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.

Share

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.

To adapt a phrase widely misattributed to Joseph Stalin: the 2022 mass shooting in the Hedingham neighborhood of Raleigh was a tragedy, the other 44 homicides in the same city that same year are a statistic.

The astonishing nature of these tragedies lend them to becoming catalysts for political or cultural change in a manner that the public attention given to individual homicides rarely rises to, with notable exceptions such as the murder of Iryna Zarutska or the assassination of Charlie Kirk.

For example, just days after Dylann Roof slaughtered nine black churchgoers in Charleston in 2016, mainstream media outlets were drawing national attention to the Confederate battle flag which had been flying over the South Carolina State House for over fifty years, and three weeks later the state government had drafted and enacted legislation to have it removed.

In the days after the Hedingham shooting, the numerous politicians offering their thoughts and prayers were speckled with Democrats such as David Price who took the opportunity to call for anti-gun legislation.

But what happens when a mass shooter leaves evidence of a motive which neither the investigating law enforcement agencies, nor the prosecuting attorneys, nor the defense, nor the mainstream media appear to have an interest in making the public aware of?

In the case of the Covenant School shooting in Nashville in 2023, when a transgender-identifying female murdered three students and three staff members at a Presbyterian elementary school, it took years of legal battles, law enforcement leaks, and official dithering before releasing material from the shooter revealing that she had explicitly chosen her target due to her hatred of religion and hatred of white people.

For Hendingham shooter Austin Thompson, it took over three years to get the slightest inkling of the fact that the 15-year-old had left a note describing his reasoning for the slaughter of his brother and his neighbors as hatred of humanity for “destroying the planet,” a fact which the public has generally not been apprised of.

The Raleigh Police Department was in possession of the note since the day of the shooting, yet declined to make the public aware of its existence, instead reporting that the motive was “unknown.”

Given that the shooter kinetically removed his own memory of the day, it is left as an exercise for the reader to come to their own interpretation of the sincerity of his stated motivation, in light of the following facts.

Shooting

On October 13, 2022, 15-year-old Austin Thompson began his killing spree at his home in the Hedingham neighborhood in east Raleigh with the killing of his older brother James, whom he shot in the head with a .22 rifle and stabbed dozens of times with a knife.

Almost an hour later at around 5 pm, he left his home clothed in camouflage and armed with a shotgun and a handgun to continue his rampage outdoors.

Thompson proceeded to shoot two neighbors outside a nearby home (one of whom survived with serious injuries), an off-duty officer of the Raleigh Police Department in his personal vehicle on his way to work, and two victims who were out on the Neuse River Greenway Trail.

Police began arriving on the scene ten minutes after the first 911 call was received, but it wasn’t until over an hour later with additional citizen sightings and the deployment of K-9 officers that Thompson was tracked down near I-540 across the Neuse River over a mile from his first murders.

However, as officers were searching the area, Thompson ambushed them with multiple shots from cover, striking one of the approaching officers in the knee, inflicting a career-ending injury.

The officers returned fire, but when Raleigh SWAT officers carefully approached his hiding spot three hours later, they found Thompson incapacitated from a single self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head.

Thompson survived, and was charged as an adult with the murder of the five victims who did not.

Share

Coverup?

The day after the attack, then-RPD Chief Estella Patterson told the media that no motive was known, which was repeated in the five-day preliminary report put out by the department.

“The collective motive for these attacks is still unknown,” the report read. “Based on information currently available, there does not appear to be any connection between the victims that were shot by the suspect prior to his encounter with the police other than they lived in the same neighborhood.”

However, as testimony by an RPD detective who investigated the scene would reveal over three years later, a note was found on the same day of the shooting which began with: “The reason I did this is...”

The note appears to have been first referenced in a motion by Thompson’s defense team in December ahead of trial asking to “restrict argument, speculation, or opinion of motive of racial bias or gender bias,” arguing there was “no meaningful evidence” to support the “salacious accusation” made along those lines in a civil lawsuit filed over the shooting.

According to Thompson’s lawyers, the affidavits relied on to support the claims that Thompson had “used racial slurs” and “pick[ed] on women” were dubious, with one affidavit being contradicted by the affiant’s statements to police, and with another affiant “disavow[ing]” claims attributed to him, explaining that the affidavit had been drafted by the plaintiff’s lawyers and he had not actually read it before signing.

(No evidence related to these sensational allegations appears to have been entered as testimony at Thompson’s sentencing.)

Leave a comment

Sentencing

Thompson’s case never made it to trial. Instead, less than two weeks before it was slated to begin, Thompson pleaded guilty to the entire set of charges he was facing: five counts of first degree murder, two counts of attempted murder, two counts of assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill inflicting serious injury, and one count of assault with a firearm on a law enforcement officer.

In a notice of intent to plead guilty filed by the defense, Thompson’s lawyers wrote that Thompson “cannot explain why he committed this shooting” due to the self-inflicted brain injury at the end of his rampage, but nonetheless admitted his guilt in order to “save the community and the victims from as much additional infliction of trauma as possible.”

The guilty plea allowed the court to skip directly to a multi-day sentencing hearing, in which the prosecution and the defense presented evidence to sway the judge between the two sentencing options legally available for a defendant convicted of murder who was under the age of eighteen at the time of the crime: life with parole, or life without parole.

The prosecution’s case in the hearing included survivors and the family of the victims describing the impact of the crimes, RPD officers laying out the facts revealed in the investigation, and an FBI profiler testifying about the psychology of mass shooters.

