The Moral Stench of Greg Abbott

Despite the APD letter, one thing remains clear about Daniel Perry: Greg Abbott has only operated throughout with the most crass and cynical political motives.

Welcome to another installment of Life Its Ownself. I hope to bring insight, analysis and context on Texas politics, as well as entertaining stories of life its ownself in the Lone Star State. If you like what you read, please 1) smash the Like button at the bottom of this installment, 2) subscribe to this newsletter, and 3) tell your 1,000 best friends to read and subscribe. Also, feel free to comment below. I’d love to hear your thoughts.

But first, your moment of Zen … A young woman in Portugal talking with her friends was interrupted by the spectacular “blue meteor” which entered the earth over Portugal and Spain last Sunday night. I’ll bet she forgot what she was talking to her friends about.

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Wednesday, May 22, 2024

         Last Thursday, as expected, Governor Greg Abbott pardoned Daniel Perry for the 2020 murder of Garrett Foster during a Black Lives Matter protest in Austin.

         Abbott did so within hours of receiving the recommendation he’d ordered the Board of Pardons and Paroles to provide him. Perry was apparently sitting in prison, all dressed up and ready to go, awaiting the inevitable, and cowardly, action of the Governor.  

         That Abbott pardoned Perry should be no surprise; he basically pledged to do so after Perry was convicted and sentenced last year. At the time, he instructed the Board of Pardons and Paroles to expedite its review of Perry’s case, saying he “look[ed] forward to approving the Board’s pardon recommendation as soon as it hits my desk.” Thanks for not hinting at a desired outcome, Greg.  

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         When the pardon was announced, I was in medium-high dudgeon, preparing a scathing essay about the pardon, accusing Greg Abbott of putting the slobbering demands of his MAGA constituency over the safety of Texans and, by the way, the rights of gun-owning and gun-loving Americans everywhere.

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         However, the picture was complicated by the story in this morning’s Austin American-Statesman that Austin Police Department (APD) officials had drafted, but not sent, a letter to the Board of Pardons and Paroles urging that Perry be freed.

         The letter reflects the internal divisions in the APD over whether Foster’s killing was “righteous.” APD Detective David Fugitt, now retired (and working for Ken Paxton, which is a whole other story) was the lead investigator on the case. His initial conclusion was that Perry acted in self-defense and was innocent under Texas law. Too this day, many of his colleagues in the police department agreed with his analysis.

         But that’s never the end of the story. Police investigators work with prosecutors to uncover additional evidence and provide context for a decision whether to charge a suspect. (If you’ve ever watched the first two minutes of an episode of Law and Order, this has been explained to you.)

         In this case, the District Attorney’s office, under new D.A. Jose Garza, decided to prosecute the case as a first-degree murder. Among other things, they produced evidence they said demonstrated Perry’s state of mind at the time:

— In one Facebook comment responding to a post about protesters in another state, Perry wrote, “send them to Texas. We will show them why we say don’t mess with Texas.” 

— A friend of Perry’s also testified that a month before the incident, Perry had texted him to ask about other incidents in which someone had shot at protesters, and inquired if those shootings were legal.

— In the weeks leading up to the incident, Perry had conducted internet searches on the phrases “protest tonight”, “protesters in Seattle gets shot,” “riot shootouts,” and “protests in Dallas live.” 

— After that latter search, Perry texted to a friend, “I might go to Dallas to shoot looters.” 

— Among the other messages and comments he had recently sent or left online: “I might have to kill a few people on my way to work they are rioting outside my apartment complex,” and “No protesters go near me or my car.”

         Perry was tried and convicted in April of 2023., making him an immediate cause célèbre in the culture wars. On the air that night, Fox News gadfly Tucker Carlson demanded that Abbott call into his show and, when he didn’t, announced that “So that is Greg Abbott’s position: there is no right of self-defense in Texas.” MAGA celebrity/political remora Kyle Rittenhouse got in on the action, tweeting that the verdict was “very disappointing.”

         Abbott panicked and called for the expedited review by the Board of Pardons and Paroles. He even – I am not making this up – met with the new jailbird.

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         In February of this year, the Board of Pardons and Paroles announced its review of the Perry case, inviting APD (and the D.A.’s office) to make their case. It was in response to this that the APD retconned its story, suggesting that the case against Perry “was not based on the merits of direct evidence, but by conjecture, innuendo, character assassination, and more importantly, the exclusion of exculpatory evidence.”

         Interim Chief Henderson drafted the letter, but did not send it “[a]fter discussions with City leadership, as is the standard in certain situations.”

         Uh-oh.

         Apparently, Henderson’s draft letter had not received the stamp of approval from the city’s political leaders. Mayor Kirk Watson, sidestepping whether the letter should have been released to the public, said, "Whether the letter was sent is irrelevant. This is not an appropriate role for the Austin Police Department, and those words have no place on official letterhead." Councilmembers Vanessa Fuentes and Zo Qadri issued similar statements, and we surely have not heard the end of the internal discussion on the letter. Whether Interim Chief Henderson survives this is anybody’s guess.

         Left hanging in all this drama is Jose Garza and the Travis County D.A.’s Office, already a favorite target of Abbott and the reactionary right in Texas. No doubt, Abbott enjoys the narrative that Garza, pandering to his base, desired to show support for Black Lives Matter protesters by bullying the APD on a case it did not believe in (Hashtag: #defundthepolice).

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         Whatever complexities the APD letter injects into the debate over David Perry’s treatment, one thing remains clear: Greg Abbott has only operated throughout with the most crass and cynical political motives. Abbott continues to be, as he has shown so many times, terrified of his base and willing to do anything to pander to them. In the coming days and weeks, he will undoubtedly trot Daniel Perry out in public as a hero who survived a brutal campaign by the “woke” left to punish him.

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The second-best essay about the pardon … was written by Texas Monthly’s Christopher Hooks, who lances the immoral carbuncle at the heart of Abbott’s, and indeed the Texas GOP’s, reign:

There is no grand principle of justice that the governor is expressing. There is only this: the law must bind my enemies and not my friends, and it must protect my friends but not my enemies. That approach may be an inevitable result of one-party rule, but it also, historically, ends pretty badly for everyone. 

Read the whole thing.