Are leftist anti-Trump demonstrators who regularly gather on a greenway bridge in Durham causing traffic accidents on the highway below?

Wake County is shutting down its online mugshot/arrest record portal, to be replaced with an in-person kiosk in downtown Raleigh. Is this really to comply with a state law, or is it yet another decision related to the government’s “core value” of DEI?

A recently released transcript of a Senate committee interview with UNC-Chapel Hill coronavirologist Dr. Ralph Baric reveals additional details on gain-of-function research on Chinese bat coronavirus, including his lack of confidence in the trustworthiness of partners at the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

General Assembly gives $300k to Harnett legislator’s HOA

Gated community gets $300,000 in NC budget - Carolina Journal

EXCLUSIVE: Private posts credit NC lawmaker with securing $300K for gated community where he lives - Carolina Journal

The state budget recently passed by the General Assembly and signed by Gov. Josh Stein includes $300k in special appropriations for the Carolina Lakes Property Owners’ Association, a neighborhood in southwest Harnett County of which Rep. Joseph Pike (R-Harnett) just-so-happens to be a resident.

The budget allocates $160k of taxpayer dollars for “emergency services needs” of the private community, and $140k for “various needs, including shelter replacement, repair, and maintenance.”

According to screenshots obtained by the Carolina Journal from a private Facebook page for the community, Pike’s neighbors credit him with obtaining the handout for the neighborhood, with messages such as “Thank you, Joe Pike, for going to bat for our community” and “Thanks Joe Pike, way to represent!”

Analysis from the John Locke Foundation reveals that the Regional Economic Development Reserve from which these funds are allocated is part of a recent trend which allows legislators to earmark funds for specific projects which are not counted as part of the $34.4 billion which is reported as the “net appropriations” in the budget report. (A total of approximately $3 billion was funneled through these “reserves,” according to the John Locke analysis, which is nearly a 10% increase over the widely-reported “total.”)

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Are leftist bridge demonstrators causing highway crashes?

Crash data raises safety questions about bridge protests on I-40 - Carolina Journal

A regular demonstration by left-wing activists held on a bridge over a major Durham interstate during rush hour appears to be responsible for a massive increase in vehicular accidents, according to data analyzed by the Carolina Journal.

The location in question, where the American Tobacco Trail crosses I-40 in the southern outskirts of Durham, has been the site of demonstrations organized by Engaged Durhamites for Democracy aka Engaged Defenders for Democracy for over a year, as part of the “resistance” under Trump’s second term, with signs and flags often featuring anti-Trump, anti-Musk/anti-DOGE, and pro-Ukraine themes.

According to the Carolina Journal report, the number of crashes is over twice as high during the hours in which these demonstrations regularly take place:

After hearing reports from motorists about crashes and backups near the bridge, Carolina Journal reviewed DOT crash records between exits 273 and 278 on I-40 in Durham during recurring Wednesday and Thursday demonstrations from May 1, 2025, through April 30, 2026.

Rear-end collisions increased by 157% during the protest period, according to the analysis. The crashes caused more than $80,000 in estimated property damage.

— Crash data raises safety questions about bridge protests on I-40 (Carolina Journal) July 23, 2026

Anecdotal evidence suggests that the drivers distracted by the demonstration include both supporters and detractors, with one in a bridge protest describing to the Carolina Journal an incident in which a driver crashed his truck while giving them the middle finger:

ED4D is part of (or perhaps the founder of) the Triangle Unified Bridge Brigade, which lists locations stretching down to Chapel Hill and Apex, as well as to the opposite side of Raleigh. ED4D has also been involved in organizing non-bridge related events, such as a series of protests at the a local Tesla or various small gatherings, as well as participation in organizing the nationwide 50501/anti-Trump protests.

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Wake County curtails mugshot access

Wake County ending era of online mug shots - Axios

Wake County to deactivate arrest and mugshot website, move info to a single kiosk downtown - CBS17

Wake County is removing its online portal for seeing arrest records. Here’s why. - N&O

For years, Wake County has led its neighbors in public accessibility to arrest records, with the county’s Bureau of Forensic Services maintaining an online portal allowing the public to access mugshots and other public records relating to arrests by law enforcement agencies across the county.

However, according to a notice now visible to users of the desktop version of the website, access to this data will now be restricted to a “public kiosk” available during business hours at the county building in downtown Raleigh:

Notice

Effective August 17, 2026, this website will be deactivated. All information currently available on this portal will be accessible on a public kiosk located in the main lobby of the John H. Baker Jr. Public Safety Center, 330 S. Salisbury St., Raleigh, NC.

This lobby is open Monday-Friday, 8:30a-5:00p, and closed on Wake County approved holidays.

Questions concerning this change may be submitted via telephone to 919-255-7369.

— Wake County Bureau of Forensic Services (Retrieved July 27, 2026)

According to the explanation given by the bureau’s director to various news outlets, this restriction of public access is a response to the “Second Chance Act,” which was passed unanimously by the NC legislature in 2020, which makes it easier for criminals to get their records expunged.

Director Sam Pennica told Axios that they “get calls weekly” from expunged offenders upset that their booking records are still available via the portal, with Pennica explaining that his office does not receive updates from the judicial system to remove records which have been automatically expunged.

This justification is somewhat ironic given that Pennica attributes the creation of the portal in 2007 to daily requests from “The Slammer,” a $1 tabloid based on the publication of mugshots.

The restriction of access has apparently been under consideration since at least 2021, when the News & Observer reported on an unsuccessful attempt to exempt mugshots from the public records act.

However, this measure does not appear to affect which records which are available: members of the public will still be able access the Wake County arrest/booking records for these “expunged” criminals, but only after jumping through the same hoops which they must jump through to access records for non-expunged arrestees, which are covered under North Carolina’s public records act (NC GS 132).

Ulterior motive?

In 2020, a number of major news outlets announced that they would be pulling back on the use of mugshots, such as WRAL citing that “many observers have begun to question the value of these photos and their potential for either reinforcing or creating stereotypes” and the Tampa Bay Times referencing that “several news organizations have discontinued such galleries amid criticism that they disproportionately show black and brown faces.”

(Although in line with the BLM movement that swept the nation in the summer of 2020, WRAL’s announcement actually preceded the death of George Floyd by two months.)

While no county officials appear to have made a statement to this effect regarding mugshot access, one might not be too far off base in making the connection in a county which used COVID-19 stimulus funds for a DEI initiative to achieve a goal of fewer “white male” firefighters and listed the “foster[ing] of diversity, equity, and inclusion” on its “Core Values” web page up until mid-2025, where the school district is applying DEI to the celebration of America’s 250th anniversary, and which is dominated by a city pursuing a DEI agenda despite federal and state efforts to crack down.

The Triangle Trumpet, on the other hand, takes a polar opposite approach to disseminating information; if the data shows that a particular race, ethnicity, or sex is disproportionately committing crime in general (or a crime specifically), that is a pattern the public should be able to be aware of.

For instance, the tool in question was recently used to report that while 17 out of 27 adults arrested at a “teen takeover” at Glenwood South were not teens, zero out of those 27 were not black:

In addition, the arrest record data exposed by this portal was used in our report last year showing that while Hispanics only make up ~12% of the Wake County population, they are over 40% of the arrests for “statutory” offenses involving sexual conduct with minors.

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Follow-up

Senate committee interview w/ Ralph Baric reveals details on gain-of-function research, etc.

Transcribed Interview of Dr. Ralph Baric - The Reading Room (Sen. Rand Paul)

Ralph Baric Just Blew Up the Official COVID Origins Narrative - Dr. Robert W. Malone

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Kentucky) has released a transcript of an interview with now-retired UNC coronavirologist Dr. Ralph Baric as part of an investigation into the “origins of COVID-19 and risky taxpayer-funded life sciences research” by the U.S. Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, of which Paul is the chairman.

The interview contains details about the infamous DEFUSE proposal, which involved bat coronaviruses, gain-of-function research, Baric, and the Wuhan Institute of Virology, and has been described as the “blueprint” for how the deadly virus could have been created in a lab.

Baric confirmed to the interviewer that the proposal was in response to a Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) program which was indeed soliciting “gain-of-function” research, specifically investigating cross-species transmission of viruses “down to the nucleotide level.”

Although the DEFUSE proposal specified that the gain-of-function portion of the research into Chinese bat coronaviruses would have been done by Baric in Chapel Hill at the University of North Carolina, Baric admitted in the interview that he was not confident that his Chinese partners would have followed through with the proposed cooperation:

MS. SALAZAR: And who was going to be doing [the gain-of-function experiment]?

DR. BARIC: That part would be done by me.

MS. SALAZAR: Okay.

DR. BARIC: Well, at least that’s the way the grant was written initially. Whether that would have functionally happened is a fair question, because if the Chinese discovered the virus, the question always exists whether they would share it with me to do that work or not.

MS. SALAZAR: If you were on the proposal, you would have expected that they would?

DR. BARIC: I would have, but I would also be uncertain that they would do that.

— HSGAC: Transcribed Interview of Dr. Ralph Baric (pp. 92-93) April 10, 2026

(Although the DEFUSE proposal was not funded by DARPA, many believe that SARS-CoV-2 is a result of the research described in the proposal being conducted under sub-par biosafety precautions at the Wuhan Institute of Virology.)

Other “key findings” identified in the cover to the transcription release include:

• Undisclosed Baric Experiment Undercuts Key Argument in Proximal Origins Paper That COVID Wasn’t Engineered

• On the Secret Feb. 1 Call — Unexplained Presence, and Conflicting Accounts of Whether He Spoke

• Paid U.S. Intelligence Community Biodefense Advisor Sent a Taxpayer-Funded Mouse Model to Wuhan

• Five Years to Disclose EcoHealth’s USAID Funding on the 2015 WIV Paper with Dr. Shi

• NIH Could Not Locate Its Own Gain-of-Function Review Records

Previous Coverage:

• Public Records Lawsuit Against UNC by Medical Watchdog Group Investigating COVID-19 Origins Advances (Original Article — Nov. 6, 2023)

• UNC claims “research project collaborations” are exempt from public records statute in COVID-19 origins investigation lawsuit (No. 57 — Feb. 3, 2024)

• U.S. Right to Know public records lawsuit reveals efforts to evade transparency (No. 58 — Feb. 10, 2024)

• Coronavirus Pandemic Subcommittee alleges FBI interest in UNC/COVID origins public records requests (No. 59 — Feb. 17, 2024)

• UNC COVID-19 Origins Public Records Lawsuit: what does “proprietary mean”? (No. 61 — Mar. 2, 2024)

• “Stop Gain of Function” rally at UNC-Chapel Hill (No. 62 — Mar. 9, 2024)

• UNC-linked coronavirus researcher accused of “discrepancies in testimony” (No. 66 — Apr. 6, 2024)

• UNC coronavirologist Ralph Baric: “can’t rule out” lab leak origin of COVID-19 (No. 70 — May 4, 2024)

• 3rd Party Report Finds UNC Withheld Public Records Requested by Medical Watchdog Group Investigating COVID-19 Origins (Original Article — Aug. 1, 2024)

• Judge rules in favor of UNC in public records suit brought by medical watchdog investigating COVID-19 (No. 94 — Oct. 19, 2024)

• U.S. Right to Know appeals public records lawsuit ruling vs UNC (No. 99 — Nov. 23, 2024)

• UNC lab leaks? Evidence indicates seven lab-acquired SARS-CoV-2 infections in Chapel Hill during pandemic, researchers say (interview) (Original Article — Apr. 26, 2025)

• US Right to Know files brief filed in appeal of UNC COVID-origins public records lawsuit (No. 126 — May 31, 2025)

• COVID-19 origins transparency? Legislative committee requests UNC records (No. 128 — Jun. 14, 2025)

• AG Jackson files response to COVID-19 origins public records appeal (No. 136 — Aug. 9, 2025)

• Appeals court sides with UNC in public records lawsuit over COVID-19 origins (No. 158 — Jan. 10, 2026)

• Lead COVID-19 virologist placed on leave from UNC? (No. 174 — May 2, 2026)

• Confirmed: UNC coronavirologist to retire as feds block grant funding over gain of function misdeeds (No. 176 — May 16, 2026)

A pair of Chinese are accused of defrauding over $12k from a local collectible card shop in Cary as part of a “organized crime unit.”

An alleged child sex predator described by the News & Observer as a “Burlington man” is in fact a Spanish-speaking immigrant for whom legal status cannot be determined, and faces charges for molesting a 6-year-old and a 9-year-old in Durham and Chapel Hill.

Selma Police have made an arrest in a 25-year-old rape case after a DNA sample from “America’s Jihad Capital” of Dearborn, MI matched a sexual assault kit from the cold case rape; is there a “Mohamed” connection?

The state auditor has released his report on the Town of Cary under its now-former town manager, revealing extensive patterns of waste and lack of accountability.

Durham senator lobbied w/ separated husband ahead of $1.1 billion fine

As candidate, NC senator lobbied for husband’s energy company amid federal probe - N&O

State Sen. Sophia Chitlik (D-Durham) joined her husband Ben Abram in lobbying Congressional staff on behalf of American Efficient, an energy company he co-founded which was already under an investigation by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission which has resulted in a $1.1 billion fine for what FERC described as “one of the largest and most brazen frauds” in its history.

The meetings occurred in March and April of 2024, around the time Chitlik defeated incumbent Mike Woodard in the Democratic primary for Senate District 22.

Chitlik, who was not registered as a lobbyist, explained to the News & Observer that the lobbying was unpaid work “to be a supportive friend to the father of my child,” also revealing that she and Abram had separated the year prior.

This separation is also Chitlik’s explanation for not reporting her husband’s financial interests in required disclosures as a legislature, despite still being legally married. (This is in line with guidance by the NC State Ethics Commission.)

However, the separation hasn’t prevented Abram from using spousal exemptions to exceed the ordinary limits of individual support for Chitlik’s political ambitions, with a loan of $18,000 in 2024 and a donation of $7,560 earlier this year.

Records analyzed by the N&O also show that Chitlik’s $1.2 million Durham residence is owned by a corporation managed by Abram, and that her financial disclosures did not list any sources of income above $5,000.

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“Organized crime:” Chinese pair accused with defrauding $12.5k at Cary shop

2 charged with using stolen card to buy $12K worth of Pokémon cards at Cary collectibles store: Warrants - CBS17

Pair bought Pokémon cards with stolen ID, tried to resell them, warrant says - WRAL

Dongwei Lin, 30, and Xinyi Lin, 27, each face charges of felony conspiracy, identity theft, obtaining property by false pretenses, and financial card fraud for allegedly posing as a “Mike Smith” to use a stolen credit card to purchase Pokémon cards.

In a video shared to Instagram, Triangle Area Trading Cards co-owner Adam Reynolds attributed the crime to a “organized crime unit operating up and down the East coast,” with the pair making off with over $12,500.

Court documents indicate that a magistrate was “unable to determine” citizenship or legal status after each defendant admitted to being born in China; while Xinyi Lin claimed to be a US citizen (but could not provide proof), Dongwei Lin admitted to not being a US citizen and is now subject to an ICE detainer.

Both of the Lins were in need of a Mandarin interpreter, according to their arrest warrants, and both are listed as “white” inmates of the Wake County jail where each is being held on a $75,000 bond.

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Not a “Burlington man:” (illegal?) immigrant charged with molesting children

Burlington man arrested for alleged child sex crimes in two Triangle counties - N&O

A “Burlington man” charged with abusing children in Chapel Hill and Durham is in fact an immigrant for whom legal status cannot be determined, according to court documents¹ ² ³.

Saul Antonio Sosa, 64, is facing three counts of statutory sex offense with a child by an adult and six counts of indecent liberty with a child for crimes committed in 2018/2019 against at least two victims, aged six and nine at the date of the alleged offenses.

Sosa required a Spanish interpreter, according to arrest warrants; Sosa’s previous criminal record consists only of traffic charges, which appear to indicate he has been in North Carolina since at least 1998.

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71-year-old immigrant extradited from Michigan for 25-year-old cold case rape

DNA Match Solves 25-Year-Old Selma Rape, Kidnapping Cold Case - JoCo Report

Arrest made in 25-year-old Selma rape and kidnapping cold case, police say - CBS17

Press Release - Selma Police

Jaman Mohamed Al-Jasi, 71, a resident of Detroit, MI, has been charged with first-degree rape, first-degree kidnapping, and first-degree sexual offense involving a 24-year-old female victim in Selma in 2001.

Selma Police say that Al-Jasi was identified after DNA collected in an unrelated criminal investigation in Michigan matched to the sexual assault kit which had been taken in the original investigation.

Perhaps coincidentally, the “Brotherhood Market” on Pollock St. in Selma where the crime occurred is registered (as of 2026) to a “Mohamad Alwahishi,” and Al-Jasi’s DNA was matched from a hit in Dearborn, MI, which has been described as “America’s Jihad Capital” due to the massive influx of often-radical Muslim immigrants.

Voting records appear to show that Al-Jasi is a naturalized citizen who registered in vote in Sanford as of 2020.

Al-Jasi has been extradited from Michigan, and is being held in Johnston County jail without bond.

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Follow-up

State Auditor releases report on Cary financial practices

Investigative Report (Town of Cary) - State Auditor Dave Boleik

State Auditor’s Investigation: Cary Staff Spent $24 Million in Two Years Under Former Town Manager - INDY

‘Extravagant spending’: State audit questions expenses and alleges lax financial oversight in Cary - WRAL

Former Cary town manager’s use of public funds called ‘questionable’ in state’s 2,600+ page audit - ABC11

Cary’s former Town Manager Sean Stegall oversaw a “culture of extravagant spending,” according to a newly released 2,600-page report by State Auditor Dave Boliek.

In addition to previously reported-on financial irregularities such as funding a town councilmember’s graduate school tuition, a ghostwriter for Stegall’s book, and unapproved property purchases, the report’s highlighted findings include:

• overissuance and “questionable” use of procurement cards

• $121,314 on video production for a retreat for council and staff in Wilmington

• $802 “car allowance” per councilmember per month

• “erratic behavior and bullying” by Stegall

• violation of the town’s Fund Balance Policy by overspending

The report reveals that 62% of town employees were issued procurement cards which were used to spend $24.2 million in taxpayer dollars across 60,591 transactions in a two year period, a significantly higher percentage of card-equipped employees than neighboring Raleigh (16%) or Durham (15%), which are each close to the average of 16% for the top 10 largest municipalities in the state.

In addition to numerous violation of policy regarding their use, the analysis for procurement card spending revealed “food, travel, & other questionable expenses” such as:

• $490.06 by Stegall on a steak dinner for two in Atlanta (Stegall claimed the dinner included Mayor Harold Weinbrecht, though documentation proved he was on a flight at the time of the meal)

• $2,205.92 for an election night “bond watch party”

• $4,164 for a 41-person retreat dinner at a “French Quarter-Inspired” restaurant in Raleigh

• $3,419 for a 4-night penthouse stay in Austin, which Stegall claimed was “for multiple staff” despite hotel records showing only one guest

• $5,843 for cancellation fees for a Quarterly Council Meeting after staff forgot to cancel a secondary date

• $1,600 for 10 pairs of Cary-branded sunglasses for the council

• $733 for a van transport from the Cary Town Hall to a not-so-distant golf course for a Wake County Mayors Association Holiday Dinner

The town’s council and staff retreat in Wilmington in 2024 included a “choreographed dance routine” by town staff as a “surprise gift for Mr. Stegall and the Council.” Although the staff used personal time and funds to arrange and prepare for the performance, Stegall hired a video production company (which had already been paid over $80,000 to make two videos for the retreat) to make a documentary on the preparation of the performance for an additional $34,975:

Previous Coverage:

• State Auditor probing Cary after dubious financial transactions come to light amid town manager’s suspension (No. 154 — Dec. 13, 2025)

• Cary Manager resigns w/ nearly $200k severance amid expanding financial scandals (No. 155 — Dec. 20, 2025)

• Town of Cary revealed to have footed the bill for ex-manager’s self-promotional book (No. 158 — Jan. 10, 2026)

• Investigation into Cary town manager heats up w/ potential criminal charges (No. 159— Jan. 17, 2026)

A Mexican immigrant has been sentenced to 13 years in prison after being caught trafficking meth through his Sanford home.

A woman has been charged with involuntary manslaughter after fireworks she allegedly set off at a Dunn apartment complex started a fire which killed her 7-year-old neighbor.

Viral video recorded a man forcefully stopping two masked demonstrators from setting an American flag alight on the night of July 4th in Durham, but few details regarding the incident are available.

On the night of July 4th/5th, nine individuals were shot across six incidents related to two “teen takeovers” in Raleigh, but social media posts and arrest data show that the police and media are suppressing a certain commonality between the individuals behind the collective mayhem.

Foreign parasite sickens Wake County

Triangle experts explain intestinal bug cases linked to parasite in North Carolina - CBS17

Cyclospora cases increase in North Carolina; here’s how to protect yourself - ABC11

NC: 110 cases of stomach bug that can bring ‘explosive diarrhea’ - WRAL

Explosive diarrhea? 200+ cases of stomach bug cyclospora in NC - WRAL

An outbreak of a sanitation-resistant parasitic disease making headlines across the nation has struck Wake County as well, with more cases reported than the rest of North Carolina combined.

Now one could chalk up the national and local reporting on the subject to mere attention-grabbing hysteria, given that there have been perhaps several thousand of reported cases across the nation this year, fewer than a hundred hospitalizations, and zero deaths, but I’d like to take a moment to highlight another aspect of the disease, namely, it’s foreignness.

Cyclosporiasis is a disease caused by infection with Cyclospora cayetanensis, a microscopic protozoan parasite which is spread through fecal contamination of food and water.

C. cayetanensis is not endemic to America, and according to a 2020 paper, “most of the cyclosporiasis cases reported in non-endemic areas have been linked either with travelers returning from endemic areas or with imported foods from developing countries.”

However, this parasite is endemic to tropical and subtropical nations such as Mexico from which we import both agricultural workers as well as the fresh produce to which previous outbreaks have been tracked.

Although proponents of immigration will cite the fact that 61% of crop workers in America were born in Mexico, according to the latest National Agricultural Workers Survey, very few seem to be interested in considering the question of what risk is introduced to the American people by having our food handled by immigrants from cultures/countries where this parasite is “endemic,” meaning the inhabitants are consuming contaminated food and/or water on a regular enough basis that the parasite population can continue to thrive.

