Former North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper signed a legally binding settlement that freed roughly 3,500 inmates during the COVID pandemic, and the trail of violent reoffending that followed has become the central liability of his U.S. Senate campaign.
Cooper's administration struck the deal in February 2021 with the NAACP, fast-tracking the release of convicted felons from state prisons. When the settlement was announced, North Carolina prison officials told state lawmakers that only inmates whose sentences were already ending in 2021 would walk free. That assurance proved false. Officials later corrected themselves before a state legislative committee, acknowledging that violent offenders would be included in the releases.
The gap between what lawmakers were told and what actually happened is not a matter of interpretation. Cooper's own team admitted to misleading oversight from the North Carolina General Assembly, the very body responsible for holding the executive branch accountable on public safety.
The scale of the releases went far beyond what state officials initially described. The Washington Free Beacon reported that the settlement included 51 inmates serving life sentences for first-degree murder, second-degree murder, or first-degree rape. Cooper's administration had promised lawmakers that nobody who had "committed a crime against a person" would be on the list. Over 90 percent of those 51 lifers secured their freedom after the deal was signed.
The list of released offenders was initially shielded from public view. It took sustained pressure, and the fallout from violent crimes committed by freed inmates, before the full roster became public.
One name on that list drew national attention. DeCarlos Brown Jr., who had been released under Cooper's agreement, was later accused of murdering 23-year-old Iryna Zarutska, a Ukrainian refugee, on Charlotte's light rail system. The Washington Examiner reported that Brown's connection to the release program became a flashpoint in Cooper's Senate race, with the Senate Leadership Fund GOP PAC launching a campaign called "Roy Cooper's Felon Friday" to highlight convicted felons freed early under his watch.
Cooper's campaign initially called reports linking him to the release of violent criminals a "lie," pointing to his "career prosecuting violent criminals and keeping thousands of them behind bars as attorney general, and signing tough on crime laws and stricter pretrial release bail policy as governor." The campaign cited Cooper's 40-year tenure in public office as evidence of his commitment to public safety.
But Brown was, in fact, on the prisoner release list. And the broader numbers told a story that no campaign ad could easily answer.
A 2024 state report found that 48 percent of the roughly 3,500 released inmates committed additional crimes. The New York Post reported that at least 18 of the freed prisoners were subsequently charged with murder. More than 600 committed serious felonies, including homicides, sex offenses, and other violent crimes.
Those are not abstract statistics. Debra Thompson, whose son Elante' Thompson was killed by a released inmate, put it plainly:
"Why would you release somebody like that? They're already showing they're a gangster to society. You're going to release a menace on the street?"
Carrie Chavis, whose son David Chavis was also murdered by a freed offender, was equally direct:
"They shouldn't let him out. They need to pay for what they did. He already killed someone before."
A Fox News Digital review of a sample of 1,180 released inmates found that over 560, 48 percent, were rearrested on new charges within two years of release. The charges included first-degree murder, sex crimes against children, and drive-by shootings. Republican Senate candidate Michael Whatley called Cooper "a complete failure at keeping our communities safe." DJ Griffin, a spokesperson for the Whatley campaign, was blunter: "Roy Cooper has blood on his hands."
The growing pattern of Democratic leaders facing accountability for policy decisions that put ideology ahead of public safety has become a recurring theme in competitive races across the country.
As the political cost mounted, Cooper cycled through explanations. First, his campaign denied the connection to violent releases entirely. When that failed, Cooper tried to attribute the releases to federal prison releases under the Trump administration. That explanation fell apart as well, the settlement was a state-level agreement signed by Cooper's own administration, not a federal action.
Cooper then sought to shift blame to prison officials, arguing they, not the governor, determined who was released. But the settlement itself was a legally binding contract that Cooper signed. Prison officials may have compiled the lists, but the governor created the legal framework that required the releases in the first place.
That distinction matters. Cooper did not merely preside over an agency decision he later regretted. He entered into a consent agreement that obligated the state to free inmates, and then his administration misled lawmakers about who would be freed.
The attorney who helped broker the deal from the advocacy side made no secret of the goal. Whitley Carpenter, an attorney for Forward Justice, praised the settlement by saying, "The most effective way to protect prisoners from COVID-19 is to reduce the number of people in prison." That framing, prisoners' comfort over public safety, captures the priorities that drove the agreement.
Cooper's defenders have suggested that every governor faced similar demands during COVID. That is true. But not every governor responded the same way.
Colorado Governor Jared Polis resisted similar demands for mass prisoner releases. When the ACLU ultimately prevailed with a consent decree involving Colorado's Department of Corrections, Polis's opposition and continued litigation avoided a court-mandated quota system. He fought. Cooper settled.
Illinois Governor JB Pritzker never signed a contract guaranteeing or commanding a large-scale mass release of prisoners. Control over population figures remained within executive discretion. In New Jersey, the state legislature, not the governor acting alone, passed measures allowing mass releases, at least subjecting the decision to democratic debate.
Cooper stands alone among these examples. He voluntarily entered a binding agreement rather than litigating, appealing, or leaving the decision to the legislature. The result was a governor-imposed release program with no meaningful public input and, as it turned out, no honest disclosure to the lawmakers tasked with oversight.
Cooper's approach to the settlement stands in contrast to other Democratic officials who have at least been willing to break with their party's activist base when the political ground shifted beneath them.
Cooper is now running for the U.S. Senate in North Carolina, and the prisoner release settlement has become the defining issue of the Republican case against him. Just The News reported that Republicans argue Cooper's decisions directly led to innocent deaths. Michael Whatley, the GOP Senate candidate, framed the stakes in stark terms:
"Nineteen innocent North Carolinians are dead because Roy Cooper chose to let violent criminals walk free."
Cooper has responded by promoting a new campaign ad touting his tough-on-crime record as attorney general. His campaign has rejected responsibility for the releases, saying Whatley is trying to score political points by citing Zarutska's death.
But the record is the record. Cooper signed the settlement. His officials misled the legislature about who would be released. Violent offenders, including convicted murderers and child rapists serving life sentences, walked free. Nearly half of the released inmates reoffended. At least 18 were charged with murder. And a 23-year-old Ukrainian refugee is dead, allegedly at the hands of a man who was on Cooper's release list.
The pattern of Democratic leaders distancing themselves from politically inconvenient decisions is nothing new. But few cases involve consequences this severe, or explanations this evasive.
Cooper's shifting accounts, denial, deflection to the Trump administration, blame placed on subordinates, follow a familiar arc. Each version collapsed when confronted with the basic facts of what he signed and what followed. Democratic governors across the country have faced hard questions about executive accountability during and after COVID. Cooper's problem is not that he faced a difficult situation. His problem is that he made a binding choice, misrepresented it, and now wants voters to believe it was someone else's fault.
A campaign ad about being tough on crime does not bring back the 19 people whose families are burying them because a governor decided a settlement was easier than a fight.