The defense’s evidence included testimony regarding the permanent effects of Thompson’s brain damage, his behavior in detention, and the possible rare “depersonalization” side effects of minocycline, an acne medication which Thompson was on at the time of the murders.

Ultimately, the judge sided with the prosecution’s argument for stricter punishment and sentenced Thompson to the maximum possible: life in prison without parole.

Subscribe now

The Note

Among the evidence brought to light during the trial was the full copy of the note left in his bedroom by Thompson after the killing his brother, revealing that while he claimed to have no “goal,” he did have a “reason” for the massacre.

“The reason I did this is because I hate humans,” the note read. “They are destroying the planet/earth.”

According to the note, Thompson began with the murder of his brother so he wouldn’t “get in [his] way,” while he left a torn off corner of the note outside the bathroom where he had left his brother’s corpse, warning his parents not to look.

Thompson denied being bullied, insane, or suicidal, instead explaining his lack of care for his expected impending end as that “death is like sleep” and that “it is going to happen anyway.”

Front:

_ Austin 4:25 PM 10/13/2022
The reason I did this is because
I hate humans they are destroying the

planet/earth

Killed him at 4:20 about C5 minutes off
maybe
he kept breathing so I stabbed him
stopped breathing about 10-15 minutes later

I don’t have a goal

I am not suicidal

death is like sleep that’s why I
don’t care if I die

I was never buillied or anything

by dad

I dont like you mom

every other family member is
good
thanks juan and deanglu
for taking me hunting

I dont want to die but it is going
to happen anyway

Back:

you were the best dad

I was never bullied in school either
(cops)

I killed james because he would get
in my way

I killed james with a
subsonic .22 I stole from
cabelas

I have no
regreats

Im not mental
either I was
sane when I did
this

Share

Radical Environmentalism?

If one didn’t dive into the details of the day-by-day reporting by mainstream media, one might be forgiven for not being aware of the self-proclaimed environmentalist motivation.

For instance, while a News & Observer article titled “Why did a 15-year-old open fire on Hedingham? The question that haunts Raleigh” includes an image of one side of the note, but zero quotes from the note, and no discussion of or elaboration on Thompson’s stated motivation of humans “destroying the planet.”

This is reflective of the lines of argumentation made by the prosecution and defense during the sentencing hearing, both of which referenced the note while giving little credibility to the “reason” written left by Thompson and showing little curiosity in questioning witnesses who may have had knowledge of his true level of passion for the cause, while numerous witnesses were asked questions about Thompson playing violent video games, which were not referenced in his confession note.

“The defendant’s parents have asked from day one, ‘why would he do this?’” questioned Wake County Assistant District Attorney Patrick Latour in the prosecution’s closing statement. “The reality is we will probably never know why he did this.”

(It is not clear when, if ever, Thompson’s parents were made aware of the contents of the note. Thompson’s mother and father both testified that they were not aware of any red flags in their son’s behavior prior to the shooting, but do not appear to have been asked any questions about his interest in environmentalism.)

Instead, Latour put much more emphasis on the material found in 30,000 entries in Thompson’s search history analyzed by investigators, including numerous searches related to previous mass shootings, legal consequences for his crimes, and other related queries.

Latour’s closing did bring up the environmentalist motivation in the context of discrediting the testimony of the defense’s psychiatrist witness Dr. George Corbin, who had testified that the note “makes no sense” and that he had not seen evidence of Thompson’s preoccupation with the subject, but admitted that it had been a motivation for previous “enviro-terrorists.”

Amid the search history mentioned almost as an aside by Latour was a series of queries on hurricanes twelve days before the shooting: “When you go back through, there’s a lot of searches about hurricanes.”

“I would submit to you he’s a hunter,” Latour continued. “Hunters tend to care about conservation and the environment. It’s not out of the realm of possibility that that’s something that he latched on to.”

The defense’s closing arguments, on the other hand, attempted to downplay Thompson’s interest in researching crime, massacres, torture, etc. as only a small portion among his tens of thousands of searches, but presented the following web activity by Thompson seven days before the shooting in which he searched for other environmentally motivated killers after a Washington Post article on “angry young men” becoming mass shooters:

• 4:18:01PM: “Why so many mass shooters are angry young men- The Washington Post.”

• 4:18:43: “why do some people hate society- Google Search”

• 4:18:45: “Why do some people hate their society? Quora”

• 4:18:21: “why do some people hate society- Google Search”

• 4:19:48: “person who killed people because they were destroying the planet- Google Search”

Leave a comment

A “Green” School System

Among the witnesses in the sentencing were six of Thompson’s prior teachers, four of whom were from Knightdale High School where Thompson was enrolled at the time of the shooting, including his Earth Science teacher from the year prior.

These teachers were asked dozens of questions related to Thompson’s penchant for playing video games in class, yet neither the prosecution nor the defense appear to have asked the teachers a single question about what Thompson may have been involved with or taught about in school regarding environmentalism, anthropogenic climate change, conservation, etc.

However, publicly available material shows an emphasis on “green” education at both KHS as well as the Wake County Public School System which it is part of, with the district being awarded a “District Sustainability Award” in 2021 from the U.S. Department of Education’s Green Ribbon Schools program, which cited in part opportunities for WCPSS teachers to participate in professional development opportunities “creat[ing] learning units that focus on such topics as water quality, reducing the carbon footprint, and relating scientific research to personal and global health.”

The award cites the Wake Green Schools Partnership, where “teachers, administrators and community partners” are “greening school campuses and increasing students’ environmental literacy all across Wake County.”

The WCPSS application for the award specifically singled out a KHS “career academy” program as “focus[ing] on green career pathways” as part of the district’s “Effective Environmental and Sustainability Education.”