There does not appear to be widespread screening or data available on the prevalence of potentially transmittable parasites among legal and/or illegal immigrant farm workers, but perhaps some inference can be drawn from the medical screening of “refugee” populations in our country, which indicate that up to 86% carry some form of “potentially pathogenic parasites.”

Outside of the logical but perhaps impossible step of avoiding the consumption of fresh produce which is either grown abroad (or handled by workers from abroad), the CDC recommends precautions such as thoroughly washing your hands with soap and water before and after preparing fresh produce, as well as rinsing the produce under running water, scrubbing hard produce with a vegetable brush, and cutting out any damaged or bruised areas.

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Mexican immigrant conspired with cousin to traffic meth through Sanford home

Mexican National Sentenced to 13 Years in Prison for Trafficking Methamphetamine - USAO MDNC Press Release

Mexican man in Sanford sentenced 13 years for meth sell attempt - CBS17

Jonathan Mastache-Juarez, 39, of Mexico, has been sentenced to 13 years incarceration for possession with intent to distribute after law enforcement intercepted 1.7 kilograms of 98% pure methamphetamine sent to his Sanford home from Mexico by his cousin.

Homeland Security Inspections conducted a controlled delivery of the package, catching Mastache-Juarez in possession of the drugs, and also finding 200 grams of cocaine, three rifles, and a handgun at the residence.

Although Mastache-Juarez had “lawful permanent status” at the time of his arrest, it has been revoked after his conviction and he will be deported at the end of his sentence, according to federal prosecutors, who also say that his application for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) has been denied.

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Passerby forcefully foils Durham 4th of July flag-burning

Besides a caption noting that the incident took place “after the July 4th fireworks in downtown Durham,” there’s few details available regarding a viral video showing a man stopping a pair of masked individuals from setting an American flag on fire.

The video shows the demonstrators, of unclear but surmisable ideology, attempting to burn the stars and stripes when a man on the sidewalk interrupts, attempting to take the flag before pulling the firebug down from her (?) perch on a railing next to the statue of Major the Bull.

The second demonstrator fails in his attempt to jump on the intervenors back, and the pair manages to get physically dominated despite their two-on-one advantage, while threatening to shoot him and complaining that the flag they intended to burn is their own property.

The man appears to have left without the flag; it remains unclear whether this was part of a demonstration associated with any specific organization or cause, whether the flag was eventually set ablaze, or whether this incident was reported to the police.

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Reckless fireworks discharge kill 7-year-old boy in apartment fire

Neighbor Charged After Illegal Firework Kills 7-Year-Old Boy In Dunn Apartment Fire - JoCo Report

Neighbor arrested after illegal fireworks caused Dunn apartment fire that killed child: Officials - CBS17

Woman charged with manslaughter after child’s death in fire started by fireworks - WRAL

Fundraiser held for family of 7-year-old killed in Dunn fireworks fire - ABC11

Family shares pain after boy dies in apartment fire started by illegal firework; Neighbor charged - ABC11

Although the legal restrictions on the personal use of fireworks may grate upon a citizen of reasonable prudence, especially on a holiday tied to the concept of freedom, the risk of pyrotechnic misuse became all to real for 7-year-old boy Cashmere Elijah Parker who lost his life on the night of July 4th when his apartment complex in Dunn was set ablaze by an illegal firework set off by a neighbor, according to law enforcement.

Brittany Armstrong, 35, also a resident of Ashebrooke Apartments, has been charged with involuntary manslaughter, burning of certain buildings, and possession of pyrotechnics after police say she ignited an improperly secured “cake-style” multi-shot firework next to the apartment building, despite a reminder from property management just days before that fireworks were prohibited on the premises.

Video from the night shows the fireworks exploding erratically around the occupied buildings; one fragment blasted through a window, starting a fire inside which left Parker dead, at least two hospitalized, four apartment units destroyed, and thirteen residents without a home.

Armstrong was reportedly arrested at a Fayetteville hotel after failing to turn herself in, and has been released on a $75,000 secured bond.

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Nine shot in July 4th “teen takeovers” of Raleigh streets

Teen takeover drew 8,000 young people, most from outside Raleigh, police chief says - N&O

Thousands of teens fight in Raleigh: 9 hurt, dozens arrested after massive July 4 ‘teen takeovers’ - WRAL

Teen takeover lead to fights, gunfire in Brier Creek, Glenwood South on July 4th: Raleigh police - ABC11

16-year-old arrested in Raleigh ‘teen takeover’ shooting during Fourth of July celebrations: Police - CBS17

Raleigh moves to enact youth curfew in response to “teen takeover” - Axios

Raleigh council considers curfew, youth resources in wake of ‘teen takeover’ on Glenwood Ave - WUNC

Large gatherings of out-of-control “youths” at Glenwood South and Brier Creek resulted in nine individuals shot across six shootings over the night of July 4th and into the early morning hours of the 5th.

At Brier Creek, an estimated 3,000 “teens” gathered for a “Star Spangled Block Party;” police responded to reports of a fight at ~10:30 PM, which continued into the street after police ejected the participants from business establishments, and escalated into a shooting in which one bystander was struck by gunfire and another was injured by glass from a car window when it was shattered by a bullet.

Police cleared the gathering from the Brier Creek area, but many of the attendees reassembled at an even larger gathering in the vicinity of Glenwood South, which Raleigh Police estimated at 5,000 “teens.”

The fighting and chaos continued into the night as police attempted to restore order, with even RPD Chief Rico Boyce himself personally involved in at least one arrest as he was overseeing the police response on the ground.

The violence escalated further with six people shot in four separate shootings between 1:30-3:30 AM near Glenwood South, while another related shooting at a nearby gas station on Capital Blvd. involved two more who were shot.

As of a Raleigh City Council meeting on Tuesday, Boyce reported that 29 adults had been arrested, 11 firearms had been seized, and 4 juvenile petitions.

The “Teen Takeover”

The term “teen takeover” has been latched onto by law enforcement and the media, but is it actually precisely accurate in describing the demographic who was engaged in communal misbehavior?

Let’s turn to social media posts I came across by a two (black) witnesses to the evening’s chaos which gave surprisingly similar descriptions of the troublemakers at Glenwood South, with one describing the “first red flag” he saw was “too many YNs with all these bookbags,” and another questioning why there were “so many young n---as with wifebeaters and backpacks on.”

(The term YN or “young n---a” is a slang term from “African American Vernacular English” which not merely refers to youthful members of the black race, but those who embody the blackest of black “urban” or “street” culture. As an example, Durham Mayor Leonardo Williams refused to apologize for using the term in a town hall last year for the following remark: “We’re dealing with some YNs out here just doing their own thing, stealing [guns] out of cars and they don’t know how to communicate.”)

This observation as to the demographics also matches social media posts capturing the wild scenes, such as one montage shared by Matt Van Swol on Twitter:

For a more qualitative sample of the night’s troublemakers, a review of 27 arrests in the Wake County Bureau of Forensic Services arrest/mugshot database occurring on the night July 4th either on or immediately adjacent to Glenwood Ave. reveals that every one out of these 27 arrestees appears to be black.

Although less than a third of arrestees have a residence in Raleigh itself, all the arrestees are from North Carolina, and all but 3 of the 27 are from either Wake or one of its neighboring counties:

• 11 are from Raleigh

• 3 from Clayton

• 2 each from Knightdale, Durham

• 1 each from Angier, Benson, Battleboro, Coats, Dudley, Rocky Mount, Wendell

Why the truth matters

It is perhaps unsurprising to any regular consumers of the media that local outlets entirely omit the racial aspect of this black phenomenon when attempting to explain it to their audience.

For example, in the Raleigh Magazine:

Youth advocates argue the takeovers are a symptom of a larger social issue: The lack of third spaces designated for teenagers. Takeover organizers in other cities maintain they are simply looking for a sense of community and a place to go, despite violence and unrest being a common end result.

— Teens Took Over—Now What? (Raleigh Magazine) 7/7/2026

Or in the more prestigious News & Observer:

A teen takeover is an event, primarily organized on social media, to encourage teenagers to a public place like a mall, beach, park or downtown area. Many users create AI-generated posters to help events go viral and reach more people.

The trend’s been ongoing for several months, with some gatherings reaching thousands of people and sometimes turning violent, according to reporting from national media outlets.

— What are teen takeovers? Here’s where they’ve been across the US (News & Observer) 7/7/2026

Although race is a sensitive subject for many Americans, suppressing the facts around this aspect of the problem will only prove an impediment to its solution, eliminating the possibility of any discussion in the public sphere around what cultural factors may be contributing, or perhaps whether the “equity” policies in the school districts these “teens” have attended may be fueling the fires of their anti-social tendencies.

In the absence of this free and frank discussion, the only measure presented to the people is authoritarian; the Raleigh City Council, with the support of Chief Boyce and Mayor Janet Cowell has directed the City Attorney to draft a curfew ordinance for minors aged 17 and under, similar those already adopted in Winston-Salem, Fayetteville, and Charlotte.

Related Coverage:

• Are rooftop riflemen the answer to crime at Wake Forest’s street concerts? (No. 180 — Jun. 13, 2026)

Fun fact: two out of the three founding fathers who signed the Declaration of Independence on behalf of North Carolina have Triangle ties, with Virginia-born John Penn hailing from east of Stovall in Granville County, while William Hooper and his family relocated to Hillsborough during the war to escape the British-controlled coast, where he was originally buried after his death.

(We have a couple stories from the night of July 4th we’re looking into, but we’ll save those for next week as they appear to have primarily happened in the early morning hours of Sunday.)

An ICE detainer has been issued for a Cary resident who is accused of raping a goat he stole after the bruised and lacerated animal was found wandering a local apartment complex last month.

An non-citizen resident of Garner charged with fracturing vertebrae and causing traumatic bleeding to the head of his own 2-year-old child also appears to be an illegal alien, with a magistrate reporting that no documentation of legal status could be found for the Indian immigrant.

Two Romanian illegal aliens have plead guilty after being caught red-handed in Mecklenburg County in a scheme which defrauded over $766,000 from the accounts of SNAP recipients, using account information stolen via card skimmers to clone EBT cards and make bulk purchases to resell such as thousands of dollars of candy, energy drinks, and infant formula bought at a “warehouse club” in Durham.

ICE detainer issued for Hispanic immigrant accused of raping stolen goat in Wake County

Animal cruelty: Cary man charged with stealing, injuring goat found wandering apartment complex - WRAL

Amalfi Avidai Roblero-Hernandez, 30, has been arrested and charged after a female goat with damage to its reproductive organs was found wandering a Cary apartment complex last month.

Law enforcement was able to identify the victim of the bestiality as a “female boer goat with white body and black head” which had been stolen from a farm in May, according to the Wake County Sheriff’s Office.

The charges allege that Roblero-Hernandez “assault[ed] and tortur[ed]” the goat, causing lacerations, bruising, and hemorraging as he sexually abused the animal.

The resident of Cary appears to be an illegal alien, with a magistrate being “unable to determine that the defendant is citizen or legal resident of the United States.”

Roblero-Hernandez is subject to an ICE detainer and is being held without bond, while facing the following charges¹ ²:

• Cruelty to Animals

• Crime Against Nature

• Pursuing or Injuring Livestock with Intent to Steal

• Misdemeanor Larceny

Roblero-Hernandez had also been caught driving without a license (and with an open container of alcohol); previous reporting by the Triangle Trumpet indicates that this is both a common crime for illegal aliens to commit, as well as one which does not result in their deportation even when repeatedly caught red-handed.

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Indian father charged with breaking 2-year-old’s back: illegal immigrant?

Dad accused of attempting to murder 2-year-old child in Garner, records show - CBS17

Garner man accused of inflicting life-threatening injuries on child - N&O

Father charged with attempted first-degree murder after 2-year-old left with spinal fracture - WRAL

Kiran Netha Pasunuri, 44, has been charged by Garner Police with attempting to murder his own 2-year-old child after inflicting serious injuries in an incident last month, as well as failing to provide medical attention for the injuries.

According to the charges, Pasunuri fractured multiple of his child’s thoracic vertebrae and caused such significant bleeding in the child’s head that part of the child’s skull had to be surgically removed.

Pasunuri is charged with one count of attempted first degree murder, two counts of intentional child abuse inflicting serious injury, and two counts of negligent child abuse resulting in serious injury.

Pasunuri is being held without bond, with court documents revealing that Pasunuri “stated that he is not a US citizen” and that a magistrate “was unable to determine that the defendant is a citizen or legal resident of the United States.” (However, an ICE detainer does not appear to have been filed.)

Although one may not imagine the stereotypical illegal immigrant as an Indian, Pew Research Center estimates from 2023 indicate that out of ~3,210,000 first-generation Indian immigrants in the country, ~680,000 or 21.3% were “unauthorized immigrants.” (For instance, three Indians were nabbed in Durham as part of highly publicized ICE raids in February 2025.)

Data from the U.S. Customs and Border Protection shows 97,000 and 90,000 “encounters” involving the apprehension etc. of Indians at the borders in 2023 and 2024. An increasing share of these Indians were caught at the US-Canada border (over 5,000 in May and June 2024), until a precipitous decline marking the second inauguration of President Donald Trump, since which fewer than 1,000 “encounters” with Indians have been documented at the Northern border.

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Romanian illegal alien SNAP fraudsters made purchases at Durham “warehouse club”

Illegal Alien Romanian Brothers Plead Guilty to Multistate SNAP Benefit Fraud Scheme - US DOJ Office of Public Affairs

Brothers stole thousands of dollars in candy and coffee from NC stores, feds say - N&O

Marian Ovidiu Dumitru, 37, and Catalin Dumitru, 39, have each plead guilty to wire fraud after being charged federally in the Western District of North Carolina with participating in a scheme to clone Electronic Benefit Transfer cards using magnetic card skimmers, which were then used to drain the accounts of Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program recipients with bulk purchases of resalable items.

According to court documents, Catalin and Marian Dumitru each used one such card stolen from a resident of Massachusetts to purchase $2,327.10 in infant formula, $1,344.64 in candy, and $564.80 in energy drinks across multiple visits in 2024 to a warehouse club in Durham using a fraudulent membership which had been opened in the name of the welfare recipient from whom the benefits were stolen.

The Romanian brothers, who are in the country illegally, were caught in Mecklenburg County in August 2025 with magnetic card cloning equipment as well as at least fifteen counterfeit cards which had already been loaded with stolen SNAP EBT account information.

The court documents report a total of over $766,000 in benefits stolen via the fraud ring, much of which was laundered through additional North Carolina warehouse club locations such as in Winston-Salem, Matthews, Harrisburg, Pineville, and Gastonia.

The brothers each face up to twenty years in prison.

A Raleigh man has plead guilty to $60 million in Medicaid/Medicare fraud by paying “collectors” to obtain larger numbers of fraudulent samples to undergo virus testing at his California lab.

An Irish citizen living in Youngsville is alleged to have participated in an entirely separate Medicare fraud scheme, billing over $14.5 million from multiple medical supply companies using forbidden practices to charge for medically unnecessary devices.

Two Democrats on the Wake County Board of Elections have been censured by the state board for counting the ballots of dead voters, in a reversal from when the Democrat-controlled board dismissed the complaint without giving it the hearing required by law.

Prosecutors say Colombian who confessed to killing wife had been previously deported

Prosecutors: Man charged with workplace killing of his wife confessed to crime - WRAL

Man accused in wife’s deadly shooting in Smithfield parking lot, police say - CBS17

Husband Charged With Murder After Woman Fatally Shot At Smithfield Business - JoCo Report

Smithfield man to remain in jail after wife found shot to death in parking lot - N&O

The Smithfield resident charged with murdering his wife at her workplace is a Colombian national subject to removal proceedings, according to court documents.

Jesus Antonio Tenorio Bermudez, 39, has been charged with first degree murder after Lorena Capera Paz, 45, was found fatally shot in the parking lot of the AAF Flanders Plant in Smithfield, where she was an employee.

Prosecutors say that Bermudez bought a firearm days prior to the shooting, admitted to the shooting, and had previously been deported from the United States.

According to a Spanish-language fundraiser to repatriate her body, Paz was also a Colombian immigrant, and was killed during an argument with her husband. (No motive for the shooting has been confirmed by law enforcement.)

Bermudez is being held without bond, with a magistrate reporting that he “was unable to determine that [Bermudez] is a citizen or legal resident of the United States,” while Immigrations and Customs Enforcement has filed a detainer stating that Bermudez is subject to the Laken Riley Act.

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Raleigh man pleads guilty to $60 million in Medicaid/Medicare fraud at California lab

Raleigh Man Pleads Guilty to Receiving More than $60 Million in Fraudulent Claims from Paying Kickbacks for Patient Referrals - USAO EDNC Press Release

Raleigh man pleads guilty in $60 million healthcare fraud, kickback scheme - ABC11

Raleigh man pleads guilty to receiving more than $60 million in fraudulent claims - WWAY

James Shuford Price, III, 59, of Raleigh, has plead guilty to $60 million in Medicaid and Medicare fraud via a virus testing lab in California which he owned and operated.

According to the charges, Price’s lab unlawfully incentivized “collectors” to obtain “bulk quantities of bogus test samples obtained under fraudulent circumstances, including widespread identity theft,” which were then billed to Medicare or California’s Medicaid program.

In addition, over 90% of the Medicaid claims from the lab used identities stolen from real medical professions to manufacture fraudulent authorization for the tens of millions of dollars in tests that were being performed.

Price’s fraud also included manufacturing fake contracts to disguise the fraudulent nature of his operation, as well as failing to pay taxes on “money received from victims in connection with a prior investment scam.”

The FBI seized over six million dollars in assets as part of the operation, and Price faces up to 13 years imprisonment.

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Irish Youngsville resident accused of $14.5 million Medicare fraud

Foreign National Indicted in Multimillion Dollar Healthcare Fraud Conspiracy - USAO EDNC Press Release

Irishman in Youngsville indicted in $14 million healthcare fraud conspiracy: US Attorney - CBS17

Youngsville man indicted in alleged $14 million healthcare fraud scheme - WWAY

An Irish citizen residing in Youngsville, James Thomas Foley, has been charged federally in a massive scheme involving fraudulent and/or medically unnecessary billing for medical equipment such as “pneumatic compression devices.”

According to federal court documents, medical supply companies owned by or associated with Foley collected over $14.5 million from Medicare, including at least three LLCs registered to Foley in Wake Forest.

The scheme is described as the following: non-medical telemarketers were hired to aggressively market the devices to beneficiaries of Medicare, Tricare (Department of Defense), CHAMPVA (Veterans Administration), etc. by asking generic questions about symptoms (without verifying any specific diagnoses for which the devices were authorized) and offering the devices “at no cost” despite regulations requiring the collection of copay/deductible; the identifying information was then sold as prepopulated doctors’ orders to providers like Foley, who obtained approval for the orders by hiring contractors to “persistently and aggressively fax[]” doctors documentation which “often contained false and misleading language.”

At least three others besides Foley are referenced as conspiring in the scheme, including Randal Fenton Wood who allegedly helped Foley enroll his businesses and replicate the business model which Wood used with his own companies in Winston-Salem; Wood has already plead guilty to similar charges of receiving “over $39 million” in Medicare reimbursement to companies “owned by or affiliated with” himself.

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Follow-up

Democrat members of Wake County Board of Elections censured for counting ballots of dead voters

NC elections board censures Wake officials over deceased voters’ ballots - Carolina Journal

Wake officials can keep seats despite bucking guidance on counting ballots of dead voters - WRAL

Two Wake election officials censured for counting ballots of three dead NC voters - NC Newsline

Wake elections officials censured over 2024 decision on dead voters - WUNC

The North Carolina State Board of Elections has voted to censure the two Democrat members of the Wake County Board of Elections for their 2024 decision to count the ballots of three voters who died before election day, in violation of state law and NCSBE guidance.

This hearing on the complaint filed by two citizens from Buncombe County and Rowan County only occurred after a ruling in March 2026 by a judge at the Office of Administrative Hearings, which held that the party-line decision of the Democrat-majority board in January 2025 to dismiss the complaint without a hearing was in violation of the North Carolina Administrative Code.

In the meantime, the legislature’s amendment to the boards of election appointment process resulted in a Republican majority on the NCSBE, which voted 3-2 on party lines to find that Gerry Cohen and Greg Flynn had violated their duties as members of the Wake County board.

Although Republicans Stacey “Four” Eggers and Angela Hawkins (a former WCBE member) voted in favor of removing Cohen and Flynn from their positions, the third Republican boardmember Francis De Luca voted against, explaining afterwards that he did not believe Cohen and Flynn acted with malice.

Instead, the board voted unanimously to limit the consequences to a censure for the pair after each apologized for their decision and promised not to count the ballots of dead voters in the future.

Previous Coverage:

• Wake County Board of Elections flouts state law/guidance in counting ballots of dead voters (No. 98 — Nov. 16, 2024)

• State Board of Election dismisses complaints over Wake BoE illegally counting dead voters
  (No. 108 — Jan. 25, 2025)

• Counting the ballots of the dead: administrative judge rules state election board should have heard complaint against Wake board members (No. 166 — Mar. 7, 2026)

A Georgia man is facing state and federal charges for bringing a hoax “pipe bomb” to a Raleigh police station after making threats to kill President Trump.

June isn’t the wokest month by happenstance, it’s actively promoted by our government institutions. Case in point, the state-run historical site at the Stagville plantation in rural Durham County, where the works of far-left racial activists are sold and the guides teach that “no enslaver can do anything good.”

Federal immigration charge for Honduran illegal facing upcoming road rage murder trial

Illegal Alien Arrested for Possessing a Firearm During Alleged Road Rage Shooting - USAO EDNC Press Release

Man charged with murder in I-40 ‘road rage’ shooting is in the U.S. illegally, feds say - N&O

Suspect in deadly Wake County road rage shooting facing federal immigration charge: U.S. Attorney - CBS17

Family of man killed in shooting on I-40 shares impact on his children: ‘He was a caring father’ - ABC11

A Spanish-speaking Honduran illegal alien charged with murdering a fellow motorist in Wake County last year had been released into the country to reside in North Carolina in 2018 due to detention overcrowding after being caught crossing illegally with his minor son, despite having been previously deported in 2014, according to federal court documents.

