Exclusive audio obtained by Breitbart News features North Carolina Democrat Senate candidate Roy Cooper telling supporters at a campaign event that criminals need “health care, not handcuffs.” Cooper has been under intense scrutiny in his campaign for Senate for his atrocious soft-on-crime record, from agreeing to the largest mass prison release in state history to his 2020 executive order that resulted in a manifesto and the implementation of cashless bail and other woke policies.
Obtained by Breitbart News
Cooper is heard talking at a campaign event about his record as governor. He listed items such as the state’s business ranking, which he had little to do with, having vetoed tax cuts and teacher pay raises proposed by Republican legislative leaders.
He bizarrely linked a push to expand Medicaid in the state to giving “people in jails health care, not handcuffs,” seeming to prioritize the interests of criminals over the citizens of the state.
Cooper’s racial justice task force wrote in the 2020 manifesto that North Carolina “can reimagine public safety,” adding, “However, it is impossible to divorce racial equity in the criminal justice system from racial equity in our larger society.”
The report said the state should “promote diversion and other alternatives to arrest,” writing that law enforcement and prosecutors “should consider the impact of collateral consequences of a criminal record” and encourage citations and summons in lieu of arrests.
This sort of messaging falls right in line with what Cooper is saying in the audio clip to supporters when he thinks no cameras are around.
Since launching his campaign over a year ago, Cooper has instead stuck to bait-and-switch messaging on affordability issues and ignored the four years in which the Biden administration’s policies resulted in 40-year high inflation and massive price increases.
Likely sensing a weakness with his record on crime, Cooper launched an ad touting his record as both attorney general and governor, yet conveniently left out releasing thousands of convicted criminals from prisons and his failure to process rape kits.
Corporate media in North Carolina repeatedly give Cooper kid-glove treatment and allow him to skate by on answers against the tough attacks from his opponent, Republican Michael Whatley, and outside groups.
At one event, Cooper said, “Independent fact checks show most of what they’re saying is simply not true. I’m the only one in this race who’s actually prosecuted violent criminals and worked to keep them behind bars.”
Reporters whose access to the two-term governor depended on dutifully writing his preferred talking points have yet to reconcile the fact that the alleged murderer of Ukrainian refugee Iryna Zarutska, DeCarlos Brown, appears on his 2021 convicted criminal early release list.
Brown, who has currently been ruled mentally unfit to stand trial in both state and federal court, was arrested 14 times previously by law enforcement and released back onto the streets of Charlotte each time due to Mecklenburg County’s far-left judges — the same ones who eagerly implemented weak bail laws and lesser charges.
As Breitbart News has previously reported, law enforcement organizations in North Carolina have shunned Cooper in his campaign.
Three major law enforcement organizations — the NC Troopers Association, the NC Police Benevolent Association, and the NC Fraternal Order of Police — have endorsed Whatley.
Last week, the non-partisan National Border Patrol Council backed Whatley in events across the state with the organization’s president, Paul Perez.
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