The Knightdale Academy of Environmental Studies is one of the “personalized small learning communities within Knightdale High” whose mission has been described as being to “prepare students to make knowledgeable career choices through work-based experiences and applications of current environmental issues.”

WCPSS was also lauded for the fact that “student experiences are influenced by regional organizations that are innovative, environmentally sustainable, and focused on scientific research.”

An example of such an organization could be the Triangle Land Conservancy, which partners with KSH in a fellowship program to rectify the “lack of racial diversity in environmental organizations.” TLC’s website also reveals that the land trust sees radical leftist activism as being essential to it’s mission of land conservation, which is characterized as having “historically perpetuated systemic racism,” and that radical leftist activism is necessary in “turning the tide” against the “water of white dominant culture:” “We believe that our goal of sharing land conservation benefits with every single person in the Triangle cannot be reached without actively working to end racism.”

The two owners of the businesses/homes that were searched are among five men named in charges involving conspiracy to traffic marijuana; four out of the five have already been arrested, all five appear to be of Arab or Middle Eastern origin, and one is potentially in the country illegally.

In addition, the two employees present at the shops when they were searched have both been issued summons for lesser charges including for the sale of alcohol without a license.

Investigation

According to the search warrants, the NC Alcohol Law Enforcement Division received a complaint on December 10, 2025 about six juveniles who had purchased THC gummies from Prime Vape Shop and Tobacco, after the consumption of which they “became very ill for several days.”

ALE proceeded to make controlled buys of THC products at Prime Vape Shop and Tobacco as well as at Clayton Tobacco Shop, both of which are owned by Ahmed Ali Almontaser as per NC Secretary of State records.

Lab analysis indicated that THC gummies and THC flower product purchased at Prime Vape Shop and Tobacco contained 0.37% THC and 19.00% THC respectively, while two THC flower products purchased at Clayton Tobacco measured at 11.78% THC and 14.55% THC. (The legal limit under North Carolina law is 0.3% THC).

The undercover agent(s) conducting the buys were allegedly told by clerks at both locations that the products could get them “high,” with one telling them that the products “test legal when they get it, but isn’t legal when you smoke it.”

Almontaser is tied to defendant Mohammed Saleh Ahmed through a durable power of attorney filed with the Johnston County Register of Deeds since 2006, allowing Ahmed to conduct business on Almontaser’s behalf. (In addition, two of the thirteen vehicles registered to Ahmed were spotted by ALE surveillance at Almontaser’s residence on multiple days, including a premium Lexus SUV).

In addition to the two business establishments, ALE obtained search warrants for Almontaser’s residence, Ahmed’s residence, and an additional mobile home owned by Almontaser. (All of the searched locations are in northwest Johnston County, in and to the southwest of Clayton).

Share

Search results

The listings of items seized during the searches include documents, electronic devices, cash, firearms, and various THC products, as well as over 3,400 grams of Cathinone (Khat) at Ahmed’s residence and the nearby mobile home.

Although products with a THC concentration of greater than 0.3% are defined as Schedule VI controlled substances under North Carolina law, Cathinone is listed as under the stimulants section of Schedule I.

The khat plant has been used as a psychoactive stimulant in the Arabian Peninsula and the Horn of Africa for centuries, and a significant illegal trade has been documented among immigrant communities from these nations, such as “Operation Somalia Express” in which federal agents found over $25 million worth of khat being smuggled to “East African immigrant communities” in Seattle.

Leave a comment

Charges

The charges against Almontaser and Ahmed include charges of conspiring to possess marijuana with the intent to manufacture, sell, or deliver as well as the enhanced version of the charge related to the fact that Clayton Tobacco Shop is within 1000 ft. of Clayton High School.

The sets of conspiracy charges for Almontaser and Ahmed name each other as conspirators as well as three additional individuals: Yaser Abduljalil Mohammed Al Wesabi, Saleh Ali Saleh Hasan, and Thabet Alahmedi. These individuals’ connection to Almontaser and Ahmed does not appear to be specified in the publicly released documents.

Al Wesabi and Hasan have also been arrested and are facing matching conspiracy charges, while Alahmedi does not appear to have been arrested as of the publication of this article.

In addition to the marijuana-related charges, Almontaser and Ahmed each face additional charges, including for the Cathinone and the possession of drug paraphernalia.

Almontaser faces the most charges, including for the possession and sale of alcoholic beverages without a license and for defrauding a drug/alcohol test by “possess[ing] adulterants that are intended to be used to adulterate urine sample for the purpose of defrauding drug screening test.”

In addition, both employees listed on the returned warrants as being “in apparent control of the premises searched” have been issued criminal summons, with Tristin Lanee Stewart at the Clayton Tobacco Shop facing two counts of selling alcohol without a permit and William Cephus Strickland III at Prime Vape Shop and Tobacco facing the same, as well as a count of unlawfully carrying a concealed firearm.

Almontaser, Ahmed, and Al Wesabi have been released on total bonds of $155,000, $120,000, and $20,000 respectively, while a magistrate assigned a higher bond of $280,000 for Hasan after noting that he “was unable to determine that the defendant is a citizen or legal resident of the United States.”