Josue Alejandro Quintanilla-Reyes, 34, of Honduras, has been now charged federally with possessing a firearm while being illegally and unlawfully present in the United States.

According to the accompanying affidavit, when Quintanilla-Reyes had been caught near the southern border in May 2014, he admitted that he had crossed the border illegally as a Honduran national without authorization to enter, and was removed from the country.

Four years later, in April 2018, Quintanilla-Reyes was once again caught by Border Patrol near the same location he had previously crossed the border illegally, this time with his “minor son” in tow. Despite admitting once again to being a Honduran who had entered the country without permission to enter, Quintanilla-Reyes and his son were released into the interior of the country on an order of supervision due to “insufficient detention space” for the pair.

Although Quintanilla-Reyes showed up for his first check-in at the ICE office in Charlotte in 2018, he failed to report in 2019, leading to him being classified as an “immigration fugitive.”

Quintanilla-Reyes was still in North Carolina, residing in a Durham apartment, when he allegedly murdered Ricardo Baez Cardenas, 35, in an early morning road rage shooting on I-40 East near North Harrison Avenue exit on March 7, 2025, which was caught on camera.

According to the federal affidavit, Quintanilla-Reyes admitted several facts relevant to the charges: that he possessed at least two firearms (which were found in a search of his apartment), that he discharged his Glock 23 in the I-40 incident, and that cleaned his vehicle and disposed of the broken glass/shell casings after the shooting.

The video shows the sedan continued down the highway after the driver shot out his own passenger’s side window, while the victim’s truck veered off the road, where it struck the guardrail; the driver was pronounced deceased at the hospital.

According to search warrants, state investigators were able to track the vehicle in the video to Quintanilla-Reyes’ cousin, Vilma Patricia Navarro Tejada, who admitted that she had allowed Quintanilla-Reyes’ vehicle to be registered in her name because he did not possess a driver’s license. Tejada does not appear to have been charged.

Although Quintanilla-Reyes has indicated his intent to make a self-defense argument at trial, which is set to begin on June 29, the Wake County District Attorney’s Office plans to use the evidence of his immigration status and firearm status to prove that Quintanilla-Reyes was committing a felony at the time of the shooting, which would bar any justification for use of defensive force by Quintanilla-Reyes under NC GS § 14‑51.4(1).

A search of the victim’s vehicle did reveal a handgun of his own as well as less than an ounce of marijuana.

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Man accused of bringing hoax pipe bomb to Raleigh police station after threatening Trump

Raleigh Man Arrested for Threatening the Life of the President - USAO EDNC Press Release

Raleigh man arrested for threatening on social media to harm Trump - Carolina Journal

Suspect in Raleigh police station bomb threat charged with threatening Trump: U.S. Attorney - CBS17

Man charged after claiming he had pipe bomb at Raleigh police substation - WRAL

Man charged in bomb threat investigation at Raleigh police substation; no device found - ABC11

Christopher Key-Torrion Carnes, 33, now faces both federal and state charges after fooling Raleigh Police with a PVC pipe he brought to a meeting with investigators at a Raleigh Police substation over making bomb threats against the president.

According to a federal affidavit, the Secret Service became aware of Facebook posts made by Carnes on his “Yage Sinbad Genie” page in May and June in which he made statements such as “Donald J, Trump, I’m going to kill you,” “the Government knows I have a live bomb in my car,” and “I want to tell you, Muslims like blowing up s--t” while demonstrating objects in his car which he claimed were a pipe bomb and detonator. (A review of the page shows numerous videos in which Carnes incoherently rants to the camera.)

When Raleigh Police and SS agents initially met with Carnes in May, he reportedly told them that he had been living out of his car since travelling to Raleigh from Georgia a few weeks prior, and that he was trying to get the attention of higher level government officials about some matter which he purportedly had knowledge of.

On June 10, Carnes brought his vehicle to the Raleigh Police Northeast District substation where he was detained for acting “erratically.” Although a bomb-sniffing dog alerted the police to potential explosive material in the vehicle, the RPD Bomb Squad located the alleged “PVC Blaster” and determined that it was an inert piece of pipe.

Carnes was charged by Raleigh police with two counts of perpetrating a hoax by use of a false bomb at a public building (NC GS § 14‑69.2(c)), a Class H felony.

Carnes has also been charged federally with one count of communicating a threat against the president of the United States (18 USC. §871(a)), which carries a maximum sentence of five years.

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State government promotes radical leftist ideology at Durham plantation

For Juneteenth, Durham’s historic Stagville shines light on the past - ABC11

In 2017, President Donald Trump was pooh-poohed by the mainstream media and mainstream historians for suggesting that George Washington and Thomas Jefferson would be next on the chopping block after the growing iconoclasm of Confederate statues.

Nearly 10 years later, that is not too far off from the exact ideology promoted at the state-run Historic Stagville site in rural Durham County.

To be clear, we’re not merely talking about the mainstream media coverage of the site’s celebration of “Juneteenth,” a niche holiday catapulted into national prominence by the Black Lives Matter movement as a “Black Independence Day.”

We’re also not merely talking about the site’s gift shop, most prominently featuring “The 1619 Project: A New Origin Story” by Nicole Hannah-Jones among material from a similar race-based leftist perspective. (At least as of last June, when I visited based on a tip regarding the extreme left-wing interpretation at the site.)

The ultimate conclusion to such an ideology was most explicitly laid out in the guided tour, which skipped the main house to focus exclusively on the slave experience and used the often inaccurate (but leftist-preferred) term of “enslaver,” even applied to a disabled child.

When asked about why the surviving slave quarters are relatively well-built and spacious, the guide cycled through a few possible explanations before concluding with the axiom that benevolence on the part of the plantation owners could not have possibly been the reason because, to paraphrase, “no enslaver can do anything good.”

If the North Carolina government is promoting no enslaver can do anything good, the logical conclusion is that George Washington did nothing good, Thomas Jefferson did nothing good, the Constitution and the founding of America was not good, etc.

A Venezuelan “illegal alien” who molested a child in Raleigh is now facing related immigration fraud charges for lying about not being a predator.

Wake Forest has confirmed that it is stationing rifle-wielding police officers on rooftops as part of it’s security measures during the increasingly popular “Friday Night on White” monthly street concert series, while some local businesses are choosing to close down to avoid dealing with shoplifting, vandalism, or other trouble from unsupervised youths or inebriated adults.

The two violent criminals who escaped from the Vance County jail have been recaptured in Asheville.

Lead Democrat legislators publish profane “satire” video

Senate Minority Leader Batch and House Rep. Alston drop profane video aimed at Republicans - More to the Story by A.P. Dillon

NC Senate Democratic leader defends expletive-laden satire video amid Republican backlash - CBS17

Batch lays into N.C. GOP with profanity-rich social media post - Business NC

“November’s coming, b-----s, and we’re going to win.”

That’s how North Carolina’s Democratic legislatorial leaders Senate Democratic Leader Sydney Batch (D-Wake) and House Democratic Conference Chair Vernetta Alston (D-Durham) ended a poorly-censored profanity-laced video which has drawn criticism from those who find it distasteful that these legislators would publicly refer to their Republican colleagues as “little p-----s” and “motherf---ers.”

The video follows the format of the viral Obama-era Key and Peele comedy sketches which riffed off the president’s reputation as a “mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean” (to quote then-Senator Joe Biden) with an “anger translator” who would express the how Obama truly felt in a vulgar and animated manner.

In their adaptation, Alston provided the respectful Democrat talking points on the budget and school choice, while Batch castigated “f---ing Republicans who don’t give a f--k about you” for “giving 250 f---ing million dollars a year to private schools to so that rich kids could be taught ‘history’ with our f---ing tax dollars.”

North Carolina House Majority Leader Brenden Jones (R-Columbus, Robeson) responded to the video with a call for Minority Leader Robert Reives (D-Chatham, Randolph) to “discipline members of his caucus” as well as to “investigate Democrat staff members who filmed these videos on legislative time.”

The Wake County Republican Party backed up this call with a statement describing “embarass[ment]” at the involvement of one of the county’s representatives in a “vulgar video spewing disparaging lies.”

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Venezuelan charged with immigration fraud over Wake County child sex offense conviction

Venezuelan man charged after TPS application tied to child sex crimes - WCTI12

ILLEGAL ALIEN VENEZUELAN CHILD MOLESTER CHARGED WITH IMMIGRATION FRAUD - USAO EDNC Press Release

Sex offender in Wake County accused of immigration fraud, federal prosecutors say - CBS17

Francisco Javier Chacoa-Pineda, 50, of Venezuela, has been federally indicted on charges of immigration fraud based on his conviction for sexually abusing a 13-year-old child in Wake County in 2024.

According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Chacoa-Pineda signed an application to obtain Temporary Protected Status in April 2024 in which he affirmed that he had never “ordered, incited, called for, committed, assisted, helped with, or otherwise participated in...any kind of sexual conduct or relations with any person who was being forced or threatened.”

However, within a year, Chacoa-Pineda was arrested and charged by Raleigh Police for sexual crimes involving a 13-year-old victim which occurred in January and April 2024, prior to the application. (It is not clear how long Chacoa-Pineda had been in the United States when he molested the child in January 2024, but the USAO press release refers to him as an “illegal alien.”)

This March, Chacoa-Pineda was convicted of three counts of indecent liberties with a child and one count of first degree sexual exploitation of a minor and was sentenced to 5-12 years imprisonment.

Although Venezuela had TPS for much less time than nations like El Salvador or Haiti, which received protection for decades based on natural disasters over twenty years ago, Venezuelans accounted for nearly half of the 1,297,635 foreigners with approved TPS as of March 31, 2025, according to a Congressional report, with 252,825 qualifying under a 2021 declaration and an additional 352,190 qualifying under a 2023 declaration for a total of 605,015.

Shortly after Trump’s inauguration in 2025, the Department of Homeland Security announced that Venezuela’s TPS would be terminated on the grounds that “permitting the Venezuelan nationals to remain temporarily in the United States is contrary to the national interest of the United States,” along with the termination of “parole” policies which had allowed “hundreds of thousands of inadmissible Venezuelans” to enter the country.

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Are rooftop riflemen the answer to crime at Wake Forest’s street concerts?

Wake town defends putting police with rifles on rooftops for its concert series - N&O

Wake Forest business owners say ‘Friday Night on White’ concert series impacts bottom line - ABC11

Wake Forest businesses close early, push back on popular community event - WRAL

Two downtown Wake Forest shops to close during Friday Night on White over safety, business concerns - Wake Weekly

Ahead of the most recent “Friday Night on White” monthly public concert, Wake Forest downtown staple B&W Hardware announced in a Facebook post that they would no longer remain open during the events, citing “property damage and shoplifting” as well as “unruly and intoxicated customers.”

“Starting in May, law enforcement began stationing officers with long guns that fire pepper balls on top of our building to respond to potential crowd control incidents,” the post continued. “If an event requires that level of monitoring and policing, perhaps it’s time to consider a different approach to the event altogether.”

In response, the town did not deny the placement of armed law enforcement on top of downtown buildings for law enforcement purposes during the event, but instead clarified that the overwatch officers were equipped with ordinary lethal rifles rather than crowd control weaponry.

This isn’t the first time that criminal behavior at FNOW (primarily from “youths”) has been brought to the public attention, with the town having considered an 8 pm curfew for unaccompanied minors under the age of sixteen in 2024 which ultimately failed to pass.

Although crimes of vandalism or shoplifting perpetrated by individuals or small groups are bad enough, municipalities around the state are dealing with the escalation of “teen takeover,” in which a large group of individuals organizes (often through social media) to show up at a particular location and leverage the power of numbers to try to get away with otherwise unacceptable anti-social behavior ranging from being loud and rowdy to vandalism, assault, or shutting down whole streets.

Examples include illegal street racing/vehicular hijinks (I-77, Charlotte, April 2026), the somewhat lamer e-bike street takeover (Heritage subdivision, Wake Forest, March 2026), an amusement park (Frankie’s Fun Park, Raleigh, July 2025), a trampoline park (Urban Air Trampoline and Adventure Park, Raleigh, March 2026), a documentary about a famous rapper’s concert tour (North Hills, Raleigh, April 2026), or even just a street at a mall (Birkdale Village, Huntersville, February 2026).

The perpetrators of these “takeovers” appear to by and large escape legal consequences, with the number of arrests made by law enforcement often representing at most a small fraction of those engaging in criminal activity. Based on analysis of court records and social media posts (often made by the participants), the participants appear to disproportionately be young and black.

Previous Coverage:

• Town, businesses complain of youth behavior during monthly Wake Forest downtown concert (No. 71 — May 11, 2024)

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Follow-up

Vance County jail escapees recaptured

NC inmates captured in Asheville after days-long search face felony charges for jail escape - WRAL

Escaped Vance County inmates captured in Asheville after nearly weeklong manhunt, NCSBI says - CBS17

Two violent criminals who escaped from the Vance County jail have been recaptured over two hundred miles away after a manhunt involving the Vance County Sheriff’s Office, the NC State Bureau of Investigation, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Michael Lewis Miles, 33, and LiShawn Knott, 21, were arrested together at a residence outside of Asheville six days after their escape, and now face felony charges related to the escape in addition to the various weapon, assault, and/or drug charges which the two criminals were already facing.

Previous Coverage:

• $40k reward for violent criminals who escaped Vance jail with outside help (No. 179 — Jun. 6, 2026)

The UNC Tar Heels athletics account deleted a post for “Pride Month,” but is the LGBTQ agenda really dead at the state’s flagship university?

Two criminals with a history of violence remain at large after escaping Vance County jail where they were being held without bond on charges including drug trafficking and organizing a shooting, respectively; authorities say they received help from the outside.

“Texas man” linked to $33+ million meth bust may be illegal alien

Texas man found with more than $16 million worth of meth in Wake County: Sheriff - CBS17

A “Texas man” charged with trafficking methamphetamine in a multi-state conspiracy may be an illegal alien, according to court documents.

On Wednesday, an operation at a location near the intersection of I-40 and NC 54 involving the Wake County Sheriff’s Office, the North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation, and the Cary Police Department resulted in the seizure of 122 pounds of methamphetamine, with another 124 pounds seized in a follow-up raid in Dallas, Texas.

Jonathan Pena, 31, a resident of Texas, faces three counts of trafficking in methamphetamine and one count of conspiring to traffic methamphetamines, with the court documents citing at least one “unknown Hispanic male” conspirator.

According to a court document, a magistrate “was unable to determine if [Pena] is a legal resident or citizen of the United States” after “an inquiry of the defendant” and the “examination of relevant documents.” Another court document identifies Pena as having an out-of-state criminal history including crimes such as assault inflicting bodily injury and impaired driving.

However, the court record does not show Pena as subject to an ICE detainer; he is currently in Wake County jail under a $2 million secured bond.

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UNC Athletics deletes “Pride” post under non-politicization policy

UNC Athletics celebrated Pride month in social media post. Now, it’s deleted. - N&O

The UNC-Chapel Hill athletics account on X/Twitter removed a pro-LGBTQ “Pride Month” post after pushback, citing the UNC System’s equality policy requiring institutional neutrality, which was adopted in 2024 as a replacement for a previous policy requiring diversity, equity, and inclusion.

The now-deleted post read “The Tar Heels are for everyone 🐏” with a graphic featuring not only the rainbow of the traditional Pride Flag on a UNC-CH pattern, but also blue and pink to represent transgenderism as well as black and brown to represent non-whiteness.

Although this particular post may have been identified as violating policy by weighing in on a “view of social policy” or one of the “political controversies of the day,” LGBTQ is actively praised and promoted by UNC-CH, as represented by the continuing existence of the university’s LGBTQ Center.

The 2026 website of the UNC LGBTQ Center not only provides “resources” to promote a plethora of “intersection[al]” identities, but also showcases an annual “Lavender Graduation” and includes recognition of “awareness days” in the past month such as “International Day Against Homophobia, Transphobia, and Biphobia” and “Harvey Milk Day.”

(Harvey Milk was a California politician who continues to be celebrated as an “iconic civil rights leader” by groups like the UNC LGBTQ Center despite the fact that he is known to have engaged in a sexual relationship with a 16-year-old boy who was less than half his age).

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$40k reward for violent criminals who escaped Vance jail with outside help

Vance County jail escapees were given ride after breakout, are still being assisted on the run: Sheriff - CBS17

Reward of up to $40K offered, billboards go up in search for escaped Vance County inmates - ABC11

Search for escaped Vance County inmates stretches into 3rd day - WRAL

Two North Carolina inmates escaped from a problem-ridden jail. What’s Vance County doing about it? - WRAL

Former Vance County Jail employee sees ‘red flags’ in surveillance video - WRAL

A reward of up to $40,000 is being offered in relation to the capture of two convicted felons who escaped from the Vance County Detention Center who are believed to have escaped with outside help, and remain at large.

Video shared by the Vance County Sheriff’s Office shows Michael Lewis Miles, 33, and LiShawn Knott, 21, running down a hallway in their orange jumpsuits as they broke out.

“We know they planned their escape in advance,” said Sheriff Curtis R. Brame. “They were picked up nearby, and they are being helped while they are on the run.”

Miles’ prior convictions include assault, possession of a firearm by a felon, robbery, larceny of dogs, breaking and entering, and possession of stolen goods, while Knott had been convicted of assault with a deadly weapon inflicting serious injury and inciting to riot.

At the time of his escape, Miles was being held without bond on numerous charges including fifteen drug/trafficking counts relating to marijuana, fentanyl, heroin, meth, etc., while Knott was being held without bond on more violent charges including assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill and rioting for allegedly organizing a shooting in a parking lot earlier this year, as well as possession of a stolen car, possession of schedule VI drugs, and possession of a firearm by a felon when he was caught three days later.

Miles and Knott are considered armed and dangerous; anyone with knowledge of their whereabouts is encouraged to contact the FBI at 1-800-CALL-FBI or the Henderson-Vance Crime Stoppers at 252-492-1925.

The State of North Carolina has filed to seize a behind-schedule mega-manufacturing site in Chatham County which had significant taxpayer investment, including using eminent domain to seize and tear down homes, businesses, and even a historic church.

It’s the 50th anniversary of the anti-democratic merger of the Wake County and Raleigh school systems along DEI lines. But what has this really accomplished?

Ungrateful “Muslim Arab” student highjacks Clayton graduation with leftist remarks

Clayton teen claims high school diploma withheld after graduation speech touched on ICE, genocide - WRAL

A graduate of Clayton High School claims her diploma was withheld after she went off the approved script for her speech to make politically-tinged statements about “families being torn apart by ICE” and “millions suffering in Palestine, Sudan, Congo, Afghanistan.”

In a video explaining the situation, the self-described “Muslim Arab girl” Leen Hijaz described Clayton as a “very, very racist,” describing how she had to fight for months and deceive the school administration in order to have the chance to “[speak] up for all the people in my country...that are unable to graduate. (She didn’t appear to mention which of those four foreign countries she belongs to instead of the country she lives in and was educated in.)

“The only reason why I wanted to go on that stage was because I wanted to say something and I really think that somebody had to say something because nobody else is going to speak up,” Hijaz said. “I said what I was going to say at the end of my speech, if I submitted it to the school, they would have disapproved it immediately because of how racist they are.”

Hijaz also claimed her remarks were not “political,” despite explicit referencing opposition to immigration enforcement, and a general alignment with leftist ideology.

Before I leave the stage, I have one last thing to say. Every single person here has a voice; we have the privilege to use it when millions around the world are struggling and suffering to be heard. Whether it’s the millions suffering in Palestine, Sudan, Congo, Afghanistan and so many other countries around the world, or the families being torn apart by ICE. These are not just an issue there; they are happening there, they’re happening right here as I speak. My point is, we’re not given a voice to stay silent.

— Leen Hijaz, Clayton High School graduation 2026 (as transcribed by WRAL)

@leenhijaz_never be afraid to speak up!! #freepalestine #ice #valedictorian #grad #graduation

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State attempts to seize delayed VinFast manufacturing site

NC sues VinFast to take over Chatham County site after company resists sale - N&O

North Carolina sues VinFast to take back control of Chatham County land - Axios

The State of North Carolina has filed to seize a factory site under construction in southeastern Chatham County and recover $80 million in taxpayer investment after the Vietnamese electric vehicle company failed to meet performance metrics.

The agreement signed by the startup granted the state the ability to buy back the property if VinFast failed to meet benchmarks such as vertical construction by January 2024 (which has yet to happen), local manufacturing underway by July 1, and 1,750 jobs at the site by the end of the year.

Although initially reported to be on track in 2022 to meet the milestones over the next five years to receive “one of the largest economic incentive packages in state history,” the company was already announcing delays in 2023. In 2024, VinFast announced a four-year pause with production not to begin until 2028, far past the agreed to timeframe.

To add insult to injury, not only has the state invested millions in transportation infrastructure as well as water and sewer infrastructure in nearby Sanford, the NC Department of Transportation also used eminent domain to seize and tear down the history Merry Oaks Baptist Church as well as 27 homes and 5 businesses for site.

Although North Carolina law does restrict the use of eminent domain to seize property for economic development, the church property was technically seized for a road expansion necessitated by the expected traffic generated by the factory, thus bypassing the legal protection.

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50 years of DEI: reflecting on Wake County’s anti-democratic school district merger

In 1973, the citizens of Wake County voted 3-1 to reject the DEI measure of merging the Wake County and Raleigh school districts, which was intended to promote “racial integration.” (The legislature did it anyway.)

Now, as the Wake County Public School System celebrates the 50th anniversary of the merger, the new generations of transplants and immigrants who now make up the majority of the county’s residence might vote by a similar margin in favor of such an agenda.

However, five decades of “equity” focused policies such as busing, racially gerrymandered base attendance districts, and magnet schools have entirely failed to eliminate the racial achievement or behavioral gap, suggesting that the philosophical foundation of this political ideology driving these policies is without merit.

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The History

Wake and Raleigh schools merged 50 years ago. How the region still feels the impact - N&O

Is Wake losing the school choice battle? How the district competes for students - N&O

Wake Schools plans celebrations for 50th anniversary of school system merger - WRAL

How did this merger take place? The narrative propagated by the mainstream institutions goes something like this:

In the wake of the Supreme Court discovering that access to white people was a human right, with desegregation and the prioritization of civil rights over property rights, the evil racist white families engaged in “white flight” out of the neighborhoods, cities, and school districts they had built for no reason at all other than the fact that they were white and evil.

