In an extremely rare gesture, the Republican governor of Texas said he was ready to pardon the soldier and Uber driver convicted on Friday for killing a protester during major protests against racism and police brutality in 2020.

Daniel Perry, a 33-year-old military man who worked as a driver for a transportation company in his spare time, found himself in the midst of a crowd of protesters in Austin, in the US South, in July 2020.

At trial, his lawyers stressed that he acted in legitimate self-defence. According to them, he shot five times with a pistol at 28-year-old Garrett Foster when he approached his car with a machine gun, the barrel of which was pointed in his direction.

The prosecutor’s office objected that he could well change the situation and started a fight. According to a report in the Austin American-Statesman, they presented in evidence Mr. Perry’s social media posts before the fatal encounter in which he stated that “I might kill some people on my way to work. There is a riot near my apartment.”

After a two-hour deliberation, the jury found him guilty of murder. He faces life imprisonment. His verdict will be announced soon.

Without even waiting for an appeal, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott announced that he had asked his state’s pardon office to investigate Daniel Perry’s case. “I stand ready to approve this recommendation as soon as it reaches my desk,” he added in a statement released Saturday evening.

He explained that his goal is to protect the “tough stand-up law” in his state. It is a law that allows anyone to use lethal force if they believe their life is in serious danger, even if they have the ability to avoid the danger.

The case is reminiscent of that of Kyle Rittenhouse, who killed two people in Kenosha, Wisconsin, on the sidelines of Black Lives Matter protests following the killing of African-American George Floyd by a white police officer in Minneapolis.

The young man also referred to self-defense – and was acquitted. He became a hero of the American far right.

Governor Abbott’s statement provoked, as one would expect, diametrically opposed reactions, depending on the political position. It was welcomed by Republicans, but Texas Democratic Rep. Sarah Eckhart denounced “a horrific and dangerous attack on the rule of law,” according to a Texas Tribune report.

Source: APE-MPE, AFP.