Remember North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper? I guarantee you that at least 18 families in the state do, because he's directly responsible for their murdered loved ones.
During the pandemic, Cooper made a deal with a few civil rights groups that resulted in the release of around 3,500 convicts from prison. The ACLU was joined by others who sued Cooper in 2020 to keep convicts from dying "behind bars during this global emergency." Cooper settled, resulting in one of the largest prison releases in the nation.
Not that Cooper needed the excuse of being sued to release a repeat criminal. You can ask Irina Zarutska about that. Or you could, if she wasn't murdered by DeCarlos Brown, another criminal who was freed under Cooper's policies.
Read: Troubling Allegations Against Roy Cooper Related to Zarutska Case Rock North Carolina Senate Race
Now, data has come back showing the extent of the fallout from that deal. According to the New York Post, nearly half of the prisoners Cooper freed went on to continue committing crimes, some more heinous than others:
At least 3,500 convicts were released as part of a little-known settlement between Cooper’s administration and civil rights groups in February 2021 — and The Post found more than 600 of those later committed serious felonies like homicides, sex offenses, or other violent crimes.
A staggering 18 of the prisoners released have been charged with murder in the four years since.
In all, North Carolina’s Sentencing and Policy Advisory Commission found in a 2024 report that the recidivism rate for the 3,500 released as part of the settlement was 48%, higher than the rate for the nearly 13,000 released over the course of fiscal year 2021 (44%).
Some of these releases include Tyrelle Brace, who went to prison for an array of reasons, including strangling a pregnant woman, and went on to murder a 23-year-old man.
Kyshaun Norrell, a man convicted of murder when he was a juvenile, went on to murder a 34-year-old man after Cooper released him.
Brandon Locklear would be let out of prison and proceeded to shoot a mother dead on the side of the road after he had been locked up for assault with a deadly weapon.
And the list goes on, according to the Post:
Two more reoffenders — Fred English and Lucas Scronce — were charged for deaths tied to fentanyl use, with Scronce pleading to the second-degree murder of his 16-month-old daughter in April 2025.
Convicted felon Jimmie Speight was also let loose in November 2020 — nine months before his projected release date — and was subsequently charged with second-degree murder, rape and kidnapping in April 2021.
The 32-year-old was previously sentenced for indecent liberty with a child and failure to register as a sex offender in August 2017.
Speight was among more than 80 released convicts who were charged with sex offenses after getting out.
This is a jaw-dropping abdication of, not just common sense, but responsibility for the people being governed. The idea that Cooper can just release thousands of criminals onto the streets just because some legal pressure came his way is unforgivable.
Yeah, you can blame the ACLU and the other groups who joined the lawsuit as well, but ultimately, the buck stopped with Cooper.
And now he's running for Senate in that same state. As his GOP opponent, Michael Whatley, has been pointing out, Cooper has no business being put back in charge of anything.
🧵 This is the same soft-on-crime Roy Cooper who forced cashless bail and pretrial release into North Carolina’s criminal justice system, and released 3,500 prison inmates. Time and time again, Cooper has sided with illegal aliens and criminals over law-abiding North Carolinians.
— Michael Whatley (@WhatleyNC) November 17, 2025
The underlying point here is that Democrats don't give a rip about your safety. They make soft-on-crime policies and release criminals who should never see the light of day again with regularity in blue states and cities, and it continuously results in innocents dying. This is the same party that welcomes illegal immigrants into the nation, including those who go on to destroy communities, murder, rape, and traffic, and then tell Americans they belong here.
Read: Any Chance Katie Porter Had of Selling Herself As the Everywoman Just Evaporated
The pattern is pretty well established: If you elect Democrats, more people die. That's not hyperbole at this point.