Raleigh was apparently no exception to the phenomenon across the country, with the outlying suburbs under the Wake County Board of Education trending white and experiencing increased demand, while the schools under the jurisdiction of the Raleigh City Board of Education trended in the opposite direction on both counts.

Given the lack of any solution for improving the quality of the predominantly black schools or the performance of black students, the legislature decided on giving the residents of Wake County the opportunity to Do The Right Thing by merging the better whiter district with the worse blacker district via a non-binding referendum in 1973.

However, when the citizens overwhelmingly rejected this opportunity, the legislature made the desired decision on behalf of the people with a bill passed by the Democratic supermajorities which controlled both chambers, and signed by the Republican Governor James Holshouser.

The consolidated school district then began pursuing an explicit strategy of racial balancing, ensuring that there wasn’t too many or too few black students at any public school in Wake County, including via strategies such as busing and magnet schools.

Although the current board is overt about their “equity” policies, the district has come to rely less on direct measures of race, including in 2010 when a brief Republican majority on the county school board made national news for a plan to shift to a “neighborhood school” model.

While the left-wing social engineers are very much back in charge, the current wave of anti-DEI and school choice sentiment on the right has resulted in a withdrawal of federal support for the continuation of the “civil rights” activist agenda, and the erosion of district-level monopolization of public education with the expansion of school choice.

However, it still doesn’t take much more than a cursory look at the current “base attendance areas” to see that the current maps drawn by the school board are far more “gerrymandered” than the oft-criticized political maps, with non-contiguous districts and many students having to pass multiple schools to get to the institution chosen by the administration.

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Fifty Years of Integration: the Results

The mass migration of newcomers from all corners of the state, the country, and the globe in the past fifty years has radically changed the demographic makeup of Wake County. According to the 1980 census, the county had a population of 301,327, of which 76.8% were white and 21.8% were black.

The number of residents has approximately quadrupled in the ensuing years, with the 2020 census showing a population which is 65.5% white, 20.3% black, 11.9% Hispanic, and 10.2% Asian.

The standardized testing data shows that the project of bringing “equity” to the academic performance between racial cohorts has been an abject failure, with a metric like “Grade Level Proficiency” showing that the Wake County student demographic groups follow a pattern observed in countless contexts, where Asians (87.7%) tend to outperform whites (80.2%) who tend to outperform Hispanics (41.9%) who tend to outperform blacks (41.1%).

This pattern is so strong that knowing the demographics of a particular school’s student body can give you a fairly good guess at the overall testing results of the school, with above average schools having the most white and Asian students, while below average schools have the most blacks and Hispanics.

In fact, the top performing elementary school (White Oak) by the GLP measure is 69.4% Asian and 22.1% white, while the five worst performing schools are 0% Asian and are each less than 25% white.

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Literacy, crime, and magnet schools

Earlier this year, a video went viral on social media in which a student at a STEM magnet school in Philadelphia highlighted the inability of many of his classmates to pronounce or comprehend a sentence reading “she wore a silhouette of clothes that were extraordinary but somewhat gauche.”

One may be forgiven if one thinks that the purpose of a magnet schools is to attract the best and brightest students from across a school district to receive specialized instruction commensurate with their potential.

That is, indeed, the “attraction” which is intended to draw the desired students to magnet schools, but the purpose of the magnet schools is actually to balance those students out by getting them in the same building as some of the worst and lowest-potential students in the district as a means to achieve “equity” or “desegregation,” as chronicled on the website of the Magnet Schools of America.

This explains not only why an institution offering specialized education would have a large number of students who can’t read, but also why a school like Southeast Raleigh Magnet High School stands out for incidents of stabbing or shooting, while the even more loftily named Southern School of Energy and Sustainability in the Durham school district had a brawl/riot last year involving “at least 12 people.”

A woman accused of shooting two lawyers at the Wake County Courthouse is attracting some supporters, who feel that her schizophrenic-esque claims of a government conspiracy are worthy of “standing in solidarity” with.

A previously unreported story has come to light, in which court documents appear to indicate that a Hispanic illegal alien car thief residing in Durham impregnated a 13-year-old girl in Chatham County.

A Wake County judge (D) has been censured by the state supreme court for violating judicial ethics in regards to continuing to practice law after taking the office he won from a Republican incumbent in the November 2024 election.

A recent graduate of the Wake County Public School System committed suicide after her father got her drunk and raped her in California; he is expected to only be sentenced to three years in prison after pleading guilty last week.

A man who wasn’t happy with the marriage his mother arranged for him with an immigrant from Iraq has been sentenced to over three decades in prison after shooting his wife and dumping her body in Jordan Lake in 2023.

Wake courthouse shooter: schizophrenic, or legitimately aggrieved?

How a fight for police videos led to 2 attorneys being shot outside Wake courthouse - N&O

Woman accused of shooting attorneys at Raleigh courthouse has history of lawsuits - N&O

Woman accused of shooting Wake County attorneys will remain in jail without bond - WRAL

Ex-lawyer for accused Wake courthouse shooter says internet has distorted the facts - N&O

Former attorney of Gwendolyn White speaks out, calls for more mental health resources - WRAL

Suspect in shooting of Wake County attorneys had years-long legal battle with Rolesville police, documents show - CBS17

A prolific litigant accused of non-fatally shooting two lawyers outside the Wake County Courthouse has become someone of a “cause célèbre” for those who distrust law enforcement, the legal system, or government in general. However, is she actually an overzealous freedom fighter, or merely violent and out of touch with reality?

Gwendolyn White, 57, of Raleigh, is accused of retrieving a gun from her car after a hearing in a lawsuit she had brought against the Rolesville Police Department, and shooting two attorneys hired to represent the department as they exited the courthouse after a hearing in the case at which White had been removed from the courtroom for being “belligerent.”

Although this specific hearing was in a years-long case involving a request for bodycam footage from when RPD responded to a “verbal altercation” between White and her neighbors, White appeared to tie the case to a conspiracy involving an alleged acid attack which she claims resulted in the death of her elderly mother at the Duke Raleigh Hospital.

In a fundraiser started by White to get “justice” for her mother’s death, she claimed that her mother was denied medication for an infection, and that her mother’s body showed evidence of severe “acid burns,” which had allegedly been “poured in her open wounds.”

Although one may tend to lend a bit of gravity to allegations of such a serious nature made in the context of court, the facts paint quite a different picture in my mind. White filed a number of apparently frivolous or baseless suits over the years, to the point that a judge entered an order that she could no longer file complaints in Wake County court without either an attorney representing her, or a $500 bond.

I’ve heard directly from at least two citizens who had encountered White in a business capacity, one describing her as “mentally unwell” but not obviously dangerous, and another as a “complete basket case” who believe that cameras were being hidden in her house and she was being poisoned as her neighbors and the Ku Klux Klan were plotting against her. (One of her Facebook profiles which has yet to be taken down also contains posts along these lines.)

The concern over her mental capacity and/or behavior had also been documented in the court record of her numerous legal suits, showing that White had been found incapable to proceed in a stalking case against her, that she had been trespassed from the hospital where her mother was a patient, that her mother had been assigned a state-appointed guardian due to White’s inability to serve in this role, and that multiple nursing homes had refused to admit her mother due to White’s behavior.

Regardless of these facts, the notoriety of White’s alleged act of extreme violence has attracted supporters, many along racial lines (White is a black woman). Here’s what the creator of a “Friends of Gwendolyn E. White” Facebook page wrote about the decision to “stand[] in solidarity” with the alleged shooter, which has attracted hundreds of members:

I’ve been in Ms. White’s shoes. When Black people choose to take on the system, they are all too often disrespected and dismissed. This is what happened in this case. We want Ms. White to know that a group of citizens believe she and her mother were wronged. We want her to get a fair trial. We want her to believe that justice is possible for her.

I started this group because I believe every person deserves fairness, due process, and the right to have their full story heard. While I do not condone violence or the shooting that took place, I also understand how systems can fail, frustrate, and break people — especially Black people and families who often feel unheard and silenced.

This group is about standing in solidarity with Gwendolyn E. White and her loved ones as they navigate this difficult season. It is about ensuring that justice is pursued fairly, truthfully, and with humanity. Too many people are judged before they are fully heard. We choose to be voices for those who feel voiceless.

May justice be served in her case.

— Kashi Levette Bazemore (Friends of Gwendolyn E. White) Monday, May 25, 2026 at 6:10 PM

White is facing two counts of attempted first degree murder, and is being held without bond.

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Unreported court documents: illegal alien car thief impregnated 13-year-old?

Yet another instance of an (illegal) alien charged with sexually abusing a child in Chatham County would have flown under the radar except for the watchful eye of the @ImmigrantCrimes account on Twitter/X.

According to court documents, Bryan Lizandra Martinez-Sauceda, an 18-year-old resident of Durham, is accused of the statutory rape and kidnapping of a 12-year-old girl who was left pregnant when he was arrested in December 2025.

The search warrants for Martinez-Sauceda’s cell phone and DNA describe the victim being reported missing by her father from their home in northeast Chatham County in February 2025, reportedly in the company of a “Bryan” who was “around 17 or 18 years of age.” (Martinez-Sauceda was seventeen at the time, or five and a half years older than the victim).

The victim returned home five days later, but “was not forth coming with information.”

The victim’s father was notified by the Orange County Sheriff’s Office that a video of Martinez-Sauceda sneaking into his daughter’s bedroom had been recovered on a cell phone left in a stolen vehicle which had been found crashed the month prior.

Two weeks later, the victim notified law enforcement that Martinez-Sauceda was once again on the way to her residence, and he was arrested on outstanding warrants regarding dozens of counts of charges such as breaking or entering motor vehicles, larceny, and burglary¹, ², ³, ⁴.

At the time, the court was informed that Martinez-Sauceda had an ICE detainer in place.

Further interviews with the victim revealed that she had met Martinez-Sauceda “through social media” in January 2025, and they had engaged in sexual activity at various points in the ensuing months, including when he took her away from her home in February, as well as “just before the vehicle crash” in November. The victim also told investigators that she was pregnant, and that she believed Martinez-Sauceda to be the father.

Martinez-Sauceda has subsequently been charged in Chatham County with two counts of first-degree kidnapping, two counts of statutory rape of a child under sixteen, and one count of contributing to the delinquency of a minor¹, ². (The fact that the theft charges were dropped does not appear to have affected the charges he was linked to by the phone in the stolen vehicle, or the fact that )

However, the 33 theft-related charges against Martinez-Sauceda in Orange County were dropped in February, with the DA’s office citing “insufficient evidence” that Martinez-Sauceda committed the crimes. However, he still faces kidnapping/rape charges he was linked to by the phone allegedly in the stolen vehicle; the stolen vehicle is also cited in the charging text for contributing to the delinquency of a minor as well as at least one of the kidnapping charges.

Martinez-Sauceda also faces one count of simple assault from March 2026, as well as a Wake County DWI case from July 2025 in which he was also cited for driving without a license, a charge somewhat commonly found in previously reported on cases which involve illegal aliens.

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Wake judge censured for continuing to practice law after election

Top NC court tackles Currituck taxes, cannabis odor, Duke rates, more - Carolina Journal

In re Inquiry Concerning a Judge, No. 25-148 - NC Supreme Court Opinion

The Supreme Court of North Carolina has unanimously agreed to censure Wake County Superior Court Judge Sean A. Cole for continuing to practice law in his jurisdiction after being sworn into office in January 2025. (Cole, a Democrat, had beat out the incumbent Republican judge Rebecca Waters Holt in a three-way race by a margin of 48.3-43.8%.)

The court found that Cole had violated multiple judicial canons, which explicitly forbid judges from practicing law and require judges to uphold the integrity and independence of the judiciary, as well as act in a manner to promote public confidence in this integrity and independence.

According to the findings of the North Carolina Judicial Standards Commission, Cole took his oath of office while still having twelve outstanding despite “advice to the contrary” which he had received and continued to receive from parties such as the commission’s executive director and the county’s senior resident superior court judge.

As the court summarized the evidence, Cole “appeared as attorney of record in his own jurisdiction, and filed numerous summonses, motions to withdraw, and voluntary dismissals in multiple cases.”

Cole was also found to have made a court assistant “f[eel] pressured” to get a judge to sign a “deficient” motion to withdraw, which the per curiam opinion found “troubling,” as it “could be interpreted or perceived as a misuse of one’s position to pressure court personnel or staff.”

Justice Phil Berger Jr. wrote a concurring opinion in which he agreed with the decision to rebuke Cole, but disagreed with the court’s interpretation of its statutory and constitutional authority to “exercise[] independent judgment” in disciplinary cases rather than merely “issue a public reprimand, censure, suspend, or remove” a judge based “upon recommendation” of the commission.

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WCPSS student committed suicide after moving to California and being raped by father

Disgusting SoCal dad pleads guilty to incest after daughter killed herself — sentenced to only 3 years in California prison - NY Post

Family of teen who killed herself after sicko dad allegedly raped her demands justice - NY Post

Calif. Father Pleads Guilty to Incest Months After Teen Daughter Dies by Suicide - People

Ventura County dad faces 3 years after pleading guilty to incest involving daughter - FOX 11

Stephen Vincent Chavez, 41, has plead guilty to one felony count of incest and one misdemeanor count of furnishing alcohol to a minor in relation to the sexual abuse of his 18-year-old daughter, a graduate of the Wake County Public School System, whom he plied with alcohol and raped just days after she moved out to California to live with him.

Unfortunately, the young woman took her own life after moving back to Raleigh in the wake of the assault; according to her cousin, who had been organizing advocacy for the Ventura County District Attorney not to drop the case, the victim “left notes talking about how she couldn’t stop thinking about what he did to her.”

@crystallacachetona @crystallacachetona ♬ original sound - Crystal💕

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Despite the tragedy of the situation, Chavez is only expected to receive three years in prison and twenty years on the sex offender registry when he is sentenced next month.

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Iraqi arranged marriage: husband murdered bride, dumped body in Jordan Lake

Husband gets prison for killing wife in Chatham Co. to escape arranged marriage - N&O

Man took wife for a late-night meal at Denny’s after her Walmart shift, then shot her in the back and threw her off a bridge - Law & Crime

Husband of Apex woman found dead at Jordan Lake charged with murder - WRAL

Omar Matthew Ibrahim Drabick, 37, a resident of Apex, was sentenced to 32-40 years in prison after pleading guilty to murdering the wife he imported from Iraq and dumping her body in Jordan Lake in 2023.

The investigation by the Chatham County Sheriff’s Office revealed that Turkish native Hadeel Ghadhanfer Hikmat, 34, had married Drabick in 2022 after moving from Baghdad, Iraq as part of a marriage arranged by Drabick’s mother. (Drabick appears to be a 2nd or 3rd generation immigrant with Iraqi heritage who grew up in the Raleigh area.)

However, according to a search warrant, at least one source relayed investigators that they had been told by Drabick that the marriage was “rocky” and had never been consummated, and that Drabick was jealous of Hikmat meeting with another Iraqi man.

Hikmat’s body was found by a boater in Jordan Lake on August 29, 2023, with deputies subsequently finding a large bloodstain and two 9mm shell casings on the Farrington Rd. bridge which crosses the lake.

Investigators were able to place Drabick’s vehicle in the area around the time of the murder, identify Hikmat’s blood on his shoes and in his vehicle, find records of a matching firearm and ammunition purchased by Drabick in 2022, and recover searches on his cell phone regarding getting away with murder.

Drabick was allowed to plead down to second degree murder from the initial charge of first degree murder, which carries a mandatory sentence of death or life in prison, and was sentenced to 300-372 months, with credit for the nearly three years he has already spent in jail. Drabick also received a consecutive sentence of 80-108 months for concealing his wife’s body.

We have not one, but two stories involving illegal aliens and underage sex crimes in the majority-Hispanic Siler City, including another sting by the “predator hunters” whose work led to the arrest of an alleged pedophile in Raleigh last year.

UNC coronavirologist Ralph Baric is retiring as the federal government has officially moved to cut him off from any future grants, though the reasons given aren’t directly related to the origins of COVID-19 or his colleagues at the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

What does the data show about collapsing student performance?

‘Learning recession’: NC student performance in reading, math worse than peers a decade ago - ABC11

New Education Scorecard Finds “U-Shaped Recovery”: High- and Low-Income Districts Improve Most Since 2022, While Middle-Income Districts (30-70% Federally Subsidized Lunches) Lag - Education Scorecard

Academic performance for students across America has yet to bounce back from pandemic era policy, according to recent reports and test data.

However, the “learning recession” appears to have begun before 2020, with certain education metrics already in decline when the schools were shut down.

Testing data from the twelve school districts in the Triangle Trumpet’s beat confirm this pattern, with the the standardized test scores failing to return to 2018-2019 levels.

However, one potential factor which often goes ignored in the discussion surrounding average test scores is the changing student demographics due to replacement migration and racial disparities in the exercise of school choice.

For instance, in 2024-2025, Asian students at districts across the Triangle were over three times more likely to test as “college and career ready” than black students in those same public schools.

The demographics of these districts have significantly changed in only 10 years, with the Asian and Hispanic public school populations has been steadily growing, while the number of white students has gone down.

However, the pattern of decreasing performance in standardized testing is fairly consistent across the major racial/ethnic groups in each of these public schools districts:

Although the significant increase in above-average demographics like Asians across these districts has counter-balanced the decrease in above-average white students and the increase below-average Hispanic students, the demographic replacement may be responsible for a larger portion of changing performance at the district or school level.

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Siler City: Two more Hispanic illegal immigrants identified in underage sex crimes

Despite having a population of less than 9,000, Siler City continues to punch above it’s weight in crimes involving illegal aliens and sexual abuse of children, reflective of a town which has rapidly become majority Hispanic due to (failed) immigration policy.

(Data from neighboring Wake County shows that Hispanics are overrepresented in arrests for statutory sex crimes against minors.)

Last year, two Hispanic illegal aliens were charged with abducting a 15-year-old girl from Siler City for sexual purposes, while in another case a Hispanic resident of Carrboro who had previously plead guilty to sex crimes involving children was charged with kidnapping and human trafficking a minor female who had been reported missing from Siler City.

And in another immigration and sex crime related story, the charges against an employee of the Siler City Police charged with visa-related fraud were dropped after one of the alleged victims was charged with “sex offense crimes” and went on the run.

Previous Coverage:

• Pair charged with kidnapping 15-year-old from Siler City identified as illegal aliens (No. 114 — Mar. 8, 2025)

• Kidnapping/grooming epidemic continues w/ registered sex offender accused of trafficking another underage girl in Siler City (No. 120 — Apr. 19, 2025)

• Siler City Police employee caught running visa scam (No. 140 — Sep. 6, 2025)

• Ciudad Siler (No. 147 — Oct. 25, 2025)

• Siler City Police employee ducks visa-related fraud charges after “victim” charged with sex offenses, flees country (No. 166 — Mar. 7, 2026)

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Illegal alien charged with grooming, extorting child was working for Amazon, Uber

Man held on ICE detainer, facing over 50 felony charges for exploiting minor on Snapchat - Queen City News

ICE fugitive arrested in Gaston County on dozens of child sexual exploitation charges - WCNC

Gaston County Police FAST Team Arrests Man Wanted for Multiple Child Sex Offenses - Press Release

According to court documents, an ICE detainer has been filed for Jose Isaias Martel-Arriaga, 23, of Honduras, who was arrested in Gaston County on nearly 60 counts from the Siler City Police Department for allegedly grooming and extorting a 14-year-old victim via Snapchat.

Despite being a wanted person by ICE for failure to appear for removal proceedings, court documents list Martel-Arriaga as being employed by Amazon and Uber Eats.

Martel-Arriaga faces 40 counts of first-degree sexual exploitation of a minor, nine counts of indecent liberties with a minor, four counts of solicitation of a child by computer, three counts of solicitation of a child for prostitution and three counts of extortion.

“Predator hunters” catch Siler City illegal in underage sex sting

In another unrelated case, Alex Rosen of Predator Poachers visited Siler City last week to expose another “predator” who allegedly was sending “disgusting images” to and attempting to meet up with who he believed was a 13-year-old girl.

Walter Armindo Morales De Paz, 30, was arrested by the Siler City Police and was charged with five counts of solicitation a child by computer; court records show Morales De Paz has been a resident of Chatham County for nine years, despite lacking legal immigration status, and is subject to an ICE detainer.

In a previously reported on story, Rosen busted an alleged pedophile in Raleigh in July 2025, who admitted to having child pornography on his cell phone, resulting in an arrest by Raleigh Police three months later, in which Daniel Bondowski, 52, was charged with twenty counts of second degree second exploitation of a minor.

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Follow-up

Confirmed: UNC coronavirologist to retire as feds block grant funding over gain of function misdeeds

Ralph Baric and UNC’s Biodefense Contract Racket Exposed - The DisInformation Chronicle

Virologist accused of starting COVID-19 will fight U.S. ban on funding - Science

UNC-Chapel Hill Coronavirus Researcher Ralph Baric to Retire - The Assembly

Top coronavirus researcher Ralph Baric will retire from UNC-Chapel Hill - N&O

72-year-old UNC coronavirologist Ralph Baric has announced his retirement amid public confirmation that the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has suspended him from receiving federal grants while pursuing debarment to prohibit Baric from receiving future grants, as first reported by Real Clear Investigations last month.

According to the Notice of Suspension and Proposed Debarment, which Baric shared with the Science publication, the DHHS action is not directly related to the Wuhan Institute of Virology or the origins of COVID-19, but rather to a “deception” regarding prior gain-of-function research, as well as non-federal sources of grant funding.

Baric is accused of a “pattern of deception” regarding research related to a mouse-adapted strain of bat coronavirus in violation of a 2014 federal pause on gain-of-function research, as well as failing to provide data regarding the modified coronaviruses and “minim[izing] the concern about a potential increase infectivity in human cells.”

The letter also references a “clear attempt at deception” by Baric in regards to the reporting of external funding from UK-based Wellcome Trust.

