Allred on Perry Being Pardoned: When the Gov. Abuses the Pardon Power Like This, It Makes Us All Less Safe

RUSH TRANSCRIPT:
Sharpton: “This week your governor Greg Abbott pardoned Daniel Perry, a former army sergeant convicted of murdering a Black Lives Matter protester in 2020. The victim, 28-year-old garrett foster, was legally carrying a rifle at the time of the incident, but according to witnesses never raised his weapon. Perry claimed he was acting in self-defense. Although unsealed evidence from the trial shows he made racist and threatening posts about protesters prior to the shooting, so what’s your reaction to this pardon, especially coming at at time when we are once again seeing many Americans engage in demonstrations and protests which we all hope will remain peaceful for everyone involved, what’s your reaction to the pardon, congressman?”

ALLRED: “Yeah, well you know, rev, you don’t have to guess what happened here. There was a grand jury that convened and that issued an indictment. Mr. Perry got a chance to make his case in front of a jury of his peer, and his peers found him guilty of murder. And as you said, that was without some of the information that the general public knows from some of these text messages in which he basically talked about seeking out violence and seeking out, you know, going to one of these protests in order to engage in violence. And so what you see now, I think, is when, you know, the governor steps in and abuses the pardon power like this, it makes all of us less safe. We are a nation of laws. Texas is a place of laws. But when you’re able to violate those laws with impunity if the governor or the person in power likes your politics or thinks it’s in their political interest, then the entire system starts to come apart. And so to me, this is something that I know it’s not who we are as Texans, but when I think folks when they see, this they’re seeing the extremism that has taken over our state. And that’s one of the things we have to rezekt on November 5th when we vote out Ted Cruz and give someone else a chance to bring us together as Texans and not do these stunts that make us look to the outside world like we’re something that we’re not.”