Nearly half the inmates freed under former North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper's pandemic-era prison settlement were later arrested on new charges, and at least 18 of them now face murder charges, according to state data and a review by multiple news outlets. The numbers have turned Cooper's record into the central issue of his 2026 Democratic Senate campaign.
Republican opponent Michael Whatley and national GOP groups are hammering Cooper over a February 2021 legal settlement that opened the doors for roughly 3,500 prisoners to leave state facilities over six months. Cooper's administration struck the deal with the North Carolina NAACP, the ACLU, and other civil rights organizations after they sued in 2020, arguing that crowded prison conditions during the pandemic put inmates at unconstitutional risk.
At the time, Cooper's team assured lawmakers the releases would focus on nonviolent offenders. Officials later acknowledged that individuals convicted of violent crimes were also included. A Washington Free Beacon investigation found that 51 inmates serving life sentences for first-degree murder, second-degree murder, or first-degree rape appeared on the early-release list, and more than 90 percent of those lifers were released after the settlement was signed. The Cooper administration had told lawmakers that nobody who had "committed a crime against a person" would be included as part of the deal.
That gap between promise and outcome is now driving a fierce Senate race.
Fox News Digital reviewed data from the North Carolina Sentencing and Policy Advisory Commission and found that from a sample group of 1,180 released prisoners, 566, 48 percent, were later arrested on charges of new offenses within two years. Twenty percent of that sample group have already been convicted.
The recidivism rate among the settlement releases actually exceeded the baseline. A 2024 report from the same commission, cited by the New York Post, found a 48 percent reoffending rate for the Cooper-era releases compared to 44 percent for nearly 13,000 other inmates released during fiscal year 2021. More than 600 of the freed inmates were later accused of serious felonies, including at least 18 charged with murder and more than 80 charged with sex offenses.
Court records show some of the released inmates had extensive felony histories involving assault, sexual offenses, kidnapping, and offenses against children, histories that were known before they walked out.
The cases are not abstractions. Tyrell Brace, who had previously pleaded guilty to assault by strangulation and assault inflicting serious injury and had felony larceny and breaking-and-entering convictions, was released months earlier than his original January 15, 2022, date. He was later charged with first-degree murder in the killing of Elante Thompson, a young father, in Charlotte. The shooting took place on January 29, 2022, just two weeks after Brace was originally scheduled for release.
Debra Thompson, a family member of the victim, told the New York Post: "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?"
Daron Owens was released a month early. Months later, he carried out a drive-by shooting that left a victim with gunshot wounds. A federal court sentenced Owens to 10 years in prison for possession of a firearm by a felon.
Jimmie Speight, convicted of indecent liberty with a child and failure to register as a sex offender, was released just under nine months early. In 2023, he was sentenced to more than 32 years in prison for second-degree murder.
Kyshuan Norrell, previously convicted of manslaughter, was freed under the settlement. He has since been sentenced to life in prison for first-degree murder.
The pattern is consistent enough that the Whatley campaign is treating it as a defining issue. DJ Griffin, Whatley's spokesperson, told Fox News Digital that Cooper's "dangerous decision to release thousands of convicted felons during COVID has resulted in the deaths of 19 North Carolinians." Griffin added that "victims' families say he is solely to blame for these deaths. All while Cooper refuses to take any responsibility for his actions."
Cooper's campaign has pushed back hard, calling the Republican attacks "blatant lies" that "have been fact-checked for months and found to be false." A campaign spokesperson argued that Cooper "fought against these releases in court" and that North Carolina law enforcement and parole officers "looked to similar criteria President Trump used a year prior when his administration released thousands of federal prisoners due to COVID-19."
"Keeping the public safe is Roy Cooper's top priority, which is why he refused to commute sentences when outside groups asked him to during the pandemic."
The Cooper campaign also went on offense against Whatley, claiming that "while Roy spent his career putting rapists and violent criminals behind bars, Michael Whatley spent his appointing a convicted child sex predator who served time in prison for multiple counts of felony child sex crimes to a powerful position within the North Carolina Republican Party." That reference involves Harvey West Jr., a registered sex offender who, according to WRAL News as cited by Fox News Digital, said Whatley appointed him to the Plan of Organization Committee in 2021 and 2024. Whatley told the Washington Examiner that West "was elected on his own."