Leave a comment

Ahmed Ali Almontaser, 42

28x felony charges, 7x misdemeanor charges (26CR216584-500, 26CR216585-500, 26CR216586-500, 26CR216587-500)

Mohammed Saleh Ahmed, 45

18x felony charges, 1x misdemeanor charge (26CR216589-500, 26CR216590-500, 26CR216594-500)

Yaser Abduljalil Mohammed Al Wesabi, 29

16x felony charges (26CR216601-500, 26CR216602-500)

Saleh Ali Saleh Hasan, 27

16x felony charges (26CR216596-500, 26CR216598-500)

William Cephus Strickland III, 20

3x misdemeanor charges (26CR216603-500)

Tristin Lanee Stewart, 25

2x misdemeanor charges (26CR216604-500)

According to its website, the Al-Huda Academy was founded in 2009 by the Raleigh-Durham Chapter of the Muslim American Society in concert with the Jamaat Ibad Ar-Rahman mosque in Durham.

The Muslim American Society was originally founded as the American chapter of the Muslim Brotherhood, according to a 2004 report by the Chicago Tribune; three other national branches of the MB have recently been designated as global terrorists by the US Treasury, with a press release explaining that “chapters of the Muslim Brotherhood purport to be legitimate civic organizations while, behind the scenes, they explicitly and enthusiastically support terrorist groups like Hamas.”

In addition, the RAIR report lists various statements made by MAS leadership defending terrorists as “martyrs” and supporting global Islamic jihad.

Share

Voucher funding

According to a January 2024 video, the then-principal of Al-Huda Academy Durham related that approximately 2/3 of the 185 students were being funded by the state’s Opportunity Scholarship Program.

The program’s annual report for 2024-2025 fiscal year reveals that the number of taxpayer-funded students at the schools has risen, with the two campuses receiving a total of $1,051,863 for 162 students. In addition, the report lists recipients at the following additional Islamic schools in the Triangle:

• Al-Iman School Raleigh: 263 students, $1,570,730

• An-Noor School Raleigh: 57 students, $368,504

• Madinah Quran Academy Raleigh: 19 students, $78,355

• Mishkah Academy Cary: 47 students, $279,673

The Al-Huda Academy is currently constructing/remodeling a facility on Highway 55 in Durham to serve as a new campus for “fulltime” K-12 education, according to posts on the organization’s Facebook page.

Analysis: religious freedom vs immigration

Although one might tend to crumple up the use of taxpayer dollars in educating students to “become ambassadors of Islam through their strong moral and spiritual character” and toss it in the bin of “Religious Freedom,” it is quite obvious that the spread of Islam in America is not the result of Americans becoming Muslim, but rather of immigration policy adopted in the latter half of the twentieth century.

This is evidenced by the staff page on the website of the Al-Huda Academy Durham, where nearly every one of the teachers/administrators is identified with their foreign country of origin such as Pakistan, Egypt, Jordan, Algeria, Sudan, Iraq, and India.

Leave a comment

In analyzing whether it is “truly American” to defend the cultural jihad of Islam in the West, one may turn to founders like Thomas Jefferson, who successfully advocated for a religious freedom bill in Virginia which he noted would encompass the “Mahometan” and the “Hindoo.”

However, in practice, the founders had no intent to let the Muslim or Hindu peoples take root in America, as one of the laws passed by the First Congress was the Naturalization Act of 1790 which forbid American citizenship to every foreigner who was not a “free white person...of good character.”

This restriction lasted in some form until 1952, when the McCarran-Walter Act removed the racial language while maintaining national/regional quotas with the intent to “preserve the sociological and cultural balance of the United States.” (European countries received 94.41% of the quotas, with 41.22% going to the UK, 16.28% to Germany, and 11.20% to Ireland).

The national-origins quotas were abolished with the Hart-Celler Act in 1965, truly throwing the doors of the nation open to the world outside of the predominantly Christian peoples of Europe.

The ongoing record-high immigration wave has not only reshaped the demographics of America, bringing the population of white Americans down from 85% in 1965 to 57.5% in the 2020 census, it has also exploded the Muslim population from approximately 100,000-150,000 in 1965 to an estimated 4.5 million in 2020.

The number of mosques in the United States has steadily grown along with the influx of Muslims, more than doubling in the years since the 9/11 attacks from 1,209 in 2000 to nearly 2,769 in 2020 according to the US Mosque Survey.

At least twenty-one mosques (aka masjids) exist in the Triangle area, including:

• Apex Mosque

• Cary Masjid aka Islamic Center of Cary

• Chapel Hill Masjid aka Chapel Hill Islamic Center

• Ar-Razzaq Islamic Center (Durham)

• Jamaat Ibad Ar-Rahman, Fayetteville St. Masjid (Durham)

• Jamaat Ibad Ar-Rahman, Parkwood Masjid (Durham)

• Islamic Ahlul Bayt Association of the Triangle (Durham)

• Masjid Tawheed Was Sunnah (Durham)

• Muhammad Mosque No. 34, Nation of Islam (Durham)

• North Durham Masjid aka Northern Durham Islamic Association

• Alnoor Islamic Center (Fuquay-Varina)

• Al Mustafa Center (Garner)

• Islamic Center of Morrisville

• As-Salaam Islamic Center (Raleigh)

• Madinah Quran and Youth Center (Raleigh)

• Masjid An-Noor al-Muhammadi (Raleigh)

• Masjid King Khaled aka Mosque of the Late King Khalid bin Abdul-Aziz Al-Saud (Raleigh, Shaw University)

• North Raleigh Masjid aka Muslim Youth and Community Center

• Raleigh Islamic Institute

• Raleigh Masjid aka Islamic Association of Raleigh

• Smithfield Masjid aka Islamic Center of Smithfield

It was during this same period that Ngwadom was crowned King or “Eze” of the Mbubu-Amiri kingdom in Nigeria’s Imo State, according to a local news source which also identified him as the Chairman of African Diaspora Coalition of North Carolina and Professor of Psychology and Sociology at the University of Mount Olive. (There are many such “traditional rulers“ recognized by and holding limited power under the Federal Republic of Nigeria).

