(RepublicanInformer.com)- During the violent and destructive Minneapolis Black Lives Matter riots that followed the in-custody death of George Floyd last summer, then Senator Kamala Harris was among those urging people to donate to a bail fund for those arrested during the rioting.
Harris tweeted out a link to the Minnesota Freedom Fund, urging her Twitter followers to “chip in now” to “help post bail for those protesting on the ground in Minnesota.”
There was a great deal of condemnation at the time over a sitting US Senator urging people to donate to get rioters released from jail. But the condemnation reached a fever pitch this week when it was learned that one man released on bond thanks to the Minnesota Freedom Fund shot a man to death late last month.
George Howard, 47, who had been in jail on a domestic abuse charge, was released thanks to the same bail fund Kamala promoted last summer. And on August 29, during a road-rage incident in Minneapolis, Howard allegedly shot and killed Luis Damian Martinez Ortiz.
Surveillance video captured Ortiz getting out of his BMW and approaching Howard’s vehicle. The video showed Howard shoot the man and flee. Ortiz later died from a gunshot wound to the chest.
Howard has now been charged with second degree murder with intent and second-degree murder without intent.
Just weeks earlier, Howard, a Minneapolis resident who was barred from legally owning a firearm due to a previous conviction, had been released on an $11,500 bond in a domestic assault case on August 6. Minnesota Freedom Fund provided the bond.
In a now-deleted tweet, the Minnesota Freedom Fund acknowledged that it facilitated Howard’s release. In the tweet, MFF defended its mission to provide bail money for those a judge deems eligible for bail. However, in a follow-up tweet (also now deleted) the group did say that it would implement changes to its policies and procedures.
Neither Vice President Harris’ office nor the White House have offered any comment on the story.
If convicted on the charges, George Howard faces up to eighty years in prison.
