Matt Mowers: Rep. Chris Pappas Should Denounce Democrat Calls to Commute Convicted ‘Cop Killer’

Matt Mowers, the Republican candidate for New Hampshire’s First Congressional District, called on Rep. Chris Pappas (D-NH) to denounce Democrat calls to commute the sentence of convicted “cop killer” Michael Addison during an interview Tuesday with Breitbart News Tonight host Matthew Boyle.

Mowers spoke to Breitbart News Tonight as the New Hampshire Democrat gubernatorial candidates, Dan Feltes and Andru Volinsky, said they would commute Addison’s sentence. Addison killed Manchester, New Hampshire, police officer Michael Briggs in 2006. Then-New Hampshire Attorney General Kelly Ayotte and the Department of Justice (DOJ) sought the death penalty for Addison’s killing of Briggs; however, the case is still tied up in court to this day.

Feltes later clarified that he does not “support the commutation right now.”

Mowers said that the murder of Addison deeply touched the New Hampshirites and that Democrats such as Pappas have continued to pursue a “weak on safety posture.”

Mowers charged that no one should commute “cop killers” when there remains so much unrest, violence, and looting in the country.

He told Breitbart News Tonight that the New Hampshire Democrats “have talked now about commuting the sentence of Michael Addison, this cop killer. At a time when our law enforcement is being targeted, at a time when we see what’s happening in places like L.A., when we saw cops shot in the middle of the day like we did just the other day, we know that we need to be supporting our law enforcement. We shouldn’t be commuting sentences for cop killers right now.”

“And Chris Pappas, being from Manchester, he should know that as well. He’s turned his back on law enforcement already, and in fact, the Manchester Police Union that backed him two years ago, he’s actually endorsed my campaign because they know Chris Pappas turned his back on law enforcement,” he added.

Mowers noted that the Manchester Police Union endorsed Pappas’s bid for Congress two years ago, but now, the city police union endorsed him over Pappas because of his anti-police policies. Pappas voted for the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act, which would strip law enforcement agencies’ qualified immunity legal protection. Qualified immunity protects law enforcement from frivolous lawsuits while protecting Americans while doing their job on the line of duty. 

Mowers said of Pappas’s vote, “When New Hampshire’s law enforcement called him and asked him why he voted for something that would strip qualified immunity, something that would protect them and their families from personal liability while they do their job in the line of duty, when he asked, he said it was because party leadership needed his vote.”

Mowers said that it was “disgusting” that Pappas would vote for an anti-police bill just to get “brownie points” from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA).

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