Ngwadom is listed as the Director of Partnerships and Development for Nigerian Mental Health Practitioners USA and a member of the Board of Trustees of the Nigeria-American Institute for Mental Health.

Records show Ngwadom resides at a Garner address and has voted in Johnston County since 2008.

Investigation and prosecution

According to a search warrant obtained by the Medicaid Investigation Division of the North Carolina Department of Justice, Ngwadom’s practice was flagged by Alliance Health, the manager of the NC Medicaid plan for counties including Wake, Johnston, and Durham.

Ngwadom’s fraud was revealed when a legitimate claim for therapy was submitted for one of the children for which he had filed fraudulent claims, and it was discovered that the family had never received services from Ngwadom or Almarch Counseling.

In the ensuing investigation into the “overlapping services,” a total of 210 fraudulent claims were identified involving children from three families who never receiving services from Ngwadom or Almarch Counseling:

• fifty-two claims for two minor children for a total of $3,037.28

• one hundred and three claims for three minor children for a total of $8,476.88

• fifty-five claims for two minor children for a total of $3,529.46

At sentencing, the state prosecutor explained that Ngwadom had met these families through an after-school program in the years prior to the pandemic, as reported by the News & Observer.

Although the search warrant was obtained and executed in 2022, the charges were not filled until January 2025.

The total amount of fraudulent claims submitted by Ngwadom totaled $72,014.66 across 27 Medicaid recipients between February 18, 2020, and March 18, 2021, according to a press release by Attorney General Jeff Jackson.

Ngwadom plead guilty to twenty-seven counts of obtaining property by false pretenses, a Class H felony, and received a sentence of 6-17 months incarceration, which was suspended with the following conditions:

• three years probation

• ninety days house arrest

• surrendering professional license

• one hundred hours community service

• $72,014.66 in restitution

Share

Zero stars: state inspections find repeat deficiencies at adult care facility

Outside of his counseling practice, Ngwadom’s five-bed adult residential care facility Almarch Family Care in Rocky Mount has racked up numerous statements of deficiency and penalties from the NC Division of Health Service Regulation which licenses and inspects such facilities, which assigned AFC a rating of zero out of four stars at seven out of the last eight inspections.

The NCDHSR website only lists penalties for the past 36 months, in which time AFC has racked up $35,200 in penalties, with $16,700 paid in full and the most recent $18,500 under appeal.

Sixteen statements of deficiencies are listed for the nineteen inspections since 2015, with the most recent statement consisting of eighty-four pages detailing how the facility violated at least nine rules, including by failing to have certified staff, failing to meet health care needs, failing to properly store and administer prescribed medication, and failing to implement an activity program.

AFC is located at an 1825 sq. ft. home in a residential neighborhood in east Rocky Mount; although Ngwadom’s lawyer cited his need to take out a second mortgage in order to pay the $72k restitution, Edgecombe County records show that Ngwadom and his wife Ngozichukwuka Mary Ngwadom sold the AFC property for $10 to a “Chukwuebuka Michael C Ngwadom” less than two months before his sentencing. (The property has a tax valuation of $113,866.00).

Leave a comment

Raleigh provider recruited refugees for Medicaid scam

Although perhaps not as prevalent as the recently publicized Somali scams in Minnesota, Ngwoma is not the only Nigerian to be charged with Medicaid fraud relating to “therapy” services in the Raleigh area, with a recent case matching a pattern of fraud enabled by modern immigration and welfare policy.

An investigation into the billing practices of “Our Treatment Center,” a Medicaid provider in Raleigh, resulted in the conviction of seven “mental health practitioners,” according to a June 2025 press release by the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Eastern District of North Carolina, with at least three of the fraudsters appearing to have African origins:

• Pius Ondachi (Kenya), Licensed Clinical Mental Health Counselor

• Ifeoma Ezugwu (Nigeria), Licensed Clinical Social Worker Associate

• Queensly Onuzulike (Nigeria), Licensed Clinical Social Worker

The charging documents allege that OTC recruited “refugees” in North Carolina in order to fraudulently bill Medicaid for providing “social assistance” to the “indigent” foreigners for services not covered by the welfare program, including:

• assistance with reading and understanding mail

• understanding the American legal system

• assistance with English as a second language

• transportation to grocery stores, the Division of Motor Vehicles, and other appointments

Ondachi and Onuzulike are alleged to have helped recruit the refugees, obtaining Medicaid Identification Numbers and personally identifiable information from entire households of refugees with the promise of this “assistance with social needs.”

The scheme then involved fraudulently billing these services to Medicaid as “psychotherapy,” with Ondachi, Ezugwu, and Onuzulike each being accused of fabricating psychotherapy notes to justify billing for these non-psychotherapy services, and altering the dates/times of the services provided to meet the Medicaid coverage limitation of only one hour of psychotherapy per patient per day.

That’s how Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion was characterized in a bill supported by Franklin County’s state representatives in both the House and Senate, which would have restricted such “discriminatory practices” and “divisive concepts” from public schools. (SB 227 was vetoed by Gov. Josh Stein; the veto has been overridden in the Senate but not the House.)

Franklin County also favored President Donald Trump in the 2024 election by 13.5 points, a candidate who made it a Day One priority to begin issuing anti-DEI executive orders such as “Ending Radical And Wasteful Government DEI Programs And Preferencing“ and “Ending Illegal Discrimination and Restoring Merit-Based Opportunity,” as well as Council of State candidates Luke Farley and Dave Boliek who ended DEI in their respective agencies upon taking office this year.