But the Cooper campaign's defense faces a structural problem. The settlement his administration signed did result in 3,500 releases. The assurances about nonviolent offenders did not hold. And the state's own data shows a recidivism rate that exceeded the norm. Those are not Republican talking points, they are commission findings.
The broader dynamics of the 2026 Senate landscape already favor Republicans, and Cooper's vulnerability on criminal justice could make North Carolina an even steeper climb for Democrats.
The roots of the controversy trace to 2020, when the North Carolina NAACP, the ACLU, and other groups filed a lawsuit alleging that prison conditions during COVID-19 violated inmates' rights under the state constitution. AP News reported that the resulting deal aimed to reduce the state prison population by about one-eighth of its more than 28,000 inmates.
Anthony Spearman, then president of the NC NAACP, framed the agreement in sweeping terms at the time, saying, "What's happening in North Carolina prisons is the convergence of two pandemics both fueled by racism and classism, COVID 19 and an unjust criminal legal system." The ACLU of North Carolina called the settlement a "momentous achievement."
North Carolina Department of Adult Correction spokesman Keith Acree told the Washington Free Beacon that "the NC Post Release Supervision and Parole Commission had discretion to approve individuals' placement onto parole." That discretion is precisely what critics say produced the disastrous outcomes.
The case of Decarlos Dejuan Brown Jr. illustrates the murky lines. Republicans alleged Brown, charged with the murder of Ukrainian refugee Iryna Zarutska, may have been among the settlement releases. A Charlotte Observer report cited a Department of Adult Correction spokesperson saying Brown was not released early and that his release was counted in the settlement totals "because the settlement allowed the state to count certain cases retroactively to meet its terms." Brown had been arrested at least 14 times before the killing and previously served time after a 2015 armed robbery conviction. He was released from custody in September 2020. Cooper denied the allegation linking Brown to the settlement as a "lie."
That retroactive counting raises its own questions about the integrity of the settlement's terms and how the administration tracked compliance.
The National Republican Senatorial Committee has seized on the issue. Bernadette Breslin, the NRSC's national press secretary, told Fox News Digital that Cooper "aided and abetted the release of thousands of violent criminals onto North Carolina's streets" and that "Cooper's soft-on-crime policies are too dangerous for North Carolina families."
Whatley himself posted on X: "Roy Cooper was a complete failure at keeping our communities safe." He added: "Victims' families deserve answers. Why did Roy Cooper allow these dangerous criminals back on our streets?"
Just The News reported that Whatley said in a separate statement: "Nineteen innocent North Carolinians are dead because Roy Cooper chose to let violent criminals walk free."
The soft-on-crime attack line is not unique to this race. Across the country, Democratic leaders have faced pressure from their own members over enforcement-related votes, and Senate candidates in competitive states are navigating a political environment where public safety ranks high among voter concerns.
Cooper's situation is compounded by the fact that Senate Democrats' top 2026 recruits are already struggling to distance themselves from national party leadership on a range of issues. A candidate carrying the weight of 3,500 early releases, and the crimes that followed, faces a different kind of problem. It is not about messaging. It is about a record.
Early in the pandemic, North Carolina officials framed the releases as a narrow, carefully managed public-health response. A Washington Examiner report from that period quoted Public Safety Secretary Erik Hooks saying, "The department has been reviewing all options to protect public safety as well as our employees and those in the state's custody." Officials said those under consideration included pregnant women, older adults, and inmates on home leave or work release, "subject to strict criteria and legal requirements."
What followed bore little resemblance to that description. Lifers convicted of murder and rape made the list. Inmates with histories of assault, kidnapping, and sex offenses walked free months ahead of schedule. And within two years, hundreds were back in the system, charged with new felonies, including murder.
Cooper's campaign can argue process. It can point to the courts, the parole commission, and the pandemic. But the families of Elante Thompson, Iryna Zarutska, and at least 17 other North Carolinians now dead at the hands of released inmates are not interested in process.
Carrie Chavis, quoted by the New York Post, put it plainly: "They shouldn't let him out. They need to pay for what they did. He already killed someone before. They shouldn't have even had the opportunity to let him out."
When a governor promises that only nonviolent offenders will go free, and convicted murderers and rapists end up on the list instead, voters do not need a campaign ad to draw the conclusion. The record draws it for them.
