A photogrammetry expert testified that Daniel Perry, accused of killing Black Lives Matter protester Garrett Foster, slowed down as he drove into a crowd of protesters in Austin, Texas, disputing protester claims that he sped up.
Perry has been charged with murder and aggravated assault with a deadly weapon for shooting Foster five times in July 2020. Perry has claimed self-defense and pleaded not guilty.
Jason Evans, the expert, testified on Tuesday that using dashcam video and a laser scan of the scene, he determined that Perry slowed down as he made the turn onto Congress Avenue, where protesters had gathered.
“We now have a 3D rendering of the move and the turn of Mr. Perry’s vehicle,” Evans said at trial, according to KXAN. “Mr. Perry starts out at 11.9 miles per hour, starts to deaccelerate, or slow down.”
Evans also testified that laser scans and video provided by witnesses allowed him to determine that Foster was standing about 18 inches away from Perry’s driver-side door just a tenth of a second before he was shot.
Perry, an Army sergeant who also drives for Uber, said he had just dropped off a customer when he received a text from a girl he liked. He told investigators shortly after he shot Foster that he was texting her while driving and that she had asked him for money “and when I looked up, the protesters were right there.”
“The protesters were all around me, banging on the side of the car, hitting me with spray paint cans. One guy (Foster) wanted to talk to me,” he told investigators, according to the Austin American-Statesman.
Perry said he rolled down his window to talk to Foster, who said something quietly before raising his weapon. Foster, who is white, was openly carrying an AK-47 across his chest.
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“That’s when I got my weapon and pulled the trigger as fast as I could, and then drove away and called 911,” Perry told police.
Perry turned himself in immediately.
Other protesters have claimed that Perry sped up into the crowd and that Foster never raised his rifle at Perry.
Perry claimed that he didn’t realize what was being protested, but prosecutors have provided text messages from two months before the shooting showing Perry talking about killing protesters.
“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 2020, according to the Austin Chronicle. Perry also spoke to his friend two weeks before the shooting about how to get away with killing a protester – by claiming self-defense.
After Perry turned himself in, the Austin Police Department questioned him and let him go. But months later, in 2021, District Attorney Jose Garza took office and decided to prosecute Perry. A grand jury then indicted Perry. Garza is one of many district attorneys whose campaign was backed by billionaire George Soros.