But yet, when the rubber meets the road, the Franklin County Board of Education (on which the Franklin GOP claims a majority) has selected a new superintendent with a history of using her authority to push not only DEI but also the even more radical “critical” pedagogy onto teachers under her authority while at Durham Public Schools.

Dr. Nakia Hardy

On December 5, it was announced that Dr. Nakia Hardy had been chosen to lead Franklin County Schools out of a field of twenty-nine candidates for her “deep experience, proven leadership, and steadfast commitment to students and staff.”

Although her most recent position is superintendent of Lexington City Schools, Hardy has held administrative positions ranging from assistant principal to deputy superintendent at Guilford County Schools, Baltimore City Public Schools, Rockingham County Schools, Alamance-Burlington School System, and Durham Public Schools.

Hardy’s education includes a bachelor’s degree in chemistry from Appalachian State University, as well as a master’s degree in school administration and a doctorate in educational leadership from UNC-Chapel Hill.

Share

DEI and Neo-Marxist Theory

Hardy appears to have been most open about her adherence to DEI as well as other leftist principles, policy, and pedagogy while Deputy Superintendent at Durham Public Schools beginning in 2018.

In 2020, Hardy was interviewed in a podcast episode titled “How Leaders Can Build a District Culture of Inclusion and Impact,” in which one of her highlighted accomplishments at DPS was described as “implement[ing] district-wide professional development on understanding implicit bias, equitable practices, and culturally responsive pedagogy.”

Culturally Responsive Pedagogy or Culturally Responsive Teaching is a Critical Race Theory-adjacent racially-focused philosophy which includes “attempt[ing] to develop [students’] cultural competence” and “increas[ing] their sociopolitical or critical consciousness,” according to leftist activist Gloria Ladson-Billings who defined the term.

Critical Consciousness, in turn, refers to the “oppressed” not only adopting the Marxist oppressed-oppressor dichotomy, but also engaging in the “praxis” of neo-Marxist revolution.

In addition to taking credit for advancing these particularly controversial ideas, Hardy’s language in the interview was replete with leftist language such as making reference to “systemic racism” and describing the 2015 Baltimore riots as the “Freddie Gray uprising,” which took place while she was an executive director at Baltimore City Schools.

In response to a question on whether she “maintained equity focus in terms of your district in particular,” Hardy described an “inclusive” approach to “equity” in Durham by including religion, race, sexuality, gender, and disabilities in her decisions.

Hardy was also part of an “antiracist” session on “literacy for Black and brown students” in 2021, and wrote an article in 2019 titled “Curriculum Is Misunderstood. Let’s Overcome That, in Service of Equity.”

Although some material from Hardy’s time at DPS appears to have been taken down or deleted from the district’s website, one newsletter she authored is still existent online in which she referenced how the district’s “commitment to equity is woven throughout our Strategic Plan” while recommending a book by DEI scholars Amanda E. Lewis and John B. Diamond.

Leave a comment

“Alignment”

In response to an inquiry as to whether the district was aware of Hardy’s history of pushing these “divisive concepts” and whether this choice was consistent with the will of the citizenry, FCS cited the board’s satisfaction with her “alignment with the district’s mission and strategic priorities” as well as her “qualifications” and “leadership experience:”

Franklin County Schools conducted a comprehensive, thoughtful, and confidential superintendent search process. The Board of Education selected Dr. Hardy based on her qualifications, leadership experience, and alignment with the district’s mission and strategic priorities. The district remains focused on student achievement and compliance with all applicable federal and state laws.

Neither Hardy nor board chair Meghan Jordan responded directly to a similar opportunity for comment.

Out of 157 (unofficially) successful candidates analyzed by the Triangle Trumpet in municipalities in or extending into eleven counties of the Greater Triangle area, 95 of the winners were registered as Democrats, while only 32 were registered as Republicans and 30 were registered as Unaffiliated.1

Subscribe now

However, given the unequal distribution of partisan voters and the propensity of even “non-partisan” elections to be conducted along party lines, it is perhaps more apt to examine the results in light of the specific electorate in each municipality and district.

For instance, although a 26-year incumbent on the Cary Town Council was unseated, it is not exactly a shock given that Jennifer Robinson is a Republican, and her fellow party-members in the district are outnumbered by registered Democrats 8,094 to 5,742.

“I had many people telling me that they had supported me in the past but would not vote for me this year for one reason: I am a registered Republican,” wrote Robinson.

Voter registration data shows that registered Democrats significantly outnumber registered Republicans in the majority of the 46 municipalities under consideration:

Share

The unofficial election results show a strong correlation between partisan electoral success and the party affiliation of the electorate, with registered Democrats winning 67 out of the 102 seats occurring in jurisdictions where Democrats outnumbered Republicans.

Although Republicans did score 15 electoral victories in these unfavorable races, with Democrats being nearly twice as likely to be elected by a Republican-dominated electorate than vice versa.

Democrats were also very successful in races in which the Republicans only held a small advantage in the electorate, taking 12 out of 15 such races, including seven in Wake County where Democratic candidates were elected to the mayorships of Holly Springs and Fuquay-Varina as well as the five open seats on the respective town council and board of commissioners.

Leave a comment

Voters in smaller electorates were the most likely to select a candidate from the minority party in the jurisdiction, with 18 out of the 23 candidates overcoming an electorate disadvantage of more than 10 points doing so in a race with fewer than 2,689 registered voters.