As stated in the information in the record, the NIH found that, based on his own statements and published research, Dr. Ralph Baric was engaged in GoF research that was subject to the October 17, 2014, U.S. Government funding pause and NIH Notice Number: NOT-OD-15-011, Funding Pause for Certain Types of Gain-of-Function Research Projects to that effect, and continued to participate in in GoF research even after being notified of this by the NIH. Also, the NIH found that Dr. Ralph Baric was not forthcoming surrounding his Wellcome Trust grant in documents submitted to the NIH. Furthermore, as established in the information in the record, Dr. Ralph Baric is associated with multiple active NIH-funded grant awards.

— Notice of Suspension and Proposed Debarment of Ralph Baric, PhD

Baric characterized these accusations as “bulls--t” in the Science piece, where he also stated his intent to fight the debarment, which he referred to as “being strung out for being a scientist.”

Previous Coverage:

• Public Records Lawsuit Against UNC by Medical Watchdog Group Investigating COVID-19 Origins Advances (Original Article — Nov. 6, 2023)

• UNC claims “research project collaborations” are exempt from public records statute in COVID-19 origins investigation lawsuit (No. 57 — Feb. 3, 2024)

• U.S. Right to Know public records lawsuit reveals efforts to evade transparency (No. 58 — Feb. 10, 2024)

• Coronavirus Pandemic Subcommittee alleges FBI interest in UNC/COVID origins public records requests (No. 59 — Feb. 17, 2024)

• UNC COVID-19 Origins Public Records Lawsuit: what does “proprietary mean”? (No. 61 — Mar. 2, 2024)

• “Stop Gain of Function” rally at UNC-Chapel Hill (No. 62 — Mar. 9, 2024)

• UNC-linked coronavirus researcher accused of “discrepancies in testimony” (No. 66 — Apr. 6, 2024)

• UNC coronavirologist Ralph Baric: “can’t rule out” lab leak origin of COVID-19 (No. 70 — May 4, 2024)

• 3rd Party Report Finds UNC Withheld Public Records Requested by Medical Watchdog Group Investigating COVID-19 Origins (Original Article — Aug. 1, 2024)

• Judge rules in favor of UNC in public records suit brought by medical watchdog investigating COVID-19 (No. 94 — Oct. 19, 2024)

• U.S. Right to Know appeals public records lawsuit ruling vs UNC (No. 99 — Nov. 23, 2024)

• UNC lab leaks? Evidence indicates seven lab-acquired SARS-CoV-2 infections in Chapel Hill during pandemic, researchers say (interview) (Original Article — Apr. 26, 2025)

• US Right to Know files brief filed in appeal of UNC COVID-origins public records lawsuit (No. 126 — May 31, 2025)

• COVID-19 origins transparency? Legislative committee requests UNC records (No. 128 — Jun. 14, 2025)

• AG Jackson files response to COVID-19 origins public records appeal (No. 136 — Aug. 9, 2025)

• Appeals court sides with UNC in public records lawsuit over COVID-19 origins (No. 158 — Jan. 10, 2026)

• Lead COVID-19 virologist placed on leave from UNC? (No. 174 — May 2, 2026)

A “married” homosexual in Erwin is facing charges related to rape and child pornography involving multiple underage male victims as young as five, at least one of whom appears to have been the couple’s “son.”

The incoming Wake DA is proposing local funding for more prosecutorial resources; data shows that the prosecutorial districts of Wake and Durham are 3rd and 1st respectively across the state in terms of crimes per assistant district attorney.

Wake County has postponed a rubber stamp vote on a “merger” between WakeMed and Atrium Health after pushback from the public, as well as local and state officials from both parties.

Harnett homosexual “dads” charged with child pornography/grooming/rape involving “son(s)”

Two Harnett County men arrested on child sex crimes - WRAL

2 arrested in Harnett County on child sex crime charges after sheriff’s office gets NCSBI cybertips - CBS17

Cape Fear Valley worker, spouse accused in sex crimes against children - ABC11

Harnett Detectives Arrest Two Men Following NC SBI Cybertip Investigation - JoCo Report

A child pornography investigation into a homosexual couple in Harnett County has resulted in charges for grooming and making sexual content of a 15-year-old boy, and raping a 5-year-old.

According to a search warrant executed last week, the Harnett County Sheriff’s Office Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force received a tip in March by way of the NC State Bureau of Investigation implicating Joshua Lee Gilliam aka Josh Gilliam-Lynch, 39, of Erwin, in regards to two videos of prepubescent boys being raped which had been uploaded to Snapchat. The ICAC task force had previously received a tip in May 2025 with Gilliam’s “husband” Ronald Wayne Lynch, 39, identified as the suspect, though the document does not specify why no charges were filed.

The investigation by the HCSO resulted in charges for the pair as creators of child sexual abuse material, not merely its possession and distribution. Gilliam has been accused of using, inducing, encouraging, or facilitating the creation of CSAM involving a 15-year-old male victim, while Lynch is accused of actually taking the images for “pecuniary gain.”

Gilliam is also accused of sexually abusing another victim, aged six years old.

A Facebook profile associated with Gilliam confirms that the pair is a “married” homosexual couple who “have 5 boys,” whom they have involved in LGBTQ activism.

Gilliam is being held in jail under a $1 million secured bond, facing one count each of first degree sexual exploitation of a minor, first degree statutory sexual offense, and taking indecent liberties with a child.

Lynch is being held in jail under a $360,000 secured bond, facing two counts of first degree sexual exploitation of a minor and one count of second degree sexual exploitation of a minor.

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Do our largest counties suffer from a dearth of prosecutors?

Incoming Wake DA asks county for $600K for more prosecutors, mental health court - N&O

In an election year where law and order weighs heavy on the minds of North Carolinians, are there any public safety measures that can be agreed on by both sides of the political aisle?

Although incoming Wake District Attorney Wiley Nickel has promised left-wing priorities such as deprioritizing marijuana crimes and prosecuting immigration officials, he is also proposing an increase in staffing and funding at the DA’s office to help manage the high caseload and improve the swiftness of justice.

The prosecutorial districts may be drawn along county lines and the district attorney election may happen locally, but the allocation of full-time assistant district attorneys is set by the state, ranging from 6 ADAs in Montgomery and Stanly counties to 71 in Mecklenburg County, which was recently increased in response to the murder of Iryna Zarutska.

However, the distribution of these ADA positions by the state is inconsistent, with a large variance in the concentration of ADAs in comparison to either crime or population.

For instance, although Wake has a slight margin as the state’s largest county, it only has 44 ADA positions allocated compared to 71 in Mecklenburg. In fact, the Wake district has the fewest ADAs compared to its population, with only 3.56 per 100k residents. On the other end of the scale, Prosecutorial District 21 (Anson, Richmond, & Scotland) has 11.34 ADAs per 100k.

It is perhaps more fair to judge the allocation of prosecutorial resources according to the crime rates in the respective districts, as a district with more criminals would surely need more prosecutors than a district with few criminals.

Going off of the “index offenses” reported by the State Bureau of Investigation, the variance in distribution is even more pronounced, with 96.38 index offenses per ADA position in Prosecutorial District 35 (Avery, Madison, Mitchell, Watauga, & Yancey) compared to 760.61 in the Durham district.

Mecklenburg comes second with the recent addition of 10 ADA positions, for a rate of 678.45 index offenses per ADA, Wake comes in third with 591.52, and Prosecutorial District 18 (Chatham & Orange) comes in eighth with 431.20. (The best staffed district in the Triangle, by this metric, is Johnston with 238.10 index offenses per ADA).

Under Nickel’s proposal, Wake County would chip in $603,000 for 5 ADAs and a mental health court, Raleigh would contribute $168,826 for two ADAs and two legal assistants, and Cary and Apex would each contribute $84,413 for one ADA and one legal assistant.

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Wake County postpones vote on WakeMed merger after public backlash

Atrium poised to take over WakeMed in Triangle healthcare shakeup - WUNC

WakeMed is seeking a combination with Atrium Health, the state’s largest hospital network - Axios

State, local officials, lawmakers press for delay on WakeMed/Atrium deal - NC Health News

What to know about WakeMed’s deal with Atrium as NC officials raise alarms - WRAL

Wake County Board of Commissioners has delayed a vote in which it was expected to approve the transfer of the WakeMed hospital system to Atrium Health as part of its “consent agenda” without public input.

The vote was delayed after negative response, including from a number of state officials such as State Treasurer Brad Briner (R), State Auditor Dave Boliek (R), Rep. Erin Paré (R), Rep. Mike Schietzelt (R), Rep. Sarah Crawford (D), Sen. Jay Chaudhuri (D), and Raleigh Mayor Janet Cowell (D).

WakeMed was originally founded by the county as a public hospital in 1955 before becoming a private non-profit organization in 1997, with the county still retaining certain control.

Although proponents of the deal tout a greater access to capital and resources as part of a larger system, skeptics see it as giving away a public asset, which could result in higher prices for no benefit.

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Harnett County detention officers charged over assaulting inmate

3 ex-Harnett County jail officers arrested after inmate assaulted twice, NCSBI investigating - CBS17

3 Harnett detention officers accused of assault, using pepper spray on inmate - WRAL

3 former Harnett County detention officers facing charges - ABC11

SBI: Incidents at Harnett County Jail Lead to Arrest of Three Former Officers - JoCo Report

Press Release - NC SBI

A total of three detention officers have been fired from the Harnett County Sheriff’s Office and face charges relating to an inmate assaulted by officers on at least two occasions in December at the county jail.

According to the charging documents, Adam Russell Isbell, 39, used OC spray on the inmate and punched him repeatedly on December 27, while Joseph Austin Collins, 28, is accused of striking the inmate in the head with an OC cannister in the decontamination room at the jail three days later. In addition, Lenora Guerrant Dawson, 60, has been charged with enabling the second assault as the on-duty supervisor.

The incidents were reported several days later; an internal investigation by the HCSO found that the officers had violated jail use of force policies, leading to their termination, while an independent investigation by the NC State Bureau of Investigation resulted in charges of assault and battery for Isbell and Collins, and a charge of injury to prisoner by jailer for Dawson. (1, 2, 3)

The three have each been released on bonds ranging between $2,000-$5,000.

Legislators have dropped a plan to allow Franklin County to buy or seize land in neighboring counties without the permission of their governments. But the underlying fight is far from over, with Franklin seeking a long-term water supply from Kerr Lake to support the expected migration of tens of thousands of new residents to the county.

A South Carolina man has been arrested in Apex after police received a report of a suspicious vehicle covered odd messages, including one which read “HEADED TO WSH TO KILL THE PRES.”

For years, skeptics of the mainstream narrative on the origins of the coronavirus have cast their eyes towards the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, home of Ralph Baric and his coronavirus gain-of-function research. According to a recent report, Baric has been placed on leave from UNC, and has been removed from federal grants.

Another man has been fatally stabbed near a Durham greenway where another man was fatally stabbed in March; locals say the police did nothing in the meantime to stop the rampant criminality by the homeless who have camped nearby.

Teachers and their supporters gathered in Raleigh on a socialist holiday to protest for higher wages as well as various left-wing causes, leading to classes cancelled or whole districts shut down in Chatham, Durham, Orange, and Wake.

Wake schools bring DEI to America 250

Wake schools will use an ‘inclusive lens’ to explore America’s 250th anniversary - N&O

Wake schools plans lessons around ‘America 250’ - WRAL

America 250: Celebrating the 250th Anniversary of the Declaration of Independence - WCPSS School Guidance

America 250: Celebrating the 250th Anniversary of the Declaration of Independence - WCPSS Student Achievement Committee

Documents issued by the Wake County Public School System reveal that the district intends its educators to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence with a focus on diversity, equity, and inclusion, as well as a reimagining of our nation’s history to suit the current progressive agenda.

Each of the four “desired outcomes” listed in a guidance document revolve around DEI, such as “highlight[ing] the diverse voices (Indigenous, enslaved, immigrant, and women),” ensuring the “work is inclusive” for a “diverse school community,” and “equity practices” such as “disrupt[ing] disproportionality” and “partner[ing] equitably with families/caregivers.”

The objectives make it clear that instead of promoting American culture and heritage, the instructors are to cater to “diverse” cultures and “diverse” heritages, ensuring that “EVERY student accurately sees their culture and heritage reflected in their learning.”

This focus on non-American culture and heritage is reflected in most of a page being taken up with a comparison between cultural “appreciation” vs cultural “appropriation.” (It is doubtful whether the same standard of “honoring, respecting, and showing empathy” would be applied to the culture of the founding fathers, the most moderate of whom would be considered evil racist far-right extremists by the median Wake County school board member).

The suggested activities take an activist bent as well, with more references to Civil Rights activists than to the men who signed the Declaration, or fought for American freedom in the Revolution. Beginning with kindergarteners, the Revolution given a progressive framing of “people want[ing] new rules” and “they saw a rule that wasn’t fair, so they worked together to change it” rather than that the colonists were merely insisting on the ancient rights of their English heritage, established on the fields of Runnymede and in the halls of Westminster.

Additionally, if the overt references to diversity, equity, and inclusion are not sufficient to draw a direct line to DEI, one of the documents authors, Dr. Janeen Perry-Campbell, was a student of critical race theory who was employed as a Director of DEI at a Virginia school district role prior to being hired at the Wake County Public Schools Office of Equity Affairs.

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Franklin County fights for migrants’ water access

Water wars: Booming population, drought driving tension in NC statehouse and beyond - WRAL

Protesters flood legislature, succeed in defeating land-grab bill over water access - WRAL

Residents express concerns over Kerr Reservoir reallocation - Henderson Dispatch

Citizens group: Find another water source and remain in Regional Water System - Warren Record

Franklin County Water: A Generational Challenge - Franklin County

An attempt to give Franklin County power to purchase or seize land in Halifax, Vance, or Warren without the permission of their respective county governments has been dropped after public outcry.

According to Rep. Matthew Winslow (R-Franklin), the purpose of this provision was to secure increased water resources for future development in Franklin County after failed negotiations to obtain water from Kerr Lake through the current water utility, which is owned by Henderson, Oxford, and Warren County.

Although Winslow claimed that “the provision is strictly for constructing a direct raw water line from Kerr Lake to a future Franklin County treatment facility,” the actual proposed text of the bill shows no such restriction on the power being granted:

PART V. FRANKLIN COUNTY PROPERTY ACQUISITIONS
SECTION 5. Notwithstanding the provisions of G.S. 153A-15, the County of Franklin may acquire, including by condemnation, real property or an interest in real property located in Halifax, Vance, or Warren County, without the consent or approval of the other county’s Board of Commissioners.

— Senate Bill 214 (4/21/2026)

However, after the strong negative reaction from citizens and their elected representatives in the counties from which the approval power was being stripped, House Speaker Destin Hall (R-Caldwell) announced that the provision would be removed from the bill, but could be brought back if the involved parties didn’t “work it out.”

Ultimately, although the counties bordering the body of water and currently benefitting from its storage capabilities may feel the greatest sense of ownership, John H. Kerr Reservoir aka Kerr Lake was created by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in 1952, and it is to the USACE that Franklin County directed a request in December for 15.7 million gallon per day.

A recent document on the Franklin County website cites “growth” as the explanation for the county’s water demand, with the population expected to double by 2060.

To be clear, the county is not pursuing the expected water needs of its current citizens or their posterity; instead, it is planning for the future needs of the thousands and thousands of migrants expected to “flood” into the county from across the state, across the county, and across the world. (The last two of which can both be linked to federal immigration policy.)

Would-be Trump assassin intercepted in Apex

Man arrested in Apex accused threatening President Trump now faces federal charges - CBS17

Secret Service places detainer on SC man accused of threatening message toward the President - ABC11

Man accused of threatening Trump will appear in federal court Monday - WRAL

Who is the man accused of making threats against the president at an Apex car wash? - N&O

A South Carolina man arrested in Apex faces charges including communicating threats against the president just days after a gunman stormed the White House Correspondents’ Association and allegedly shooting a Secret Service agent.

Daniel Rodney Swain, 41, was charged by Apex Police with possession of methamphetamine, resisting a public officer, and displaying a fictitious license plate after officers responded to a call regarding a suspicious vehicle at a local car wash.

As photos captured by media and law enforcement show, the windows of Swain’s vehicle were covered with messages, one of which read “HEADED TO WSH TO KILL THE PRES.”

According to the federal complaint regarding the threat, Swain had been previously interviewed by the Secret Service regarding a post he made about the attention that would be gathered by shooting the president’s father. (President Trump’s father died in 1999 at the age of 93.)

The complaint also cites a more recent Facebook post by Swain in which he wrote that “somebody oughta go put a round in his f---ing head and then do it to his son and do it to his wife and then do it to the rest of Congress.”

The vehicular messages and Facebook posts also referenced the deaths of Swain’s family members, which he believed the government was responsible for.

Swain told investigators that he was merely in North Carolina to look for work in the Research Triangle Park area and take pictures of local buildings with his drone, before possibly eventually heading to DC exercise his First Amendment rights.

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Follow-ups

Lead COVID-19 virologist placed on leave from UNC?

COVID Cover-Up: Hiding Star Researcher Ralph Baric’s Ties to Global Pandemic - Real Clear Investigations

Did Ralph Baric at UNC Create SARS-CoV-2? - Brownstone Institute

According to exclusive reporting by Real Clear Investigations, coronavirologist Ralph Baric has been placed on leave from the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill and has been removed from all his grants from the National Institutes of Health.

Baric’s award-winning internationally-acclaimed expertise on coronaviruses has also brought scrutiny to UNC-CH, with skeptics continuing to press on in their investigation of the previously-suppressed theory that COVID-19 may have leaked from a laboratory.

Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, Baric’s work included the “Project DEFUSE” proposal, which has been described as a “smoking gun“ or a COVID-19 “blueprint“ for its proposed gain-of-function research on bat coronaviruses. (The authors privately noted was “downplaying” the planned involvement of researchers at the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV), with Baric himself writing that “US researchers will likely freak out” if they found out that the viruses in question would be “grown” under substandard biosafety conditions.)

The efforts to get past the censorship, coverups, and repression of this line of inquiry have included a lawsuit by medical watchdog group U.S. Right to Know against UNC over its refusal to hand over certain records, including those related to Baric and his associations with the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

According to the RCI report, UNC has been uncooperative with NIH officials investigating Baric’s coronavirus research, with one anonymous source attributing the university’s lack of transparency to a cognizance of complicity:

A senior official inside the Department of Health and Human Services told RCI that the answer is obvious. After reviewing the government’s classified material, the official said that UNC is terrified that the public will learn that they were complicit in starting the pandemic.

“Baric designed the gun,” he said. “But the Chinese built it, and then they pulled the trigger.”

Previous Coverage:

• Public Records Lawsuit Against UNC by Medical Watchdog Group Investigating COVID-19 Origins Advances (Original Article — Nov. 6, 2023)

• UNC claims “research project collaborations” are exempt from public records statute in COVID-19 origins investigation lawsuit (No. 57 — Feb. 3, 2024)

• U.S. Right to Know public records lawsuit reveals efforts to evade transparency (No. 58 — Feb. 10, 2024)

• Coronavirus Pandemic Subcommittee alleges FBI interest in UNC/COVID origins public records requests (No. 59 — Feb. 17, 2024)

• UNC COVID-19 Origins Public Records Lawsuit: what does “proprietary mean”? (No. 61 — Mar. 2, 2024)

• “Stop Gain of Function” rally at UNC-Chapel Hill (No. 62 — Mar. 9, 2024)

• UNC-linked coronavirus researcher accused of “discrepancies in testimony” (No. 66 — Apr. 6, 2024)

• UNC coronavirologist Ralph Baric: “can’t rule out” lab leak origin of COVID-19 (No. 70 — May 4, 2024)

• 3rd Party Report Finds UNC Withheld Public Records Requested by Medical Watchdog Group Investigating COVID-19 Origins (Original Article — Aug. 1, 2024)

• Judge rules in favor of UNC in public records suit brought by medical watchdog investigating COVID-19 (No. 94 — Oct. 19, 2024)

• U.S. Right to Know appeals public records lawsuit ruling vs UNC (No. 99 — Nov. 23, 2024)

• UNC lab leaks? Evidence indicates seven lab-acquired SARS-CoV-2 infections in Chapel Hill during pandemic, researchers say (interview) (Original Article — Apr. 26, 2025)

• US Right to Know files brief filed in appeal of UNC COVID-origins public records lawsuit (No. 126 — May 31, 2025)

• COVID-19 origins transparency? Legislative committee requests UNC records (No. 128 — Jun. 14, 2025)

• AG Jackson files response to COVID-19 origins public records appeal (No. 136 — Aug. 9, 2025)

• Appeals court sides with UNC in public records lawsuit over COVID-19 origins (No. 158 — Jan. 10, 2026)

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Another man fatally stabbed near homeless-infested Durham greenway

Durham Police investigate deadly stabbing near American Tobacco Trail - ABC11

Man stabbed to death along American Tobacco Trail in Durham - WRAL

Man stabbed to death in area of American Tobacco Trail in Durham, police say - CBS17

Durham police investigate second stabbing in 2 months near American Tobacco Trail - N&O

Howard Reade, 44, has been found fatally stabbed near the same intersection of the American Tobacco Trail where a man was fatally stabbed in March, which has been noted for years as a particularly perilous area due to the presence of homeless camps, as well as numerous documented incidents of violence and sexual assault

There’s few details available on this latest stabbing besides the victim and location; however, as an update in our coverage of the last stabbing in this location, the Durham Police did locate and arrest LaRue Barbee, the repeat violent offender named as the suspect in the murder of Chesleigh Eloyd Lyons.

According to locals familiar with the area interviewed by WRAL and the News & Observer, the “open-air drug market” and rampant criminality of the area have not been checked by police intervention since the March murder.

Previous Coverage:

• Man fatally stabbed on section of Durham greenway known for homeless, violence (No. 167 — Mar. 14, 2026)

• Repeat violent criminal named as suspect in deadly American Tobacco Trail stabbing (No. 169 — Mar. 28, 2026)

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Protest Watch

Teachers’ union strikes for better pay and left-wing causes on socialist holiday

Senate District 26 Republican candidate Sam Page spotted at NCAE May Day protest - North State Journal

Thousands from across NC join teachers protest in Raleigh. Catch up on Friday’s rally - N&O

Teacher rally: NC educators focus on funding, pay issues as thousands march in Raleigh - WRAL

On Friday, at least 22 school districts representing over 700k students closed down or cancelled classes in association with the protest by the North Carolina Association of Educators in Raleigh, which the teachers’ union characterized as “ma[king] the powerful choice to support their workers.” (These districts include Chapel Hill-Carrboro, Chatham, Durham, Orange, and Wake.)

