A Travis County jury on Friday found Uber driver Daniel Perry guilty of murder in the shooting death of Austin protester Garrett Foster in 2020.
The jury deliberated 17 hours over two days to reach its decision after an eight-day trial, finding Perry guilty of murder while acquitting him of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon.
Perry's Lawyers Said He Fired in Self-Defense
During closing arguments on Thursday morning, defense attorneys said Perry had no choice but to shoot Garrett Foster five times as he approached Perry's car with an AK-47 rifle. Perry, an Army-sergeant-turned-Uber driver, was traveling on Fourth Street on the night of July 25, 2020, and turned right onto Congress Avenue, where a Black Lives Matter crowd was marching.
Perry stopped, and several protesters approached his car police have said. Protesters said they feared they were being attacked by someone in a car. Foster, a 28-year-old Air Force veteran openly carrying an AK-47 across his chest, approached the car. The driver's side window opened and Perry shot Foster four times in the chest and abdomen. Perry turned himself in to Austin police seconds later, claiming he'd shot in self-defense after Foster raised the barrel of his gun
Perry Wrote About Gunning Down BLM Protesters Weeks Before Shooting
However, prosecutors have developed a fuller picture of Perry's intention and possible premeditation by showing the depth of the hatred he harbored for BLM demonstrators protesting police violence in the summer of 2020.
"I might have to kill a few people on my way to work, they are rioting outside my apartment complex," Perry wrote to a friend in June of 2020. "I might go to Dallas to shoot looters," he wrote on another occasion. Perry also encouraged violence in a variety of social media posts as well.
For instance, on June 3, in a reply to a tweet, Perry talks about how to kill someone by shooting them. "Fuck that shit you shoot center of mass," he wrote. "1 it is a bigger target. 2 it still drops them. 3 even if you shoot them in the leg there is a major artery that will cause the person to bleed out in just a few minutes."
In response to another June 19 tweet from President Donald Trump warning protesters who he expected to show up at his rally, Perry tweeted: "Send them to Texas we will show them why we say don't mess with Texas." The tweets have since been taken down but we managed to get our hands on some screenshots.
