WASHINGTON — A mass release of North Carolina prisoners under Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper during the COVID-19 pandemic had a devastating effect on public safety — with nearly half of the sprung inmates going on to commit more crimes, according to a Post review of state records and reports.
At least 3,500 convicts were released as part of a little-known settlement between Cooper’s administration and civil rights groups in February 2021 — and The Post found more than 600 of those later committed serious felonies like homicides, sex offenses, or other violent crimes.
A staggering 18 of the prisoners released have been charged with murder in the four years since.
In all, North Carolina’s Sentencing and Policy Advisory Commission found in a 2024 report that the recidivism rate for the 3,500 released as part of the settlement was 48%, higher than the rate for the nearly 13,000 released over the course of fiscal year 2021 (44%).
Among them is Tyrell Brace, who was arrested and charged with the murder of Elante’ Thompson, 23, on Jan. 29, 2022, after being set free in July 2021 following multiple jail stints over the preceding decade for grand larcenies, breaking and entering, and assault by strangulation of a female with an unborn child.
Brace, now 29, was arrested in August 2022 following a seven-month investigation and pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter one year later. He had been expected to be released before the fatal shooting of Thompson, but got out even earlier due to the Cooper settlement.
Thompson’s mom, Debra, placed “the complete” blame on the then-governor for the death of her son — who was coming home from a party with friends when he saw a fight break out, tried to intervene and was shot dead.
“Why would you release somebody like that?” Debra Thompson told The Post. “They’re already showing they’re a gangster to society. You’re going to release a menace on the street?”
Thompson left behind a young daughter, who is now 6.
“I still have his goals that he wrote out. He was at school for computer science. And he was doing very well,” said Debra Thompson, who is now studying for law school, a choice she says was inspired by her son’s murder.
The release of criminals during the pandemic, which was not unique to North Carolina, has been highlighted by Republicans as Cooper seeks to become the first Democrat elected to the Senate from the Tar Heel State since 2008.
Former Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Whatley, Cooper’s GOP opponent, has been hammering the ex-Democratic governor over his administration’s settlement with the civil rights groups in recent weeks.
“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,” a Cooper campaign spokesperson said in a statement, referring to the governor’s refusal to sign an executive order authorizing the releases.
“After Roy fought against these releases in court, North Carolina law enforcement officials 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,” the rep added.
The ACLU and other groups sued Cooper in April 2020 to prevent convicts from dying “behind bars during this global emergency,” resulting in the Feb. 25, 2021, settlement that let thousands out of prison that year — one of the largest releases nationwide.
Cooper, who served as North Carolina attorney general before being elected governor in 2016 and completing two terms, narrowly avoided releasing as many as 18,000 prisoners under pressure from activists before the court-ordered settlement.
Among those freed in the months immediately preceding the settlement was Kyshaun Norrell, who had been set for an October 2021 release date, but ended up getting out more than a year prior, per the North Carolina Department of Adult Correction database.
Norrell, now 29, is serving life in prison after being convicted of first-degree murder in a March 2023 double shooting near Raleigh that took the life of David Chavis, 34, and injured a woman near Raleigh.
Carrie Chavis, 65, told The Post she doesn’t blame Cooper in particular for her son’s murder, but criticized what she calls a dysfunctional system.
“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,” she said. “I‘m still grieving for my son. The pain’s not ever going away.”
Norrell had previously been convicted of murder as a juvenile after he shot two people, one of whom died, in a school parking lot when he was 17.
Both the first Trump administration and several states released prisoners en masse during the COVID pandemic.
More than 215,000 inmates exited federal facilities between February 2020 and February 2021, according to a Bureau of Justice Statistics report in December 2022.
Many states, including North Carolina, looked to the release of around 13,000 inmates as part of the 2020 CARES Act to determine criteria for commuting sentences.
Last month, a rep for the state’s Department of Adult Correction said: “The people managing the settlement process worked very hard to find candidates for release that presented the lowest risk to public safety, using risk assessment tools and knowledge of past behavior.”
In New York, the administration of former Gov. Andrew Cuomo oversaw the release of 11,410 inmates, with an around 19% recidivism rate, per the Bureau of Justice Statistics report and a state evaluation.
California let loose at least 15,000, around one-third of whom later ended up back behind bars, according to a report last year from the outlet CalMatters.
In North Carolina, though, the 18 murder charges raise eyebrows.
Brandon Locklear, 38, was also sentenced last year to 13 years in prison for shooting a mother dead on the side of a road in August 2023. He had been released two months early in August 2021 while serving a previous sentence for assault with a deadly weapon, according to court papers.
Another reoffender, Daron Owens, was hit with a 10-year federal sentence for being involved in a November 2021 drive-by shooting. Owens, 24, had been released in June 2021, a month earlier than scheduled.
Garry Jenkins was charged with fatally stabbing a man at a convenience store in January 2022 and eluded police for more than a month before his capture. The now 64-year-old had a long rap sheet of assault and drug charges and had previously been released from prison in May 2021.
Two more reoffenders — Fred English and Lucas Scronce — were charged for deaths tied to fentanyl use, with Scronce pleading to the second-degree murder of his 16-month-old daughter in April 2025.
Convicted felon Jimmie Speight was also let loose in November 2020 — nine months before his projected release date — and was subsequently charged with second-degree murder, rape and kidnapping in April 2021.
The 32-year-old was previously sentenced for indecent liberty with a child and failure to register as a sex offender in August 2017.
Speight was among more than 80 released convicts who were charged with sex offenses after getting out.
The main Senate Republican campaign arm has also attacked Cooper over the release of Decarlos Brown Jr., a crazed homeless man who was charged with murdering a 23-year-old Ukrainian refugee on a Charlotte light rail train in August 2025.
Brown had previously served sentences for larceny, breaking and entering and robbery with a dangerous weapon — and his prison offender number was included on the list of thousands set loose via the February 2021 COVID settlement.
State records show he was released months before in September 2020, though he had previously been noted in the settlement for a release date of Nov. 7, 2021.
“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,” the Cooper campaign rep responded in a statement.
That convicted sex offender, Harvey West, had pleaded guilty to multiple counts of indecent liberty with a child in 2000 and was released in 2006. West, who has not reoffended, later served on two GOP state committees, one of which he was appointed to by Whatley.