https://www.statesman.com/stor...el-perry/7809946002/

Army sergeant indicted on murder charge in shooting death of Austin protester Garrett Foster

Tony Plohetski
Katie Hall
Austin American-Statesman
updated 6:57PM CT

A Travis County grand jury has indicted an active-duty former Fort Hood Army sergeant on charges of murder, deadly conduct and aggravated assault in the 2020 shooting death of an armed Austin protester.

The slaying of Garrett Foster — an Air Force veteran remembered by family and friends as a man dedicated to exercising his Second Amendment rights, stamping out racial injustice and caring for his fiancée — brought national attention and deepened debates over issues, such as protester safety, self-defense and the right to openly carry guns.

Prosecutors presented over 150 evidence exhibits as well as testimony from 22 witnesses over the course of the three-week grand jury hearing, Travis County District Attorney José Garza said.

"Our heart goes out to all those impacted by this immeasurable loss, in particular Mr. Foster's family and friends," Garza said. "We take our responsibility to present all of the evidence in any given case to a grand jury very seriously."

Sgt. Daniel Perry turned himself into the Travis County Jail at 2:21 p.m. Thursday and was released about 15 minutes later on $300,000 bail. His attorney said Perry was defending himself when he shot Foster and expressed disappointment that his client was charged.

"Sgt. Perry again simply asks that anybody who might want to engage in a hindsight review of this incident picture themselves trapped in a car as a masked stranger raises an AK-47 in their direction and reflect upon what they might have done if faced with the split-second decision he faced," Clint Broden, a Dallas lawyer, said in a statement Thursday.

A fixture in Austin's protests over equality and police brutality last year, Foster was marching in a crowd in downtown Austin on July 25. The 28-year-old was carrying an assault-style rifle, which is legal under Texas open carry laws.

Perry was working as an Uber driver the night of the shooting, and at 9:50 p.m., he honked his horn while on Fourth Street and then turned onto Congress Avenue, into the crowd of marchers, according to police. Foster's fiancée — Whitney Mitchell, a quadruple amputee who uses a wheelchair — was in the crowd near Foster.

Police have said Foster approached Perry's car and Perry drew his own weapon and fired, mortally wounding Foster, before driving away and calling 911.

Police detained Perry but did not arrest him in the immediate aftermath of the shooting.

More:Texas law gives no simple answer in Garrett Foster killing at Austin protest

A key issue in the case is whether Foster raised his weapon at Perry. Some witnesses have said that Foster never pointed the rifle, keeping it down, but an attorney for Perry has said that police have interviewed several people who corroborated his client's account that Foster pointed the gun at him.

Foster grew up in Plano and had been living in Austin with Mitchell for about two years at the time of his death. The couple had been attending downtown Austin protests against police violence since at least late May, and Foster often had his rifle with him, according to protesters and Foster's family.

Legal experts previously interviewed by the Statesman had said that criminal charges in the case could be unlikely because of state laws giving people wide leeway to protect themselves in the face of perceived danger.

In his statement, Broden accused Garza of a politically motivated prosecution, and Broden said prosecutors refused to allow him to present evidence favorable to Perry.

Garza called Broden's statements false.

"The facts were presented by career prosecutors in our office to a Travis County grand jury," Garza said. "A grand jury is a collection of our community — our friends and our neighbors who have sworn an oath to be independent from the district attorney's office; to hear all the facts, evidence and law; and to make their best determination."

Garza added that Broden shared a packet of evidence with the DA's office, and prosecutors presented the "overwhelming majority" of that evidence. Prosecutors only withheld evidence that "wouldn't be permitted in a trial," Garza said.

Prosecutors run grand jury proceedings, which are private and do not determine guilt or innocence, but only whether there is sufficient evidence for a trial. Subjects of grand jury investigations have no right to present a defense.

Grand jury’s can be steered by DAs. I’ve seen it when I was a cop. They are not required to present all of the facts. They can basically run with anything and point it towards getting an indictment.

I saw the videos and the driver did nothing wrong. But it’s going to cost him his time, money and probably his army career even if he wins.

Disgusting, the DA is wrong.

Who was it that said a Grand Jury can indict a ham sandwich ?

I sat on a Grand Jury for 2 days back in 2012.

Case after case after case.

The presentation of the evidence is very one-sided.

By the end of the 2nd day it all sounded like gibberish to me.

video at link

https://twitter.com/MrAndyNgo/.../1412315739508207620

Video recorded in San Francisco shows a group of thieves running out of a
@neimanmarcus store in the middle of the day with luxury handbags & other stolen goods.

they jump in waiting cars and take off

"Curbside Pickup Here"

In my tour that includes Portland in a couple of weeks, I wonder if the tour agency will put armed guards on the tour bus. (One thinks of the joke about the tail gunner on a Budweiser truck.)

flashguy

quote:

Video recorded in San Francisco shows a group of thieves running out of a
@neimanmarcus store in the middle of the day with luxury handbags & other stolen goods.

they jump in waiting cars and take off

"Curbside Pickup Here"

LOL. Love watching this stuff.

I don't care how bad shoplifting is or how many piles of human shit are in San Fran.

I don't care if the shot/killed numbers in Chicago look like the casualty list from the Battle of the Bulge.

I don't care if the crime in NYC looks like the opening scene of Predator 2.

I don't care if antifa makes Portland look like Dresden after the Allies visited.

I don't care how many of these communist cities collapse. They chose the path.