Increasing teacher pay could theoretically be a bipartisan issue, with local Democrats and Republicans in the NC House seeking to raise the starting teacher salary to $50,000, and Rockingham Sheriff Sam Page (Republican nominee for Senate District 26) seen speaking with the union president at the rally.

However, the thousands of teachers and their supporters who gathered at the state’s capital for “Kids over Corporations” on the historically socialist May Day did so with an overtly left-wing agenda, matching the political tenor of the union. In addition to increasing for public schools, the event called for

• Ending “corporate tax breaks”

• Eliminating private school vouchers

• Making the “wealthy finally pay what they owe” (presumably shifting an even more disproportionate amount of the tax burden onto their shoulders)

• Enacting “fair maps” for elections

This specific protest was organized as part of the “May Day Strong” nationwide 50501-associated anti-Trump event, which also called for ““No ICE. No War.,” “Tax the rich,” and “Hands off our vote” with additional Triangle-area events listed in Durham and Chapel Hill.

A Jamaican man has been charged with a home invasion and rape in Benson while working as an officer at the town’s police department.

An allegedly suicidal former Chapel Hill police officer has been accused of planning a mass shooting in Louisiana after his family told police that he had been threatening to harm “Black people.”

An (illegal) alien in Garner has been charged with sexually abusing a 10-year-old girl in 2019.

With yet another hearing in which Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools officials defended the presence of explicit LGBTQ material in elementary school libraries, Republicans in the state legislature have filed a “CHCCS Act” to improve enforcement of the Parents’ Bill of Rights.

With the mayor of Creedmoor refusing to resign, despite his recent DWI arrest, the city’s board of commissioners has cut down his powers.

Can we be sure it’s not the SPLC distributing neo-Nazi material in Clayton?

White supremacist and neo-Nazi signs found at Clayton Park - WRAL

Flyers with white supremacy symbols, images posted at Clayton park, police say - CBS17

Last week, mainstream media outlets like WRAL and CBS17 covered the discovery of “white supremacist and neo-Nazi” flyers and vandalism at East Clayton Community Park in Johnston County.

It is perhaps entirely coincidental that the Southern Poverty Law Center was indicted days before in federal court related to their alleged secret funding of organizations/individuals which the SPLC based their fundraising on opposing.

For years, the mainstream media has taken their cue from the SPLC, amplifying the extremely scarce dyed-in-the-wool white nationalists or white supremacists as a weapon to smear center-right organizations like Moms for Liberty or Turning Point USA.

Meanwhile, the normalization of political violence on the left is downplayed, whether it’s continued assassination attempts, open calls for French Revolution-style mass slaughter, or the street-level beatdowns administered by antifa and leftist activists.

For instance, can you imagine WRAL sending reporters down to cover these anarchist stickers calling for anarchist violent revolution/terrorism which I came across when covering a black bloc demonstration in Durham last June? I think not...

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Immigrant police officer charged with home invasion rape

Former Benson Police Officer Charged With Rape, Kidnapping - JoCo Report

Judge orders $5 million bond for ex-cop charged in ongoing Benson rape, kidnapping case: NCSBI - CBS17

$5M bond set for Benson police officer accused of rape and involuntary sexual servitude - WRAL

Press Release - Town of Benson

Press Release - NC State Bureau of Investigation

Peter Alphonso Blake, 33, has been charged with breaking into a Benson home and raping the inhabitant earlier this month while an officer of the town’s police department: Blake was reportedly fired Wednesday ahead of being arrested by the State Bureau of Investigation.

Prior to being hired by the Benson Police Department in August 2025, Blake was an officer with the Raleigh Police Department from April 2022 to July 2023.

Blake is charged with first degree forcible rape, first degree burglary, first degree kidnapping, and sexual servitude of an adult victim; Blake faces a maximum penalty of life in prison, which the Johnston County District Attorney intends to seek.

Blake is being held on a $5,000,000 secured bond, which was granted over the DA’s argument that he should be held without bond. The DA cited in part Blake’s ties to his nation of origin, Jamaica, which he has returned to visit every year since immigrating to America at the age of nine.

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Former Chapel Hill police officer accused of planning mass shooting of black festivalgoers in Louisiana

Ex-police officer accused of planning mass shooting in New Orleans allegedly wanted to ‘harm Black people’ - 4WWL

Former Chapel Hill police officer arrested in Florida over alleged New Orleans mass shooting threat - ABC11

New Orleans mass shooting plan was thwarted by network of law enforcement. Here’s what we know - CNN

Press Release - Okaloosa County Sheriff’s Office

A 15-year veteran of the Chapel Hill Police Department was arrested in the Florida panhandle, allegedly on the way from North Carolina to commit suicide by cop in a racially motivated mass shooting at a festival in New Orleans.

According to a bulletin by Burlington Police and the Alamance County Sheriff’s Office, Christopher Gillum was sought as a “missing/suicidal person” on April 22. However, when the sheriff’s office in Okaloosa County, FL was able to make contact with Gillum after he was located using Flock’s license plate reader system, he was released as he did not “present any grounds for involuntary commitment or criminal charges,” despite the bulletin attributing to his family the claim that Gillum had “expressed recent threats to harm ‘black people,’”

Gillum was relocated and arrested in the same county on Wednesday, with the sheriff department announcing he was arrested at a hotel with a handgun and 200 rounds of ammunition, with a photo showing a rather small handgun with mismatched ammunition:

Gillum was a police officer in Chapel Hill between 2004 and 2019; since then he has worked in various law enforcement roles including police officer in Carolina Beach, detention officer and deputy at the Orange County Sheriff’s Office, and a non-sworn employee back in Chapel Hill.

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(Illegal) alien charged with sexually abusing 10-year-old girl

Rigoberto Paz-Rivera, 66, has been charged by Garner Police with statutory rape of a child and indecent liberties with a child for allegedly abusing a 10-year-old girl in 2019.

According to the court records, the magistrate was unable to determine that Paz-Rivera is a citizen or legal resident, and an ICE detainer has been issued.

Paz-Rivera is being held without bond.

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Follow-ups

Republicans file “CHCCS Act” to tighten Parents’ Bill of Rights

Oversight lawmakers accuse Chapel Hill-Carrboro Schools of skirting Parents’ Bill of Rights law - North State Journal

Lawmakers Threaten Chapel Hill-Carrboro Schools Over Books, Policies on Gender - INDY

New bill seeks financial penalties for schools that violate the ‘Parents’ Bill of Rights’ - WUNC

House Majority Leader Brenden Jones (R-Columbus, Robeson) has filed a “CHCCS Act” on the same day as yet another legislative oversight hearing in which officials from the Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools failed to convince Republicans on the NC House Oversight Committee that the district is in compliance with the Parents’ Bill of Rights.

When challenged on pro-LGBTQ books in elementary school libraries, including one picturing a homosexual man in bondage gear at a “Pride” event, Superintendent Rodney Trice defended the explicit material on the grounds that it’s “certainly something a child may see in their community.”

The Curriculum Honesty, Compliance, and Child Safety (CHCCS) Act (HB-1043) would increase clarity and give teeth to the Parents’ Bill of Rights, which included only limited enforcement mechanisms. The new provisions include:

• clarifies definition of “curriculum”

• strengthening parents ability to sue for violations

• giving State Auditor authority to audit compliance

• withholding central office administration funding for noncompliant school districts

Previous coverage:

• Orange County school boards still defying Parents’ Bill of Rights (No. 147 — Oct. 25, 2025)

• House Oversight Committee investigates Chapel Hill–Carrboro City Schools (No. 148 — Nov. 1, 2025)

• Evidence of “wokeness” highlighted ahead of oversight hearing into Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools (No. 152 — Nov. 29, 2025)

• CHCCS superintendent backtracks on defying legislature in hearing (No. 154 — Dec. 13, 2025)

• CHCCS called back before legislators over LGBTQ books for elementary schoolers (No. 170 — Apr. 4, 2026)

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Creedmoor mayor declines resignation after DWI arrest; board strips powers

Creedmoor officials start ‘amotion’ process for removing mayor from office - Ledger News

State legislator adds voice to those calling for Downey’s resignation - Ledger News

Mayor of NC city refused to resign after DWI charge. How city stripped his powers - [N&O](https://www.newsobserver.com/news/politics-government/article315498509.html

Creedmoor mayor stripped of city powers by Board of Commissioners after DWI charge, past convictions - CBS17

Mayor Antwane Downey has been stripped of certain powers by the Creedmoor Board of Commissioners after being charged with his fifth DWI in February.

Although the it requires a lengthier process to actually remove an elected official like Downey from office, the board voted to prohibit him from activities such as representing the city in an official capacity at events, use city-owned communication media, or even access the City Hall (except for public meetings).

Downey publicly apologized to residents, but declined to accede to the demands for his resignation, which have come from the board as well as Rep. Bryan Cohn (D-Granville, Vance).

Previous Coverage:

• Creedmoor mayor charged with DWI (again) (No. 164 — Feb. 21, 2026)

ICYMI: a transgender-identifying woman has ben sentenced to prison for threatening the VA a mass shooting in Raleigh over government-provided testosterone.

Pittsboro Police have made an arrest in the “massage parlor” brothel investigation (you’ll never guess the race of the suspect).

Charges have been dropped against the man accused of stabbing four victims in Raleigh, after video shows he was acting in self-defense.

UNC-Chapel Hill has reversed course on investigating a student organization for making offensive satire after a free speech watchdog got involved.

Raleigh Police accused of violating rights of evangelist

Raleigh Police Department Improperly Restricts Religious Speech in Public - Press Release

Christian legal ministry Liberty Counsel has sent a demand letter to the Raleigh Police Department on behalf of a local evangelist, alleging that the RPD has violated his constitutional rights at a number of public events by hindering the sharing of the gospel through street preaching and distributing tracts.

According to the letter, Tommy Waltz and his Gospel of God Ministries have been told to leave public areas, stop using amplification, or stop distributing tracts at events including Brewgaloo in 2023, Packapalooza in 2025, the State Fair in 2025, and the Bluegrass Festival in 2025.

Although courts have ruled that the government may place some restrictions on traditional public forums, such as sidewalks, the letter argues that the RPD’s actions were not “narrowly tailored to serve a significant government interest” such as “eliminating excessive noise or promoting public safety,” as the incidents involved the evangelists following sound ordinances while ensuring they were a sufficient distance from the events to not be a disturbance.

In conclusion, the letter asks the RPD to confirm in writing that the evangelists will not be asked to leave or refrain from using amplification at these public events in the future.

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ICYMI: Homeless mentally ill transgender woman sentenced for threatening VA with mass shooting over Trump’s “gender affirming care” ban

Ashley “Elijah” Moore has been sentenced to 13 months in prison for sending a threatening email to the Department of Veterans Affairs in August 2025 which promised a “bloodbath in Raleigh” after finding difficulty in “get [her] next testosterone injection” from the government agency.

More details:

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Follow-ups

Arrest made in Pittsboro brothel investigation

Arrest Made in Blue Jade Spa Investigation - Press Release

If you intuited that the “Blue Jade Spa” being investigated by the Pittsboro Police for sex trafficking was likely run by an Asian, based on the pattern of previous “massage parlor” brothel investigations, you would be correct.

Chao Li, 37, a resident of Garner, was taken into custody in Johnston County on charges¹ ² of promoting prostitution, aiding and abetting prostitution, unlicensed practice of massage/bodywork, advertising without a license, and operating and unlicensed establishment.

Li was released on a secured bond of $3,000 and an unsecured bond of $5,000; court documents indicate he is either a citizen or a legal resident of the United States.

Although previous arrests of similar illegal enterprises in the Triangle have resulted in the arrests of individuals sharing the same last name, Quan Chun Li and Jin Hua Li, my basic research did not turn up any evidence of a connection there: Li is an extremely common surname in China, making up over 7% of the country’s population.

Previous Coverage:

• Pittsboro police investigate sex trafficking at massage parlor (No. 171 — Apr. 11, 2026)

- 北卡州 No.1華人房地產公司 - (translation: North Carolina’s #1 Chinese Real Estate Company)

I did however stumble across a fun aside, the fact that Chao Li’s wife appears to work for a real estate company based out of Apex which appears to be primarily staffed with Asians, and advertises the sale of local homes in the Chinese language.

Property records in Wake, Durham, and Orange show that out of 22 properties referenced in these five Chinese language posts (which are the most recent on the HHomes Realty LLC Facebook page), 16 of the homes currently belong to owners with Asian/Chinese names.

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Video shows Raleigh stabber was acting in self defense, charges dropped

Wake DA’s office drops charges against man accused in downtown Raleigh stabbings - N&O

Charges dropped against man accused of stabbing 6 in downtown Raleigh - WRAL

Charges dropped against man in downtown Raleigh stabbings - ABC11

Downtown Raleigh stabbing charges dropped against man accused of injuring five - CBS17

The charges against a knifeman who seriously injured four others in an incident on April 10 have been dropped after prosecutors reviewed video showing that his use of force was justified in self-defense.

According to the Wake County District Attorney’s Office, the new evidence indicated that Frank Lalich had actually been “sucker punched” and was being kicked while on the ground when he used a knife in self defense.

It is unclear whether any of the approximately twenty other individuals described by witnesses as being involved in the incident will be facing charges.

Previous Coverage:

• Six stabbed in late-night Raleigh brawl (No. 171 — Apr. 11, 2026)

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UNC “retracts” investigation of student organization for offensive satire

In free speech win, UNC retracts statement announcing investigation into student satire - College Fix

It’s official: making skits in mockery of racism is once again allowed on the UNC-Chapel Hill campus, even if students or alumni go viral for being offended at a (perhaps deliberate) misinterpretation.

After receiving a letter from the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression raising concern about the unconstitutional “chilling” effect of the university’s response to April Fool’s Day satire, which many found offensive, the university reversed course: “For the record, the University is not investigating any student or student group for the articles that appeared in the April 1, 2026 edition of The Daily Tar Heel or for the recent Hill After Hours video.”

“Our April 6, 2026 statement was issued out of concern for members of our community, many of whom were clearly distressed,” the update continued. “That statement was in no way intended to chill free speech on our campus, and we retract those portions of our message that may have suggested our students and student groups were engaged in unlawful conduct or conduct that could subject them to discipline.”

Although it may be framed as a clarification, it appears that this new statement in response to the first amendment concerns is a 180-degree turn from the original statement, which did claim an ongoing investigation into “a video that was produced by a registered student organization:”

“Student Affairs is investigating this incident to determine more information about how and by whom the video was authorized and produced as well as next steps needed to address concerns.”

Previous Coverage:

• April Fool’s Day satire gets “cancelled” at UNC (No. 170 — Apr. 4, 2026)

• UNC student org. under investigation for mocking racism (No. 171 — Apr. 11, 2026)

However, before she had the opportunity to carry out what the VA staff deemed to be a “true threat,” she was located by the Raleigh Police at a local homeless shelter, where she had written that she was planning to obtain a firearm using the “connections” of the “low life criminals and thugs with no money” with whom she was staying.

Ashley “Elijah” Moore was detained as part of an involuntary commitment procedure after she responded to the police contact by “behaving erratically and screaming,” and was charged federally with a single count of transmitting a threat in interstate commerce (18 U.S.C. § 875(c)).

Email: Mass Shooting Threat

On August 14, 2025, Moore sent the following email to the VA Fiduciary Hub as well as the VA Suicide Prevention Team with the subject lines “FORCED TO BE A MARTYR” and “FORCED TO FORGET GOD” respectively, according to the charging documents:

There will be a bloodbath in Raleigh come Monday. Ending with my blood. My mass shooting will be the catalyst for the better treatment of veterans, especially LGBTQ veterans and I will be the FORCED martyr.
This will make national news.
My life and happiness doesn’t matter.
My military service doesn’t matter.
My transition & need to access gender affirming care doesn’t matter.
My attempts at advocating for myself do not matter.
My attempts at trying to get my next testosterone injection do not matter.
My attempts at reaching out to the LGBTQ center do not matter.
My mental health does not matter.
My rights and physical health do not matter.
My dreams do not matter.
My human and civil rights do not matter.
My trauma does not matter.
My resiliency does not matter.
My emergency situation obviously does not matter.
My life does not and clearly never has mattered.
So, I will FINALLY end it and before I do, I am taking as many souls as I can with me. Random people. I don’t care who they are or what they look like. Anybody on my path. It won’t be hard to find a pistol to buy. The shelter is full of low life criminals and thugs with no money. But, they do have connections.
I’m tired.
I’m done.
Since I am not valued as a human being, I will stop valuing human life.
I have nothing to lose and no one to live for.
Since I was trained to kill, I will FINALLY kill.
Since I am being forced to end my life, I will FINALLY end my life.
I was born alone, I have endured alone, and I will die alone.
But, other lives will be taken before mine.
Fuck it.

“Moore had previously called individuals derogatory names but never threatened to kill anyone,” according to VA staff interviewed by investigators. However, in 2013, she had “admitted to making threats of blowing up a VA” and “made threatening statements of targeting the White House, Pentagon, and Congress.” She was arrested by Indianapolis Metro Police Department and charged on the basis of these threats, but the charges were dismissed.

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Mitigating Factors?

In a memorandum asking for a sentence below the advisory guideline range, Moore’s defense team outlined the tragedy of her life, from bullying in school to “c[oming] out as part of the LGBTQ community when [sic] he was 14 years old,” to being physically and sexually assaulted by fellow military members while deployed in South Korea, and to being diagnosed with Complex Posttraumatic Stress Disorder, Bipolar Disorder, and Borderline Personality Disorder.

According to the defense, Moore began “transitioning from female to male” in 2022 in Michigan with the help of the VA, but began to “struggle” to get hormonal “gender affirming care” after moving to Raleigh, which her defense associated with the ban on “medical or surgical therapy for gender dysphoria” by the new VA leadership under the Trump administration, which was announced in March 2025, despite an exemption in the policy for veterans like Moore who were already receiving “cross-sex hormone therapy.”

Moore’s defense asked for a sentence of supervised release with no prison time, citing Moore’s “acceptance of responsibility” by pleading guilty, her military service, and her “mental illness.”

Instead, Moore was sentenced to 13 months incarceration and three years probation.

A late-night Raleigh stabbing incident sent six to the hospital, but witnesses describe it as more of a mass brawl which escalated, rather than any sort of active stabber event.

Pittsboro police raided a massage parlor after finding evidence of illegal sexual activity and potential human trafficking, following a pattern of Asian owned/operated brothels disguised as massage parlors which have been busted across the Triangle over the last decade.

Left-wing activists accused a counter-protester in a “Support ICE” decorated truck of “swerv[ing]” and “knock[ing] down” an anti-Trump protester at the recent No Kings protest in Raleigh, but police say they that such a collision was neither observed by nor reported to nearby officers.

A free speech watchdog is jumping in after a UNC-Chapel Hill senior vice provost promised to investigate a student organization for making a satirical video mocking racism.

ICE deports “Durham family” (actually Biden-era Honduran “refugees”)

Immigrant advocates in North Carolina say family was deported without due process - ABC News

Two Durham Elementary Students and Their Parents Were Detained and Deported In the Span of Three Days - INDY Week

State, city leaders call for transparency in Durham family’s deportation - CBS17

Two Durham Public Schools students detained, deported by ICE - WRAL

Was a Durham family “kidnapped” in the middle of the day, or did ICE merely return a family of illegitimate “asylum” applicants who skipped a court date to their home, saving taxpayers the $22.7k spent annually by the Durham Public Schools to educate each of their two elementary school children?

The former is the framing adopted by Siembra NC and State Sen. Sophia Chitlik (D-Durham) in a press conference held on Thursday, neither of whom seem to have ever found a foreigner they would exclude from our country (not even criminals convicted of violent offenses).

Both Siembra NC and the Department of Homeland Security agree that Nelson Ramon Espinoza Sierra, Dacia Mariela Pacheco Galindo, and their two children Genesis Elizabeth Espinoza Pacheco and Denis Daniel Espinoza Pacheco were released into the interior of our country after traveling from their home country of Honduras to cross the border without prior authorization.

DHS characterizes this as entering “illegally”, while the opponents of immigration enforcement as exercising a right to “asylum” under American law. According to a 2023 report by the Senate Judiciary Committee, DHS released over 2,148,738 border-hoppers into the US during just the first 26 months of the Biden administration, with only 6% of the “asylum seekers” even being screened for “fear of persecution” in their own country.

When the Espinoza-Pachecos showed up for an immigration appointment in Charlotte, they were detained and swiftly deported to Honduras; according to DHS, the family had no pending asylum claims, and had been issued a final order of removal by a judge after missing a previous hearing.

Siembra NC declined to answer questions from reporters regarding the basis on which the Espinoza-Pachecos made their “asylum” claim, other than the assumed preference for residing in America, or what specific “due process” had been violating, instead pointing to the fact that they may not have had access to an attorney.

At the press conference, Chitlik also announced that many of her colleagues on “town commission,” “city council,” and “school board” had agreed to provide “protective presence” at immigration hearings. (Durham Public Schools Board of Education Chair Bettina Umstead also spoke at the event).

A relative of the Espinoza-Pachecos who was waiting outside the immigration appointment when the family was detained has collected nearly $30k so far to help the family with “food, clothing, shelter, and basic stability” as they “restart their lives” in their country of origin.

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Six stabbed in late-night Raleigh brawl

Police charge 1 man after multiple people stabbed in downtown Raleigh overnight - N&O

Man accused of stabbing six people in downtown Raleigh remains in hospital - WRAL

Witness sensed crowd’s ‘vibes’ before 6 stabbed in downtown Raleigh brawl, man arrested; 20 involved, bystanders say - CBS17

6 hurt in overnight stabbing in Downtown Raleigh after fight - ABC11

Just past midnight on Saturday morning, a brawl on Fayetteville St. in downtown Raleigh involving around 20 participants resulted in six people being being taken to the hospital with non-life threatening stab wounds.

“”It was two groups walking in opposite directions,” said and they just got into a verbal argument that escalated,” said local bar owner Kyle Taylor, who witnessed the confrontation.

Frank Lalich, 35, has been charged with four counts of assault with a deadly weapon with intent to seriously injure, according to Raleigh Police.

