Roy Cooper’s COVID-era actions are a weakness, not a strength

Because then-North Carolina Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper was reelected in 2020, he probably thought that it was proof voters approved of his handling of the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic.

My thought bubble on it at the time was that it wasn’t so much a signal of approval as it was people sticking with Cooper and the status quo amid a general sense of fear and uncertainty about what the future held.

Cooper is now the Democratic Party’s nominee for U.S. Senate. Among his perceived strengths has been his record on crime as the state’s attorney general and then governor, and how he governed the state through the COVID-19 outbreak.

But cracks are forming in that facade, as evidenced by the revelation of the February 2021 COVID-era settlement that saw the Cooper administration release more than 4,000 convicted criminals, including rapists, murderers and child sex offenders, back on the streets as part of a deal with civil rights groups who ostensibly were concerned about the COVID-19 spread in the state’s prison system.

Close to 60% reoffended, according to the CooperReleasedHim.com, a website database of those released, with nearly 20 charged with murder. DeCarlos Brown Jr., who has been charged in the stabbing death of 23-year-old Ukrainian refugee Iryna Zarutska aboard Charlotte’s light rail system back in August, was also on the list, but he had already been released a few months prior after serving his mandatory minimum sentence for a 2014 robbery with a dangerous weapon offense.

Cooper’s “rules for thee but not for me” stance during COVID is also coming back to haunt him, with fresh reporting from the North State Journal (NSJ) about Cooper being rushed to safety from the Executive Mansion during the early days of the George Floyd riots, which saw residences, businesses and the governor’s residence become targets of the rioters.

But while Cooper had the benefit of law enforcement amid the chaos, residents and businesses in the state capital of Raleigh received limited help from law enforcement.

“Former NCSHP members on duty that night said they were ordered to split off from assisting Raleigh Police and were diverted on foot to intervene at the Executive Mansion because the law enforcement presence at the mansion was ‘worried they were going to be overrun,’” NSJ reported.

Then-Raleigh Police Chief Cassandra Deck-Brown held a press conference that weekend during which she mentioned some officers were injured during the protests. A reporter mentioned how some businesses felt the police did not do enough to control the situation and to protect their property. Deck-Brown was then asked how she could assure those business owners that they should feel safe.

Deck-Brown proclaimed, “I will not put an officer in harm’s way to protect the property inside of a building.” Cooper seemed to agree with the sentiment, stating, “Let me be clear. People are more important than property. Black lives do matter.”

I wrote the following on X at the time: “Raleigh PD chief basically saying police will not stand in the way of rioters and looters, and NCGOV tells small biz owners the protest message is more important than the businesses they worked so hard to build. Really bad look for NC leadership right now. Terrible.” And this was not even a month after a ReOpen NC protester was arrested for damaging the governor’s security fence.

The message was clear: Protecting the governor and the mansion gates were the real priorities. The people, on the other hand, were largely on their own.

He would later violate his own pandemic mandates, choosing to march with protesters while not wearing a mask and not social distancing.

Cooper has a history of putting himself and his political ambitions before the people of North Carolina. With any luck, voters will finally decide in November they’ve had enough of that — and him.

North Carolina native Stacey Matthews has also written under the pseudonym Sister Toldjah and is a media analyst and regular contributor to RedState and Legal Insurrection.