Black Lives Matter protester Garrett Foster’s mother on Texas Gov. Abbott saying he wants to pardon her son’s killer: “Sick to my stomach”

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott used social media over the weekend to announce he would paintings to pardon a person just a day after that guy used to be convicted of homicide.

Daniel Perry used to be discovered to blame by way of a jury in the loss of life of 28-year-old Garrett Foster, who used to be amongst the ones demonstrating in Austin all over the Black Lives Matter protests. 

Conservative leaders have rallied in the back of Perry, claiming he acted in  self-defense.

But CBS Texas’ J. D. Miles studies Abbott’s intentions are inflicting Garrett Foster’s mother, Sheila Foster, nice anguish.

She says the comfort she felt when a Travis County jury convicted Perry, it appears culminating a just about 3 yr seek for justice, did not remaining lengthy. 

Sheila Foster says Abbott’s phrases “literally buckled me over. I haven’t left my house. I didn’t do anything on Easter. I’m shaking like a leaf right now. I’m sick to my stomach. I can’t eat anything, and it’s almost like all that weight was lifted in that verdict and now it feels like the biggest hammer in the world is crashing down on me.”

That hammer, she mentioned, got here within the type of a tweet by way of Abbott the day after the decision saying he used to be “working as swiftly as Texas law allows regarding the pardon of Sergeant Perry.”

The tweet is going on to counsel that the movements of Perry, a Fort Hood Army sergeant, must were justified as self protection.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton posted later that he agreed with the governor. 

That’s in spite of the jury’s unanimous determination, which got here after the panelists heard from 40 witnesses and deliberated 15 hours. 

“I would honestly ask just anyone, including the governor, if you’re trying to take a side in this deal, at least look at the evidence first,” Sheila Foster mentioned.

The proof introduced all over the 2 week trial confirmed that each males have been legally armed when Perry, who used to be operating as an Uber driving force, grew to become onto a downtown Austin side road that used to be blocked by way of a crowd of 20 Black Lives Matter protestors in July 2020. 

Garrett Foster, who’d been protesting along his female friend for fifty immediately days, approached Perry’s automobile armed with a rifle. 

Perry opened fireplace, later claiming Foster had raised his weapon, which witnesses denied.  

Prosecutors introduced a few of Perry’s messages and social media feedback within the weeks prior to. Among them: “I might have to kill a few people on my way to work, they are rioting outside my apartment complex” and “I might go to Dallas to shoot looters.”

Foster’s mother and her civil lawyer to find it irrelevant, to say the least, that the 2 maximum tough males in Texas would intrude in a homicide trial that is nonetheless no longer over. 

“The governor is the most powerful elected official in the state of Texas,” mentioned Sheila Foster’s civil lawyer, Quentin Brogdon. “Nobody, including the governor of the State of Texas, should shut down the process of the rule of law — and it appears that’s what the intent is here.”

“I just can’t believe it’s happening. I cannot believe this is happening,” mentioned Sheila Foster. “I feel like Garrett was marching for our equality and for our constitutional rights, our First Amendment rights and our Second Amendment rights. … I just feels like it’s weird because he died fighting for those things.”

Sheila Foster can be within the court docket when the trial resumes Tuesday.

Perry faces a sentence of up to lifestyles in jail.