Given that Lalich is one of the individuals taken to the hospital with serious injuries, and he is only charged with four counts, it is not clear from the police’s limited statement whether there were any other knifemen involved in the incident, who started the violence, or what role self-defense may have played in some of the injuries inflicted.

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Pittsboro police investigate sex trafficking at massage parlor

Why police in this small NC town allege potential human trafficking at local spa - N&O

Pittsboro police investigate Blue Jade Spa amid human trafficking concerns - ABC11

Press Release - Pittsboro Police

On Friday, police raided what appears to be a massage parlor operating as a brothel on US-64 inside Pittsboro town limits, in a building which until somewhat recently housed an accounting/professional services firm.

According to a press release, Pittsboro Police received a complaint that “Blue Jade Spa” was operating as an unlicensed massage parlor, and that there were individuals living at and rarely leaving the property.

When police investigated, they found “probable cause indicating illegal sexual activity and potential human trafficking occurring at the business” and executed a search warrant on Friday, though no arrests were made and no details of the warrant appear to be available.

The stereotype of the Asian massage parlor as a front for prostitution has an objective basis in reality, with such enterprises often involving the human trafficking of female immigrants.

A report by the National Human Trafficking Resource Center reveals that the institution’s hotline received over two-thousand substantive calls about “human trafficking at illicit massage businesses;” of the 21% of calls which specified the country of origin of the victims, 77% were in references to Asian victims, most often from China.

Previous prostitution/massage parlor related law enforcement actions in the Triangle, which all happen to involve Asians, include:

• 2016, 2019: Quan Chun Li accused of owning massage parlor brothels in Apex and Durham, linked to Chinese mafia

• 2016: Seong Fan Chen and Xin Lan Chao charged with practicing massage therapy without a license at Li’s Apex massage parlor

• 2017: Ri Ping Lan charged with human trafficking and promoting prostitution at a Knightdale massage parlor

• 2017: Huilan Tian attempted to bribe police not to investigate Raleigh massage parlor

• 2018: Jai Liu, of Cary, charged with promoting prostitution at Greensboro massage parlor, where Fan Chen moved to after Apex arrest

• 2018: Raleigh massage parlor worker Li Qaungbi charged with prostitution

• 2019: Lian Jin Xu received suspended sentence of 16 to 29 months for promoting prostitution at Li’s Durham massage parlor, which she managed

• 2020: Jin Hua Li and Jin Hongmei charged with prostitution and practicing massage therapy without a license at two separate locations in Cary

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Fact Check: Left-wing activists fabricate claims about alleged hit-and-run by counter-protester at No Kings protest

“BREAKING: MAGAt in Trump-decorated truck deliberately knocks down peaceful “No Kings” protester in Raleigh and cops let him drive away with broken mirror!”

That’s the opening line of a post by a left-wing Facebook page with 11 million followers which has garnered 50,000 reactions and 11,000 comments; the post goes on to claim that police in Raleigh had allowed a counter-protester to leave in his truck despite “shocking video” which showed him “swerving toward peaceful protesters on the sidewalk and striking one of them” at the No Kings protest at the state capitol on March 28.

However, the Occupy Democrats post curiously only includes screenshots from the video showing the driver and the “Support ICE” message drawn on his windows, perhaps because even the edited version of the video available from other accounts online does not match the sensationalized narrative being promoted.

In response to an inquiry by the Triangle Trumpet, the NC State Capitol Police clarified that their officers, who video shows were nearby the incident, did not witness a pedestrian collision, and had not received any reports of a pedestrian collision either from a driver or from any pedestrian.

The version of the video which I was able to find starts with the anti-Trump protesters huddled around a truck in the lane closes to the capitol on S Salisbury St, with the man behind the camera leaning over the windshield in an apparent attempt to record the truck’s VIN. The truck is several feet from the curb, with multiple demonstrators in the roadway to the front and drivers side of the vehicle.

A voice which appears to belong to the cameraman can be heard shouting “Do it, b---h! Do it! Do it, b---h! You ain’t gonna do s--t!” while others can be heard attempting to get the demonstrators to “back up.”

The video then jumps to the next clip, where the driver has switched lanes away from the demonstration and is at the intersection of S Salisbury St and W Morgan St. The light appears to be green, granting the driver right of way, but a pedestrian with a sign is crossing in front.

As soon as the demonstrator comes around the left corner of the vehicle to the driver’s side, the driver lets off the brake and begins to accelerate, appearing to hit the demonstrator in the shoulder with the side mirror of the truck. This appears to be the collision in question, as the voice behind the camera begins to shout to a nearby police officer: “He just hit that person! Get him! He hit that person!”

In the next clip, the driver has made a left turn onto W Morgan St, and appears to be attempting to reattach the side mirror into its frame. A handful of police officers, who have apparently been nearby for the entire interaction, approach the driver and appear to indicate that he should leave despite impassioned shouts such as “Do your d--n job, f---ing lazy pieces of s--t!”

The final clip appears to be a different camera recording the same interaction of the police approaching the driver, in which he can be heard asking the officers if he’s “good to drive” with the damaged mirror; the verbal response of the officers doesn’t seem clear from the audio, with one perhaps telling him to “call and report” before waving him to continue driving.

The uniform and sleeve patch worn by the officers matches identifies them as NC State Capitol Police.

At no point in the video does the driver appear to “swerve” anywhere, let alone towards the sidewalk.

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UNC student org. under investigation for mocking racism

The collective inability for UNC-Chapel Hill to take a joke has taken a turn into the legal realm, with a free speech watchdog raising issue with the fact that a UNC-CH Senior Vice Provost has responded to the outcry over “harmful” April Fool’s Day satire with a promise to investigate and/or discourage such “highly inappropriate and offensive” content.

In addition to the satirical articles published by the Daily Tar Heel student newspaper, UNC-CH student “late-night sketch comedy show” Hill After Hours drew criticism for publishing a comedic video in which a well-meaning anti-racist white female student from Granville Towers takes bodyguards to visit the “third world country” of South Campus.

Although anyone with the slightest modicum of “media literacy” would understand that the stereotypical beliefs were the butt of the sketch’s joke, Senior Vice Provost for Student Success James Orr appeared to be referencing Hill After Hours when he promised a Student Affairs investigation into a “video that was produced by a registered student organization” as part of a statement on “recent content of both a racist and insensitive nature.”

The other content Orr’s statement referenced was the written satirical content by the Daily Tar Heel, which Orr “unequivocally condemn[ed]” on behalf of the university as “harmful” and “highly inappropriate and offensive” while explaining that DTH was an independent organization over whom UNC-CH has no control.

Orr nonetheless promised to use his bully pulpit against DTH over the satire: “Student Affairs will meet with DTH leadership to engage in a conversation that reinforces our values and commitment to fostering a welcoming environment for all students.”

This heavy-handed institutional response to offensive satirical material has attracted the attention of free speech/campus watchdog Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, which accused UNC-CH in a public letter of violating not only policy and state law, which requires the public institution to “remain neutral...on the political controversies of the day,” but also the US Constitution. (The Supreme Court has ruled that the First Amendment protects the publishers of satire and parody not just from official retaliation, but from government officials like Orr engaging in activities such as public statements which would “chill or silence a person of ordinary firmness from future First Amendment activities.”)

Although DTH was self-aware and self-deprecating enough to satirize itself as the “Daily Woke Heel” with jokes about DEI consultants and over-sensitivity, it apparently lacks either the courage or the motivation to not plunge full steam ahead into the wokest response possible, with a follow-up second apology announcing the following:

• apologies to racially/ethnically organized student groups

• adding a professional news adviser to the DTH staff

• instituting biannual staff DEI training with assistance from professors at the UNC Hussman School of Journalism and Media

• satire ban for the rest of the semester

• internal and external review of how the April Fool’s Day satire edition made it to print

• resignation of the opinion editors

Previous Coverage:

• April Fool’s Day satire gets “cancelled” at UNC (No. 170 — Apr. 4, 2026)

ICYMI: The latest article in our series celebrating the 250th anniversary of North Carolina touches on the colonial history of the area, including the namesakes of Johnston, Granville, Orange, Chatham, and Bute.

The primary student newspaper at UNC-Chapel Hill has apologized after its April Fool’s Day satire struck a nerve with the radical leftists in the student body and alumni.

The House Majority Leader is once again alleging violations of the Parents’ Bill of Rights by the Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools, citing books available to elementary schoolers ranging from promoting LGBTQ activism and agenda to depictions of homosexuals in BDSM gear.

Harnett Schools dual language immersion: for immigrants or for Americans?

‘No decisions about us without us!’ Students protest proposed changes in HCS’s dual language immersion program - Daily Record

Harnett County School Board Stands Firm for Students, Taxpayers, and Common Sense - Barbecue Sentinel

Keep Dual Language Immersion Programs in Harnett County Public Schools - Change.org Petition

Do bilingual Spanish immersion programs in our schools serve the interests of English-speaking American students, or are they being used to delay the necessity of learning our language by Spanish-speaking school-aged immigrants and children of immigrants?

An official of the Harnett County Schools cited the latter to the board of education in explaining why the county’s dual language immersion program was being cut back.

“The original thought there on dual immersion was some language acquisition for English speakers, but it has shifted heavily towards native speakers being in that program,” said Assistant Superintendent for Auxiliary Services Chris Pearson at a March 2 board meeting.

At the following March 30 board meeting, Pearson shared an example of how the current system is failing to produce acceptable results, citing the fact that 21 out of 23 English-learners in kindergarten at Coats Elementary were in the dual language program, yet less than 5% of English-learners at the school were testing as proficient in the 3rd grade.

The decision to reduce the program to only two elementary schools has met both resistance from parents, who have complained about the short notice, as well as from dual language activists such as the National Association of Bilingual Education, which has endorsed a petition to reverse the change which has garnered several hundred signatures.

However, reviewing the NABE website suggests that the disproportionate use of the Spanish immersion program by Hispanic immigrants may be more of a feature than a bug, with the NABE website citing “educational equity” and “global citizens” in its mission, as well as linking to resources geared towards helping illegal aliens evade immigration enforcement while making use of taxpayer funded educational resources.

Although the demographic change induced by post-1965 immigration policy may have been slower to reach Harnett, migration has skyrocketed the population of Hispanics in the county in recent decades, growing from 5,336 (5.86%) in 2000 to 18,899 (14.15%) in 2020.

The population of “English Learner Students” in the district has concurrently increased by ~200 per year, according to the number of ELS test-takers reported in the NC Department of Public Instruction accountability data sets:

The same data shows the vast disparity in performance between English Learner Students and their English-proficient peers, with the latter being up to 3.5x more likely to achieve the standard of “Grade Level Proficiency” in the twelve public school districts in the Triangle Trumpet’s beat:

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ICYMI: Long Carolina, a Forgotten Earl, and the Regulation

A brief history of the colonial counties of the Triangle

I can see by my analytics that not many of y’all took a look at the latest article in the Celebrating the 250th series, but I think you might find yourself at least mildly interested in the history anecdotes contained therein if you give it a chance:

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April Fool’s Day satire gets “cancelled” at UNC

Statement from the editor on The Daily Tar Heel’s satire edition - Daily Tar Heel

UNC student newspaper’s April Fools’ satire sparks outrage on campus - N&O

It felt ‘mean’: April Fools’ Day joke backfires on UNC’s Daily Tar Heel - CBS17

UNC-Chapel Hill’s reliably left-leaning primary student newspaper the Daily Tar Heel has apologized for the “insensitive” publication of satire touching too close to home on its audiences’ sacred cows, including immigration enforcement, DEI, and Israel.

These satirical articles included “Trump orders ALE in Chapel Hill to be replaced with ICE agents” and “The new plan for the Dean Dome — a two-stadium solution,” which have been taken down from the DTH website after social media posts were made criticizing the publication, accruing tens of thousands of likes: “You cannot take a real, active, politically charged issue that is affecting people’s safety and turn it into a campus-wide ‘prank’ and hide behind ‘it’s satire.’”

“Scenarios like a ‘two-stadium solution’ and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement at He’s Not Here were not written to be mockeries of real-life horrors, but to shed light on them,” explained DTH Editor-in-Chief Alli Pardue in an apology statement. “The pieces were written to call attention to the senseless events occurring today, like sending ICE agents to replace TSA agents at airports nationwide — abhorrent real-life news events.”

What is perhaps the most ironic part of the situation is that the DTH’s satirical articles for the holiday included “The Daily Tar Heel rebrands — now The Daily Woke Heel,” playing off the paper’s left-wing reputation with jokes about DEI consultants and over-sensitivity, only for the publication to fall prey to the power of those same tropes from an audience incapable of accepting the self-deprecating humor of satire directed at their pet causes.

Meanwhile, an article making humor out of the fact that UNC has discriminated (and continues to discriminate) against white students is still up: “UNC brings back DEI — for whites.”

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Follow-up

CHCCS called back before legislators over LGBTQ books for elementary schoolers

Superintendent Rodney Trice and Library Media Director Al McArthur of the Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools have been called before the House Oversight Committee of the North Carolina General Assembly on April 24 to answer for over a hundred illegal books in elementary school libraries across the district, according to letters shared by committee chair and House Majority Leader Brenden Jones (R-Columbus, Robeson).

Jones has provided examples of the 155 books his staff has identified as being in violation of the Parents’ Bill of Rights, providing examples of books available for CHCCS elementary schoolers, ranging from promoting various LGBTQ concepts to depictions of homosexuals depicted wearing BDSM accoutrements:

• “Grandpa’s Pride” - encouraging children to engage in intergenerational LGBTQ activism, which includes images of surgically mutilated transgenders and homosexual men in bondage gear
  

• “Call Me Max” - about a teacher acquiescing to a student’s demand to be referred to by her nom-de-trans, refers to identifying babies by their gender as a “mistake”
  

• “’Twas the Night Before Pride” - sanitized history glorifying LGBTQ movement, encourages involving children and even infants in LGBTQ activism
  

• “My Maddy” - eroding the gender binary and the essence of motherhood by promoting the concepts of transgender, nonbinary, and “gender diverse”
  

• “Molly and the Twin Towers: A 9/11 Survival Story” - inserting the LGBTQ and feminist agenda into a retelling of America’s most notorious terrorist attacks with a homosexual airline pilot
  

Previous coverage:

• Orange County school boards still defying Parents’ Bill of Rights (No. 147 — Oct. 25, 2025)

• House Oversight Committee investigates Chapel Hill–Carrboro City Schools (No. 148 — Nov. 1, 2025)

• Evidence of “wokeness” highlighted ahead of oversight hearing into Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools (No. 152 — Nov. 29, 2025)

• CHCCS superintendent backtracks on defying legislature in hearing (No. 154 — Dec. 13, 2025)

Prior to the prominence of incorporated municipalities and modern representative redistricting, the counties played a more prominent role in civil administration, law enforcement, as well as the apportionment of representatives in the legislative bodies. (The latter role remains as the “whole county” provision in the North Carolina Constitution, though its implementation is currently crippled by federal mandate.)

As the settlers expanded and developed the colony westward, counties were created, divided, and reshaped, whose names mark a patchwork of history ranging from English nobility to Civil War-era leaders.

For this article, we will briefly review the history of the counties making up what is now the Triangle area leading up to and during the Revolutionary War, touching on subjects like the Lords Proprietor, the War of Regulation, and a British politician so hated by our founding fathers that his name was erased from the state’s map.

The Long Counties

When the first charters for the Province of Carolina were issued by Charles I in 1629 and Charles II in 1663, the western border was “soe fare as the Continent extends itselfe” in the former and “as far as the south seas” in the latter.

Why is this relevant to our discussion?

In the mid 1700s, when our first counties of Granville, Johnston, and later Orange were split off from the earlier easterly counties of Craven, Edgecombe, and Bladen, the western boundaries of these counties were not set, meaning that they extended on paper to the western edge of the territory claimed by North Carolina, which ended at the Pacific Ocean.

In practice, these early indefinite counties only extended so far as the British settlers could exert effective dominion, but technically, these counties could claim to have briefly encompassed a strip of America in which the cities of Nashville, Knoxville, Santa Fe, and Las Vegas have since been constructed.

1746

In 1746, the area now known as the Triangle reached the level of population that North Carolina legislature passed laws creating Granville and Johnston, the sixteenth and seventeenth counties in the colony out of what was then Edgecomb and Craven respectively.

At the time, settlers in the southern part of the area could find themselves over a hundred miles from the Craven County seat in New Bern, while those in the northern part had a shorter but still significant trek to the county courthouse in Enfield, which is now in Halifax County.

I. Whereas Craven County is now become so very Extensive that many of the Inhabitants thereof live very remote from New Bern Town, where the Court for the said County is held, whereby a great many Difficulties and Hardships arise to the upper Inhabitants thereof, not only in attending their Ordinary Business in the said Court, but also being compelled to serve as Jurymen, and oftentimes as Evidences, at the said Court...

An Act for Erecting the Upper Part of Craven County into a County and Parish, and for Appointing a Place for Building a Court House, Prison and Stocks in the Said County. (State Records of North Carolina, Volume 23, p. 248)

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Johnston County

Johnston County was named after the governor at the time, Gabriel Johnston, Esq., a Scotsman who was sent over to serve as the 6th royal governor from 1734 until his death in 1754. Johnston was instrumental in encouraging the settlement of his fellow Scots in the Cape Fear region, with whom he was perceived to side with in disputes with the inhabitants of the northern counties.

Johnston’s term in office was also marked by conflict with the colonists and their representatives in the House of Burgesses over quit-rents, a type of land tax, with 500 men rose in arms to free a man in Edenton who had reportedly been jailed for refusing to pay. (Johnston’s gubernatorial salary, which was intended to have been payed out of these taxes, was £13,462 in arrears at the time of his death, or approximately $3.8 million in 2026 dollars).

While Johnston had been dead for 25 years by the time of the Revolution, his nephew Samuel Johnston, Jr. would become a supporter of independence, serving in the House of Burgesses, the first four provincial congresses, the North Carolina Senate, and the Continental Congress, as well as being elected as the sixth governor of the State of North Carolina; Gabriel Johnston’s grandson, William Johnston Dawson, also served the state as a member of the state legislature as well as two terms as a US Congressman.

The western border of Johnston County would be capped with the creation of Orange County in 1752, and would further be pared down to provide all or nearly all the area for the counties of what are now Wake, Wayne, Greene, as well as significant portions of Wilson and Lenoir.

Granville County

John Carteret, 2nd Earl Granville and namesake of Granville County, played a significant role in the development of early North Carolina, despite never setting foot in the new world. Granville inherited a one-eight share of the Province of Carolina originally given to his great-grandfather Sir George Carteret as a reward for his support for the crown during the English Civil War.

Although the owners of the other seven shares in the province sold their claims to the crown in 1729, Granville had declined to do so, instead ceding his right to govern the colony as it was transformed into the two royal colonies of North and South Carolina; Granville was eventually assigned his share as the Granville District, a massive strip of North Carolina which stretched across the province from the Virginia border to a line which can still be seen on a map as the southern boundary of Chatham, Randolph, Davidson, and Rowan.

The Granville District complicated the politics of the colony, as the royal government was still responsible for the area, while the revenue went to Granville. The earl’s agents caused further problems by a lack of punctiliousness in keeping records and executing grants, leading to unclear property titles. Granville died in 1763, and his North Carolina lands were confiscated by the State of North Carolina in 1777 as a supporter of the British Crown.

Granville served various positions in the British government, including Ambassador to Sweden, Secretary of State for the Southern Department, Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, Secretary of State for the Northern Department, and Lord President of the Council.

The Granville County of 1746 was not the first Granville County in the Carolinas; in 1684, a Carteret County was established in the south of what is now South Carolina, which was renamed to Granville County in 1708, which existed until the South Carolina government eliminated the county system in 1768. (Based on the dates, this Carteret County would have been named after Granville’s grandfather or his late great-grandfather, while the Granville would have been after his mother or her late father.)

In addition, the naming of Carteret County in eastern North Carolina in 1722 was named after either Granville or his great-grandfather, the original proprietor, while the naming of Elizabethtown in Bladen County is sometimes attributed to being in honor of the proprietor’s wife, Lady Elizabeth Carteret.

Like Johnston County, the western frontier border of Granville County would be ceded to Orange County in 1752/1753, while the eastern half of the county would form Bute County in 1764 and a portion of Vance County in 1881.

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1752

Orange County

Orange County was established in 1752 from Granville, Johnston, and Bladen after German immigrants began “flocking” to the area, as characterized by Gov. Johnston.

The specific origin of the county’s name is unclear, it was either named for William V, Prince of Orange, who was the four-year-old grandson of then-King George II, or for his distant relative William III, a prior Prince of Orange who deposed his uncle James II in the “Glorious Revolution” to rule as joint monarch of England, Scotland, and Ireland with his wife Mary II.

After William and Mary died without children, and her successor Anne having no children who survived to adulthood, the Parliament of England chose the distantly related House of Hanover as the successors to the throne, passing up at least 50 closer relatives who had the misfortune of being Catholic to crown George I as King of the newly united Great Britain and Ireland.

George I’s granddaughter Anne married William IV, Prince of Orange, a distant cousin of William III who inherited the title through a different line of succession. Anne gave birth to William V in 1748, thus introducing to confusion as to which German this county in a British colony was named after.

Either way, the name Orange comes from the Principality of Orange in what is now Southeastern France. Although it may be spelled and pronounced the same way, the ancient Celtic etymology of the location is in fact entirely distinct from that of the color, which comes from a Dravidian root referring to the fruit.

By the time of the Revolution, Orange County boasted the only proper “town” in the area, which was founded in 1754 and shuffled through several names before landing on Hillsborough in 1766 after Wills Hill, Earl of Hillsborough, who had been President of the Board of Trade and Plantations. Hillsborough was significant enough to achieve its own representative in the House of Burgesses in 1771, in addition to the two representatives from the county, a status only held by eight other towns at the time.

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1764

Bute County

In 1764, the eastern half of Granville County was split off to form Bute County, named after John Stuart, 3rd Earl of Bute.

Bute had served as the tutor for the future George III, and maneuvered himself into the position of Prime Minister in 1762, two years after his former pupil’s coronation.

However, Bute’s term was short lived, resigning in 1763 due to criticism over his signing of the Treaty of Paris to end the French and Indian War, which was perceived as being too favorable towards Britain’s enemies of France and Spain.