While I share the sentiment, once those places are destroyed they are coming to your town and will outvote
you

quote:

Originally posted by oldbill123:
While I share the sentiment, once those places are destroyed they are coming to your town and will outvote
you

They come here they will be stopped.....fatally.

quote:

Originally posted by oldbill123:
While I share the sentiment, once those places are destroyed they are coming to your town and will outvote you

Not likely

Possibly which is concerning. Or perhaps the commie troglodytes will try their reindeer games in a local that isn’t so permissive.

quote:

Originally posted by radioman:
^^^ Really.
I've been to Portland. I saw it with my own eyes. It was a week ago. It's a shithole. Stay away.

the crime rate is low because nobody bothers to report crime any more. no point other than to get an insurance form.

but shootings (injuries and deaths) are up for what it's worth. 393 shootings reported in 2019. over 400 so far this year and it's only June.

Graffiti everywhere. Homeless everywhere. busted glass everywhere. tents everywhere. abandoned shopping carts everywhere. Garbage everywhere. boarded up buildings. closed businesses. Crazy people asking for money.

The smell is difficult to describe. It's not from the Farmer's Market.

It's not the same Portland as 10 years ago. Not by a long shot.

It seems there are people who have not actually been there, and those in the city government who want to state that it's just business as usual. It's not.

STAY THE HELL AWAY. If you are driving through on I-5, take the 205 bypass.

I lived in Portland when I was a kid, 13 to 16 years old. It was a great small city then. We met Phil Knight at my dad's men's soccer league before Nike was Nike. It was moderate in its politics, and tolerant. It was safe. At the time, which was in the middle to later '70s, we would have stayed there, but my dad got transferred by his employer, and couldn't find a similar job that would have let us stay there.

In hindsight, and knowing what Portland turned into as it got Californiacated, I am glad we didn't stay. I wouldn't live there now on a bet.

I just flew through Portland last week. We were running late due to our late departure from Denver, so we quick-turned the plane and were outta there in 70 minutes. I didn't even go inside the airport...was afraid Libtard cooties would rub off on me.

Meanwhile, in Philly, the answer to rising crime is to pass out...rape whistles? LOL you can't make this shit up.

quote:

Originally posted by mbinky:
Meanwhile, in Philly, the answer to rising crime is to pass out...rape whistles? LOL you can't make this shit up.

You think they are going to pass out Glocks?

They don't need to pass out a Goddamned thing, jhe. Could you be any more obtuse, man?

Well - they needed something to stick in their mouths.

‪The absolute hypocrisy in this story is almost mind blowing; especially since the Representative, who ran on a platform of police reform and transparency, is fighting to keep this incident’s body-cam footage, hidden. ‬

St. Paul police chief disputes DFL Rep. John Thompson's racial profiling claim

It should not matter, but the St Paul police chief defending his officer happens to be black.
——-

St. Paul Police Chief Todd Axtell on Friday defended one of his sergeants against accusations of racial profiling made by a Minnesota state legislator ticketed during a traffic stop last weekend.

Rep. John Thompson, DFL-St. Paul, was cited July 4 for driving while under suspension after police say he was pulled over for not having a front license plate. Days later at a rally in St. Paul, Thompson described the encounter as an example of being profiled by police because of his race.

"I thought we weren't doing pretextual stops in this state, but we are," Thompson said Tuesday outside the governor's residence at an event marking five years since his friend Philando Castile was fatally shot by a police officer in Falcon Heights. "We're still getting 'driving-while-Black' tickets here in this state — as a matter of fact, in St. Paul. So let's just call it what it is."

—— From the Chief ——

Yet in a Facebook post Friday, Axtell wrote that he reviewed body camera footage and spoke to the sergeant before concluding that the stop "had absolutely nothing to do with the driver's race."

"Simply put, the traffic stop was by the books. What happened afterwards was anything but," Axtell wrote. "I'm dismayed and disappointed by the state representative's response to the stop. Rather than taking responsibility for his own decisions and actions, he attempted to deflect, cast aspersions and deny any wrongdoing."

He said Thompson "owes our sergeant an apology." Thompson did not respond to requests for comment.

I feel like Paul Harvey. There is a "rest of the story" to the above post.

https://www.twincities.com/202...egislature-mn-or-wi/

The same month John Thompson appeared on the ballot for election to the Minnesota House of Representatives for a St. Paul seat — November 2020 — he renewed his Wisconsin driver’s license.

he had been pulled over for driving with no front plates and furnished a Wisconsin driver’s license to a St. Paul police sergeant.

it became clear that he had actively renewed his license numerous times, including after he was publicly presenting himself as a Minnesotan.

According to the Wisconsin Department of Transportation, which oversees the state’s driver’s license program, Thompson has held a valid Wisconsin license since July 2000. Thompson renewed the license in 2005, 2012 and November 2020

If Thompson has, in fact, lived in Minnesota in recent years, renewing his Wisconsin license — truthfully or not — might have been the only way he could have kept a valid license to drive.

His Minnesota driving privileges were revoked because of a Ramsey County child support issue from April 2019

and

https://newspunch.com/democrat...burb-at-blm-protest/

Democrat Politician Threatens To ‘Burn Down’ Entire ‘White Privilege’ Suburb at BLM Protest

John Thompson, a radical DFL activist and politician who last week won his primary for House District 67A in St. Paul, joined the BLM protest and shouted threats into a microphone about burning the entire suburb to the ground.

One clip shows him shouting “You think we give a f*** about burning Hugo down?” In another, he says “F****** Hugo.”

quote:

One clip shows him shouting “You think we give a f*** about burning Hugo down?” In another, he says “F****** Hugo.”

This is “that” dude?!?! Like California, Minneapolis really has become a country of its own. I cannot believe those fools actually elected that dude.