-defense. A jury found Friday that Perry, who is white, shot and killed Garrett Foster, a 28-year-old white man carrying an AK-47, according to the Austin American-Statesman newspaper.
Perry was driving in town the night of the shooting and turned his Uber vehicle into a street where a Black Lives Matter crowd was marching, according to the media. Perry stopped and several protesters, including Foster, approached his vehicle. The protesters told the police that they feared they would be assaulted with the vehicle, according to media accounts.
Perry’s defense team claimed the gun was pointed at him and that he had no choice but to fire his pistol in self-defense, the newspaper reported. Neither of Perry’s lawyers was immediately available to Reuters by phone or email for comment.
Perry was found guilty of murder after the jury deliberated for 17 hours in the eight-day trial, according to media accounts.
“I will work as quickly as Texas law allows regarding the pardon of the sergeant. Perry,” Abbott wrote on Twitter.
“Texas has one of the strongest ‘Stand Your Stand’ self-defense laws that cannot be struck down by a jury or a progressive district attorney,” he said. is working on laws to achieve that goal.”
José Garza, the district attorney for Travis County, where the case was tried and where Austin is located, is a Democrat and has been in office since January 1, 2021.
Perry faces life in prison and is due to be sentenced by State District Court Judge Clifford Brown on Tuesday, according to online court records from the 147th District Court in Travis County, Texas.