The largest municipality or electorate in which a candidate overcame such odds was on the Zebulon, where Republican George D. Roa appears to have received enough votes (by a slim margin) to take second out of two seats on the Board of Commissioners in a town where registered Republicans are outnumbered 996 to 2,895 by registered Democrats.

Subscribe now

Although Wake County Republicans underperformed in the two largest GOP-leaning municipalities in these eleven counties, Republican candidates did win in smaller yet unfavorable jurisdictions in the surrounding counties such as Bunn, Franklinton, Butner, Creedmoor, Stovall, Selma, Smithfield, Wilsons Mills, and Kittrell.

Share

Although the full unofficial election results can be perused on the North Carolina Board of Elections website by county and race, party affiliation is not listed for these non-partisan races.

The following data is gleaned from the voter registration records for the winning candidates: it should be noted that a candidate registered as Unaffiliated is not necessarily unaligned with a major party. (A more comprehensive list could perhaps be compiled by reviewing the endorsements of the local parties.)

The City of Raleigh’s commitment to DEI despite the federal (and state) efforts to crack down on the discriminatory practices was highlighted in a recently published undercover video published by Accuracy in Media titled “Raleigh Government Official Caught Hiding DEI Efforts Amid Federal Crackdown.”

In the video, then-Assistant Director of Equity and Inclusion Briana Scurry is secretly recorded describing to the AIM journalist how they are “being strategic” in not “drawing attention to [themselves]” in order to “make sure that this work is protected as possible.” In another clip, Scurry refers to the city’s Department of Community Engagement as a “champion of DEI” which frequently “partners” with her own department.

Subscribe now

In response to the video, the city’s public information officer Julia Milstead told the News & Observer that the video “misrepresents the context,” and that those remarks were filmed in February shortly after Trump’s anti-DEI executive orders were signed making it a “period of uncertainty” when the “city was taking a step back to evaluate the department’s services.”

Milstead also claimed that the Department of Economic and Social Advancement, of which Scurry is now the Assistant Director, was launched “as of the new fiscal year” with “its work support[ing] a range of small business and community activities, including connecting businesses with resources,” and that Scurry’s statements “do[] not represent the current work of this department.”

However, budget documents, personnel continuity, and the city’s own web pages indicate that the “Department of Economic and Social Advancement” is not, in fact, a new department, but rather a direct rebranding of the “Department of Equity and Inclusion.”

Share

2026 budget: DEI vs DESA

The DESA’s first appearance in the city’s budgets is indeed for the 2026 fiscal year, with a budget of $2,613,685 and 19 full time positions (page 156), with a budget detail listing of the amount allocated for DESA in the past three budgets, figures which exactly match the allocation of $2,392,131 for the DEI in the FY 2025 budget1.

Although the FY 2026 budget seems to have no mention of the how the DESA seemingly appeared out of thin air, the “Key Initiatives” listed for the DESA exactly parallel those of the DEI in the FY 2025 budget, but with specific references to “equity” replaced with generic terms, such as “meaningful organizational trainings” substituted for “equity trainings” and “initiatives that address specific departmental needs or gap areas” substituted for “initiatives outlined in the Racial Equity Action Plan.”

In contrast of the opaque “launch” of the DESA in the FY 2026 budget, the FY 2021 budget explicitly referenced the creation of the DEI (then referred to as the Office of Equity and Inclusion) with an initial budget of $963,732 and nine staff members transferred from the Housing & Neighborhoods Department. As expected for a newly created department, the budget did not list any funding for the DEI in previous budgets:

Leave a comment

DEI staff: implementing Raleigh’s “commitment to the principles of diversity, equity and inclusion”

The continuity between the DESA and the DEI is also highlighted in the continuity of the staff, like Scurry, who was Assistant Director of the DEI at the time her comments were recorded, but is now listed under DESA on the city’s staff directory.

Prior to joining Raleigh’s Department of Equity and Inclusion, Scurry “demonstrated her commitment to DEI” as a Residence Coordinator at Duke University by “integrating anti-racism, bias, and dialogue facilitation training into her work as a pillar of student development,” as described in a news release on her joining UNC-Chapel Hill’s computer science department as a Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Coordinator in 2021.

In the article, Scurry described her DEI work as follows: “DEI work is an acknowledgement that there are groups who simply have not been given opportunities, and thus there should be a concerted and consistent effort to address the systemic issues that are put in front of these groups on a daily basis.”

Although DEI is sometimes couched in terms of fairness and equal opportunities, data from Students for Fair Admissions v. University of North Carolina lawsuit (which in the overturning of affirmative action by the Supreme Court) revealed that the university’s DEI goals were implemented through racial preference in admissions, with black applicants being up to 33 times more likely to be admitted than their Asian American counterparts with comparable academic performance.

The recruitment flyer for a new DEI Director hired in December 2024 expressed the same commitment to “equality of outcomes” which provides the justification for such blatant racial discrimination, with the following quote from the city’s “Statement on Equity from 2022 Equity Action Plan:”

The City of Raleigh is committed to establishing and advancing an equitable community for all. Because we know that race is the primary predictor of a person’s outcomes across all social indicators and societal systems, the City of Raleigh will prioritize racial equity to dismantle the policies and systems that have created and sustained these inequities.

Inequities in our systems and policies are costly and limit positive outcomes and quality of life for all of us. When we achieve racial equity, all people in Raleigh will benefit from a more just, equitable system. Raleigh aspires to be a model for equity in local government.

The city ultimately chose Nestor Veloz-Passalacqua to fill this position, a candidate whose DEI experience included leading the Office of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion as the DEI Manager in the City of San Luis Obispo, California and working as DEI Program Manager for the County of San Luis Obispo Behavioral Health Department.