Nonetheless, in his short term as prime minister, Bute managed to set the colonies on the path towards Revolution through the post-war financial policy he initiated, which included additional taxes in America to cover the costs of the war as well as fund the British military presence in America. Bute also instituted a highly unpopular cider tax resulting in riots in England and solidifying his association with high taxes in the mind of the public.

Although Bute was officially out of power when the offensive Stamp Act was passed in 1765, he was perceived as still wielding influence in the British government as an advisor to the King, and he was permanently associated in the eyes of the colonists with the policies which drove the wedge between the colonies and royal government, ultimately leading to war.

For instance, protesters in Boston hung a boot with a green-painted sole under the town’s Liberty Tree as a physical pun in reference to both Bute and his successor as prime minister, George Grenville; Bute was also hung or burned in effigy in Boston, Wilmington, and Halifax (Nova Scotia). In fact, the use of the term “jackboot” as a symbol and metaphor for tyranny appears to date back to Bute’s association with unpopular authoritarian policies, with the term and the symbol being used at the time in protest both in England and America.

Although many names from the earlier colonial period still remain to this day, the newly formed state government chose to discard the name of Bute in 1779 when splitting the county horizontally, with Warren County selected for for the northern half in honor of Dr. Joseph Warren, a leading Massachusetts patriot who had fallen at the Battle of Bunker Hill in 1775, and Franklin County for the southern half as one of the first of many American counties, towns, cities, and even an attempted state named after Benjamin Franklin, who was then on his way to serve as Minister to France.

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1771

The Regulation

In the mid-1760s, an antigovernmental movement began escalating in North Carolina, variously known as the Regulation, the War of Regulation, the Regulator Movement, etc.

As students of the second amendment may know, the term “regulation” or “regulator” did not carry the same connotation of bureaucracy or governmental restriction with which they have become associated with, but rather to bring things into a state of order. At the time, the term “Regulator” also had over a century of use specifically as referring to someone redressing or reforming government abuse.

The Regulators in North Carolina are often traced back to the Nutbush Address, given by Granville County teacher George Sims from the area now known as Williamsboro in Vance County.

The specific grievances in the address were the abuse of the poor by a corrupt system of debt, lawyers, and the court. The Regulators also complained of unfair taxation, corrupt officials, land speculation, and a shortage of the hard currency required to pay taxes and debts.

The movement was noted to be the strongest in the western counties of Granville and Orange, as well as Anson to the southwest.

The Regulation came to a head in Hillsborough, where Regulators stormed, vandalized, and desecrated the county courthouse in 1770, along with the destruction of private businesses and homes, and the beating of lawyers including Edmund Fanning, an official holding multiple positions who had attracted their particular ire.

The rebellion ended the following May, when ~2,000 Regulators gathered in Western Orange County (now Alamance) to face off against ~1,000 troops gathered by Governor William Tryon.

Although greatly outnumbered, by all accounts, Tryon’s forces included ~150 professional British soldiers and eight small cannons, and decisively prevailed over the Regulators at the Battle of Alamance, inflicting hundreds of casualties and capturing many of the movement’s leaders, six of whom were swiftly tried and hanged in Hillsborough.

A battle involving thousands of combatants may seem relatively small compared to more modern conflict, but this represented a rather large portion of the state’s free adult male population.

In the months leading up to this battle, the legislature creating four new counties, with Chatham being created wholly from Orange County, while Wake and Guilford each included pieces of Orange County in their formation.

It would be extraordinary if the timing was coincidental; according to the website of the Joel Lane Museum House, the purpose was to allow the legislature to “exercise more control” by breaking up Orange County, which was then the largest county by population, as well as grant more representation. (Each new county was allocated two representatives in the House of Burgesses, while several of the oldest counties had five.)

The bills for the creation of the counties also included a list of hand-picked commissioners with which the government could fill its allies, such as Fanning, who was named as commissioner for the newly created Chatham County.

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Chatham County

Chatham County was named after William Pitt, 1st Earl of Chatham an English statesman known for his oratory in the House of Commons for over thirty years, which he had recently put to use defending America and championing the repeal of the Stamp Act on the grounds that it was unconstitutional to impose taxes on the colonies. In 1775, Chatham proposed a “Provisional Act” which attempted to mediate the worsening relationship between the colonies and the motherland by acknowledging the right of the colonies to levy their own taxes, while asserting certain other powers of the King and Parliament.

Chatham had been instrumental in directing the French and Indian War as a member of the British cabinet until 1761, and is credited with the strategy which secured a British victory. He officially returned as prime minister from 1766 to 1768, but his leadership was stymied by ill health.

After resigning, he continued to argue for a sympathetic approach to the American colonies and against continuing to antagonize them, yet opposed American independence as a strong imperialist. Chatham died in 1778 after collapsing while speaking on the topic of America in the House of Lords.

Wake County

Wake County, on the other hand, was named in honor of the wife of the governor, Margaret Wake Tryon.

Tryon’s spending habits had been among the complaints of the Regulators, including that he convinced the legislature to raise taxes to fund the construction of Tryon Palace in New Bern as the official residence of the North Carolina governor.

Shortly after successfully putting down the Regulation, and only a year after completing his controversial house, on the public dime, Tryon left with his wife for New York, where he had been appointed royal governor.

Tryon attempted to defend the crown’s interest against the growing patriot sentiment in New York, ultimately taking a military command after New York was placed under martial law, leading raids to burn and plunder patriot towns in Connecticut.

As for Margaret Wake Tryon herself, she was known for being more interested in topics of conversation reserved for men, such as government, military fortifications, and military strategy, and demanded to be referred to as “Your Excellency,” an honorific granted to her husband as governor.

An anonymous tipster says that Harnett County Schools put a teacher back in the classroom despite her on-campus marijuana use, she’s now facing drug and weapon charges.

The Durham sheriff was called to testify before Congress about his approach to immigration enforcement, a Louisiana Senator was not satisfied with the honesty of his responses

A suspect has been identified by Durham Police in the recent fatal greenway stabbing, it just so happens to be a repeat violent offender

The grad student accused of fatally shooting a professor at UNC-Chapel Hill in 2023 has been found competent to stand trial, after previously having been found incompetent due to schizophrenic symptoms.

A nationwide No Kings protest attracted thousands demonstrators at 14 locations across the Triangle, but one elderly Harnett Co. man found his face smashed into the ground after Lillington Police determined he was part of an unpermitted counter-protest, with his pastor being charged as well.

DOGE used ChatGPT to flag an NCCU grant as DEI, was it mistaken?

DOGE canceled a grant to NC Central. It used ChatGPT to make the decision - N&O

DOGE Used AI to Cancel HBCU Grant - HBCU Gameday

How DOGE Gutted the NEH in 22 Days — Inside Higher Ed - Inside Higher Ed

When DOGE Unleashed ChatGPT on the Humanities - New York Times

Former DOGE staffer says ChatGPT helped feds cancel grants mentioning ‘LGBTQ+’ - The Advocate

An $89k grant for digitizing and making educational material out of material from the archives of the North Carolina Central University was one of the grants selected for cancellation by Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) initiative after being identified by ChatGPT as “relat[ing]” to DEI, according to discovery in a lawsuit brought against the Trump administration over the cuts.

The following is one of over a thousand queries fed into the large language model to help identify which of the taxpayer/debt funded grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities were being used to promote leftist activism such as the now infamous “Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion”:

Does the following relate at all to DEI? Respond factually in less than 120 characters. Begin with ‘Yes.’ or ‘No.’ followed by a brief explanation. Do not use ‘this initiative’ or ‘this description’ in your response.Faculty and staff from Humanities disciplines within the College of Arts, Social Sciences, and Humanities at North Carolina Central University will form a cohort to participate in a two-year project (2022-2024) that uses the NCCU materials at Digital NC (especially the newspapers and yearbooks) and the materials in the NCCU Archives to develop teaching materials to be implemented in their courses. In the first year, we will coordinate with the Digital Humanities Research Institute at CUNY for workshop materials and instructors who would be willing to run a week of workshops. After the workshop, faculty members will be expected to create and implement course modules using this digital archival material. In the second year, faculty members will participate in a symposium discussing their results and will engage with other faculty members in their disciplines as well as the greater university community and the citizens of Durham, NC.

And ChatGPT’s answer:

Yes. This initiative focuses on utilizing digital archival material to develop teaching materials and engage with the university community and citizens, promoting diversity, equity, and inclusion.

Now perhaps ChatGPT’s line of analysis was incorrect, but was the characterization of this as a “DEI” grant entirely inaccurate?

As to the two NCCU English professors who were awarded the grant, Kathryn Wymer uses her position to pursue her interests in “gender studies” and “queer theory” while Rachelle Gold has taught various woke-style topics as well as published research into such topics as “Bearing Witness: Innovations in Teaching Trauma Literature at an Historically Black University” and “menstrual equity.”

Perhaps leftist activist professors are merely a representative sample of the involved institutions, which alone might cast the grant into question, but the questionable political activist motivation is not lacking from the grantor.

According to NCCU’s announcement, the grant was part of a program by the National Endowment for the Humanities to to fund “Humanities Initiatives” at Historically Black Colleges and Universities like NCCU, which was founded as the National Religious Training School and Chautauqua for the Colored Race in 1910.

If the true motivation of the grant was merely to preserve history, and not pursue a leftist activist agenda, why wasn’t it available to any college or university with a similar 100+ year history, regardless of the historical (and current) racial composition of its students?

The federal lawsuit, brought in the Southern District of New York, argues that it is unconstitutional “viewpoint discrimination” for the federal government to put the brakes on the $6+ billion distributed by the NEH over the course of its existence, much of which went to organizations promoting progressive and leftist agendas.

(In the case of this particular NCCU grant, most of $89,110 had already been spent, leaving only $5,977 in taxpayer savings by its cancellation.)

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“Her classroom reeked of marijuana:” Harnett Co. teacher charged with drug, weapon possession

Harnett County high school teacher charged with intent to sell marijuana near campus - WRAL

Harnett County Teacher Jailed On Multiple Charges - JoCo Report

Harnett County high school teacher charged with selling marijuana near campus - CBS17

Harnett County deputies arrested Overhills High School math teacher Jocelyn Lee McArthur, 33, on March 27 after the sheriff’s office received a tip that she was in possession of illegal substances on campus.

The arrest warrant states McArthur possessed marijuana with intent to “manufacture, sell or deliver” it within 100 feet of the boundary of her place of employment at OHS (a school zone enhancement that elevates the severity of the charge under N.C.G.S. 90-95(e)(8)).

“She reeked of marijuana every single day, her classroom reeked of marijuana every single day,” the anonymous coworker told WRAL “This is nothing new. This has been an ongoing situation.” The same source alleged that a former Overhills principal tried to terminate McArthur twice, only to have the county office send her back to the classroom each time.

In addition to charges relating to the possession of marijuana and paraphernalia, McArthur is also charged with possession of a stun gun/taser on the school property.

McArthur faces four charges: possession of a controlled substance with intent to sell or deliver on or near a school, simple possession of a Schedule VI controlled substance, possession of drug paraphernalia, and possession of a weapon on educational property (not a firearm). She is being held at the Harnett County Detention Center under a $102,000 secured bond.

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“Pants-on-fire:” anti-ICE Durham sheriff denies “sanctuary” label

Durham Sheriff Clarence Birkhead testifies on immigration enforcement in DC hearing - CBS17

Durham Sheriff Clarence Birkhead defends policies in testimony before Congress - ABC11

Hearing held on constitutional protections, limitations against sanctuary policies - The Center Square

Durham sheriff tells US Senate: Local police shouldn’t be immigration enforcement - N&O

“Do you need some water? ‘Cause I think your pants are on fire.”

That’s what Sen. John Kennedy (R-Louisiana) had to say to Durham County Sheriff Clarence Birkhead regarding his prevarication before the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution regarding his lack of cooperation with federal immigration enforcement authorities.

Birkhead testified that “Durham County is not a sanctuary county,” yet when pressed on his previous anti-ICE statements, including the fact that he campaigned in 2018 on an “uncompromising commitment to not cooperate with ICE,” Birkhead admitted that he refuses any cooperation with ICE that is not explicitly mandated by law.

Although his testimony was that “anyone who violates federal or state law needs to be held accountable and there need to be consequences,” Birkhead also testified that “[didn’t] agree with targeting people without criminal records who pose no threat to public safety.”

Birkhead also referenced that he recently became co-chair of the Law Enforcement Immigration Task Force, which advocates for policies with results virtually indistinguishable from the most radical open border communist, despite its framing as a “law and order” organization. (The website for this organization has recently been removed from the internet, but an archived copy from February reveals their anti-immigration enforcement principles.)

LEITF argues against enforcing immigration laws on the basis that illegal immigration is actually the fault of our current immigration system not making it easy enough for foreigners to flood into our country, despite figures showing a record-high level of foreign-born residents in America, both in absolute terms and as a percentage of the population.

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Eight years of consistent anti-ICE policy

Birkhead’s anti-ICE stance has been clear dating back to 2018, when he defeated incumbent Sheriff Mike Andrews in the Democratic primary on a platform of ending ICE cooperation, as documented in a contemporary article in the left-wing INDY Week: “Durham County’s Friendly Relationship With ICE Could Hinge on Its Sheriff’s Reelection Bid.”

Within a week of implementing his promised policy of ending compliance with ICE detainer requests, eleven people were released from the Durham jail whom ICE would have previously been allowed to take into custody, according to follow-up reporting by INDY on Birkhead’s first 100 days in office.

(The GOP-controlled General Assembly has taken away the discretion of sheriffs to refuse compliance with ICE detainer requests, in a bill which Birkhead described as an “attack on the immigrant community.”)

In January 2025, Birkhead “reiterated he doesn’t cooperate with federal immigration detainer requests” in a forum organized by local Hispanic activist organization Respuesta Rápida de Durham aka Rapid Response Durham. According to reporting by WUNC, “Birkhead said he’ll follow the law, but that he won’t notify ICE if an issued detainer is about to expire and a person is about to be legally released from jail.”

Birkhead justified his position in the hearing on the basis that “it was not state law” at the time to require sheriffs notify ICE when the jail was making an inmate available for ICE pickup on the basis of a detainer request, a loophole which was remedied with HB-318 passed last year over the veto of Gov. Josh Stein.

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Cooperation: a two-way street?

Despite his own refusal to participate in any way with immigration enforcement beyond the minimum required by law, Birkhead would prefer that ICE reach out to him when they are operating within the county.

Birkhead cited a positive example in which ICE did work with the sheriff’s office when they arranged to pick up an immigrant offender who was scheduled to appear at the Durham Courthouse.

Based on the few details given, this appears to be the same incident in which dozens of anti-ICE demonstrators including multiple elected Democrats showed up at an “emergency response” to the would-be detention of a convicted felon.

Although Birkhead may consider the instance to be successful collaboration, the criminal in question avoided ICE detention by skipping out on the court hearing.

Similarly, Orange County Sheriff recently described a similar instance of “cooperation” with ICE in which he briefed a leftist anti-ICE Hispanic organization on the situation, and the immigrant happened to stay home and avoid a planned ICE arrest on his way to work after the sheriff had requested that the operation not take place in the majority-Hispanic neighborhood in which the subject of the removal resided.

Relevant Coverage:

• Durham officials “grossly inaccurate” in denying “sanctuary jurisdiction” label (No. 126 — May 31, 2025)

• Durham activists respond to ICE activity at courthouse (No. 134 — Jul. 26, 2025)

• Orange County candidates fight over who will oppose ICE the most (No. 164 — Feb. 21, 2026)

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Follow-ups

Repeat violent criminal named as suspect in deadly American Tobacco Trail stabbing

Durham police search for wanted man after deadly stabbing on American Tobacco Trail - WRAL

Wanted man accused of murder on American Tobacco Trail - CBS17

Two weeks after Chesleigh Eloyd Lyons, 51, was found fatally stabbed near a section of the American Tobacco Trail known for violence, sexual harassment, and homeless encampments, the Durham Police have charged LaRue Barbee, 46, who remains at large.

In 2021, Barbee was arrested for charges including attempted first degree murder for near-deadly home invasion the prior September in which the 68-year-old victim was shot in the head, according to a public release by Durham Police.

However, these charges do not appear on the lengthy list of Barbee’s convictions maintained by the NC Department of Adult Corrections, which includes assault with a deadly weapon, robbery, selling controlled substances, etc.

Barbee was most recently released in December 2024 after being sentenced to 17-30 months for an armed robbery which took place on September 17, 2022. Few details about this crime appear to be available, other than that Barbee’s plea deal involved the District Attorney dropping a more serious charge of Assault With a Deadly Weapon with Intent to Kill Inflicting Serious Injury.

Police say the attack was not random and that Lyons appears to have known his attacker, but no information appears to be available as to whether the suspect or the victim were associated with the homeless encampments reported by the public as being nearby the site of the murder.

Previous Coverage:

• Man fatally stabbed on section of Durham greenway known for homeless, violence (No. 167 — Mar. 14, 2026)

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Schizophrenic UNC Shooter ruled competent for trial

UNC grad student competent to stand trial, expected to plead not guilty by reason of insanity - WRAL

Accused UNC shooter found competent for trial, will use insanity defense in first-degree murder case - CBS17

Accused UNC shooter, Tailei Qi, found competent to stand trial - ABC11

UNC shooting suspect Tailei Qi found fit to stand trial, plans to plead insanity - Daily Tar Heel

The graduate student accused of murdering UNC Professor Zijie Yan in a 2023 shooting which sent the campus into lockdown over fears of an active shooter has been ruled competent to stand trial.

The trial for Tailei Qi, 37, was previously put on hold after a November 2023 ruling in which he was found incompetent due to schizophrenic symptoms such as auditory hallucinations and delusional thinking.

After questioning Qi through a Mandarin interpreter, Orange County Superior Court Judge Allen Baddour ruled that Qi was now able competent to the charges against him and participate in his own defense.

Qi faces a mandatory life sentence in prison if convicted; Qi’s lawyers plan to pursue a defense of not guilty by reason of insanity.

Under state law, a defendant found not guilty by reason of insanity must be committed to a state facility, but may be released after an indeterminate amount of time if it is found that he no longer has a mental illness or is no longer dangerous to others, according to legal analysis by a UNC law professor.

Previous Coverage:

• UNC PhD student kills advisor on campus (No. 35 — Sep. 2, 2023)

• $750,000 settlement over UNC professor’s 2023 on-campus murder (No. 134 — Jul. 26, 2025)

• UNC unveils memorial for professor murdered by insane grad student (No. 139 — Aug. 30, 2025)

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Protest Watch

No Kings

Police tackle retired cop in protest. Pastor also arrested - Daily Record

On Saturday, anti-Trump protesters gathered as part of at least 14 events across the counties of the Triangle Trumpet’s beat, with the largest gatherings numbering in the thousands.

The protests were generally as “peaceful” as a demonstration where participants call for French Revolution-style executions of their political opponents could be, with two exceptions that have come to light.

In Raleigh, a counter-protester was accused of a “hit-and-run” after demonstrators swarmed his vehicle (more on this later), and in Harnett County, Lillington Police charged two non-leftists with not being part of the licensed protests, one of whom being an 83-year-old former police officer left with a broken nose and torn ligaments when his arrest ended with him on the ground, according to the Daily Record.

Lill Thomas “Tommy” McNeill, 83, was charged with resisting a public officer, disorderly conduct, and protesting without a permit, while Cecil Everette McNeill, 56, was only charged with protesting without a permit.

According to Tommy McNeill, he was informed about the No Kings protest outside the Lillington Courthouse by his pastor Cecil McNeill, who also invited him to join in a counter protest.

However, when Tommy McNeill arrived, he was unable to find Cecil McNeill, and instead decided to “take a look at the signs displayed at the No Kings protest underway.” Tommy McNeill was asked to leave the permitted area of the protest and eventually did so, making his way to where Cecil McNeill was “holding a pro-Trump banner along a sidewalk a good distance away from the No Kings protest.”

However, police officers made their way over to where Cecil McNeill and a few others were gathered on the sidewalk, and told Tommy McNeill and his wife to leave the area of the “unpermitted” protest as well.

Tommy McNeill denied that he was protesting, and insisted that the officer arrest him if he had a problem with him remaining on a public sidewalk. However, when an officer attempted to put his hands behind his back and Tommy McNeill twisted away (which he claims was a reaction to the pain), the officer dragged Tommy McNeill to the ground leading to his nose being broken, ligaments in his arm being torn, and abrasions caused to his face.

Tommy McNeill was allowed to leave after receiving medical attention for his injuries, and was charged along with Cecil McNeill before a magistrate on Monday.

Tommy McNeill and Cecil McNeill were released on unsecured bonds of $2,500 each.

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Attendance

The attendance of these events appears to be roughly similar to the last nationwide No Kings protest in October, with some locations seeing a larger crowd and some a smaller, according to my estimates based on images and videos of the various events, ranging from approximately 70 outside a nursing home in Raleigh to over 3,000 in Durham:

• Apex: ~300-800

• Cary: ~400-1000

• Chapel Hill: ~2000-5000

• Clayton: ~100-300

• Durham: ~3000-4500

• Lillington: ~100-300

• Louisburg: ~100

• Oxford: ~100

• Pittsboro: ~300-800

• Raleigh (Downtown): ~500-1500

• Raleigh (North): ~200-500

• Raleigh (Nursing Home): ~70

• Sanford: ~150-300

• Wake Forest: ~150-250

However, calculating a total number of participants in these events is made more complex by the fact that they were staggered throughout the day from 9:30 am to 2:00 pm, allowing the most dedicated demonstrators to attend multiple. For instance, one could begin at Apex at 9:30, continue to Capital Blvd. in North Raleigh at 11:00, rally downtown at the State Capitol at 1:00, head over to Cary at 2:00, and perhaps finish out in Chapel Hill at 3:45.

Its not mere supposition: that’s what at least one activist did, according to a Facebook comment screenshotted and provided to the Triangle Trumpet. The News & Observer confirmed as well, in a Facebook post reading “some people attended multiple rallies Saturday, going to one in Raleigh or Chapel Hill but also showing up for the one in their hometown.”

All in all, I’d estimate the total number of participants at between 6,000 and 16,000, perhaps slightly larger than the last No Kings rally, but not significantly so.