Roy Cooper, the former Democratic governor of North Carolina now running for the U.S. Senate, included a former member of the Bloods gang on a "Racial Equity in Criminal Justice" task force in 2020. The task force was established by executive order in the wake of George Floyd's death.
Cooper, who tapped then-state Attorney General Josh Stein to lead the task force, appointed Kerwin Pittman to the panel. Pittman was convicted in 2007 of conspiracy to commit murder and served 14 years in prison, according to records obtained by The Washington Free Beacon. Prosecutors had identified Pittman as a "ranking member of the Bloods" during a murder trial.
Pittman's conviction stemmed from his involvement in a 2006 drive-by shooting that resulted in the death of 19-year-old Jamel Amiens Jeffreys. Pittman, now 39, defended his inclusion on the task force, stating that his past actions occurred when he was a teenager and young man, and he has never hidden his history. "I was asked to contribute to conversations about criminal justice reform because of both my lived experience and the work I was doing in communities," Pittman told the Free Beacon.
At the time of the task force's creation, Pittman worked for Emancipate NC, an organization that has previously advocated for the abolition of police, according to The Free Beacon. A 2023 blog post by the organization stated that "maintaining white supremacy has always been the goal of policing."
When asked for comment on the report, Cooper's campaign pointed to the record of his opponent, former Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Whatley. The campaign statement said, "While Roy spent his career putting rapists and violent criminals behind bars and signing tough on crime laws as governor, Michael Whatley spent his appointing a convicted child sex predator who served six years in prison and spent over a decade as a registered sex offender to a top role within the North Carolina Republican Party that gave him access to events with children." Pittman and the Whatley campaign did not immediately respond to requests for comment.