Former Gov. Roy Cooper (D., N.C.) has been under fire since launching his Senate campaign for what his critics view as his soft-on-crime record as Governor of North Carolina.
For months, GOP organizations, like the Senate Leadership Fund (SLF) have spotlighted Cooper’s “Felon Friday”; another trio of sex criminals is the latest that Republicans are using to argue that Cooper should not be elected to the Senate.
As governor, Cooper worked with activist groups to expedite the release of over 3,500 criminals — among that group were murderers, rapists, and pedophiles; 51 of them had been serving life sentences. The most high-profile of them was DeCarlos Brown Jr., who murdered Iryna Zarutska on public transportation in Charlotte, North Carolina.
But Brown is far from alone in posing a problem to Cooper politically and to the public safety of North Carolinians. While Cooper claimed that “each and every case” of clemency was vetted, another trio — that of David Wayne White, Carlos D. McCombs, and Kenny Purcell Green — is another liability.
“Roy Cooper’s careless decision to let more than 3,500 convicted felons walk free was a disgrace to the victims and families of those he let free,” a spokesman for Cooper’s GOP opponent, Michael Whatley, told the Washington Reporter. “Roy Cooper let vicious sexual predators walk free without care for the victims or the awful crimes they went through. These victims deserved justice for what occurred, Roy Cooper robbed them of this justice and North Carolinians of their safety.”
White pled guilty to 17 felonies, including to four counts of rape and to five counts of burglary; he raped and assaulted his victims, holding several at gunpoint. He punched another in the face and slashed another one from chest to navel. Cooper agreed to release White in December 2021.
McCombs carried out two armed assaults in Mecklenburg County in June 1998 — he raped, sexually assaulted, and robbed two women. He was convicted on four counts of first-degree sexual offence and sentenced to decades in prison. Cooper agreed to release McComb in February 2021.
Finally, Green had already been convicted of assault on a female and for two separate firearm felonies before he sexually abused a teenager in Wake County on multiple occasions. Green was sentenced to up to 20 years in prison before he was released early under Cooper’s deal. He reoffended in fewer than 100 days after his Cooper-sanctioned release from prison.
