Roy Cooper, the former North Carolina Democratic governor now running for the US Senate, appointed a former Bloods gang member with a serious violent-crime conviction to a state criminal justice reform panel he created in 2020, according to a report by The Washington Free Beacon. Cooper set up the "Racial Equity in Criminal Justice" task force by executive order in the aftermath of George Floyd's death, placing current Governor Josh Stein, then the state attorney general, in charge of it. The appointment has resurfaced amid Cooper's closely watched Senate race against Republican Michael Whatley, feeding into wider campaign clashes over crime and character.

The appointee, Kerwin Pittman, was convicted in 2007 of conspiracy to commit murder linked to a 2006 drive-by shooting and served 14 years in prison; prosecutors separately named him a "ranking member" of the Bloods gang during another trial. Pittman, who was working for the police-abolition-aligned group Emancipate NC at the time, defended his inclusion on the task force, saying the conduct occurred when he was a teenager and that he has never concealed his past. The Cooper campaign responded by pointing to Whatley's own record, accusing him of having appointed a convicted child sex offender to a senior North Carolina Republican Party role. Neither Pittman nor the Whatley campaign had responded to requests for comment at the time of publication.