In the since-deleted announcement of Veloz-Passalacqua’s selection, his role was described as to “provide vision and strategic direction to guide City Council goals and policies and embed equity and inclusion throughout the organization” and to “develop internal partnerships to strengthen organizational culture and elevate the City’s commitment to the principles of diversity, equity and inclusion.”

Subscribe now

Missing webpages and compliant rewording

The news release welcoming Veloz-Passalacqua as DEI Director is not the only page on the city’s website to be taken down or reworded to remove references to diversity, equity, or inclusion.

The page for the DEI, which previously described the department’s focus as “embedding equity within our organization and the communities we serve” with oversight of issues related to “persons with disabilities, gender identity, sexual orientation, race, ethnicity, community health, and social justice” now redirects to the DESA page, which replaces the politically charged language with references to “community for all” and “fairness and opportunity for all.”

Other pages, like the Key Areas of Equity and Inclusion, appear to have been deleted entirely, including its subpages on Affordable Housing, Zoning Reform, Transportation, Criminal Justice Reforms, Mental Health, and Education and Workforce Development.

One may surmise that the diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives are pursuing the same values and agenda under the hood, but it is most obviously the case with the Minority and Women-Owned Business Enterprise (MWBE), which has been renamed to Business Engagement and Opportunities Program (BEOP) with the removal of language describing how the program “promotes diversity and inclusion in City of Raleigh contracting.”

Despite the name change, the MWBE program still operates along the same parameters, as the preference for businesses not owned by white males is in fact enshrined in state law, which sets a “verifiable ten percent (10%) goal for participation by minority businesses” for building projects by local government units which exceed $100,000 in cost and establishes an Office for Historically Underutilized Businesses for certifying qualifying MWBE contractors. (Raleigh does go above the state requirements, setting its MWBE participation goal at 15%.)

Although it has yet to pass, the current budget proposal for 2025-2026 by Republican legislators would eliminate this state office and strike the accompanying language from a number of statutes, as well as repealing such measures including Minority business participation goals (§ 143‑128.2), Minority business participation administration (§ 143‑128.3), and “Historically underutilized business defined; statewide uniform certification” (§ 143‑128.4).

Share

Triangle DEI Alliance

Raleigh’s FY 2026 budget no longer contains mention of Department of Equity and Inclusion, but it does allocate $30,000 for the Triangle Diversity Equity and Inclusion Alliance from the city’s Economic Development Fund, as well as $506,750 for the Triangle DEI Alliance’s parent organization, the Raleigh Chamber of Commerce.

Although the FY 2026 budget appears to be the first to list the Triangle DEI Alliance as a separate line item from the chamber, the City of Raleigh as well as Wake County were described as providing “support” for the 2019 launch of the Triangle DEI Alliance in an article by the News & Observer.

In addition, both the city and the county were listed alone as the highest tier of “investors” on the Triangle DEI Alliance’s website, which has also been taken down this year, along with its social media presence.

Among other initiatives, the Triangle DEI Alliance has been behind an annual Diversity, Equity and Inclusivity Conference, which attracted over a thousand attendees in 2024.

The Economic Development Fund also includes $108,450 for the Downtown Raleigh Alliance, the administrator of the Downtown Raleigh Municipal Services District, which has previously touted its “commitment to Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion” as well as being a “proud member of the Triangle DEI Alliance” on another webpage which has since been removed.

One way the DRA has pursued the diversity, equity, and inclusion agenda is by offering a “diverse business funding booster” as part of its Storefront Upfit Grant, in which businesses with majority ownership by minorities, women, LGBTQ, veterans, or the disabled can qualify for more funding than those local businesses not owned by these preferred categories.

The grant program is still on the DRA website, though it is now listed as being offered by a nonprofit, Raleigh Civic Ventures, with funding by the Duke Energy Foundation.

Bondowski was brought to the attention of the Raleigh Police by Alex Rosen, founder of Predator Poachers, with whom he has identified, confronted, and extracted confessions from online predators across the country à la Chris Hansen’s To Catch a Predator.

Subscribe now

The Sting

In the video recorded on July 25 at Bondowski’s residence in the East Raleigh suburbs, Rosen confronted Bondowski about inappropriate messages he sent to a decoy Instagram account posing as a 13-year-old, ultimately leading to Bondowski confessing to a Raleigh Police officer that he had child pornography on his cell phone, which he admitted to obtaining from “four or five” group chats on Telegram.

In a post on Twitter/X, Rosen confirmed that the police officers had seized Bondowski’s phone after his admission and the evidence provided by Rosen.

Share

Charges

After nearly three months, Bondowski was arrested by the Raleigh Police and charged with twenty counts of second degree sexual exploitation of a minor, with the two arrest warrants listing twenty separate videos which Bondowski is alleged to have received via the Telegram messaging application capturing the rape of children between ages of five and twelve.

“I give a lot of credit to the officers on-scene for understanding the urgency of preserving the evidence based on his admissions, there was definitely a lot of child porn on that phone as the charges show,” said Rosen in a statement to the Triangle Trumpet.

“A big thank you to whichever detective forensically examined his phone and had to unfortunately see all that was on there,” Rosen continued. “It was a great team effort by from Predator Poachers and Raleigh PD to put a very dangerous pedophile away for hopefully a very long time.”

Second degree sexual exploitation of a minor (NC GS § 14-190.17) is a Class E Felony which carries a maximum sentence of 31-50 months incarceration for a first-time offender.

Bondowski’s charges are under two separate cases in Wake District Court (25CR440045-910 and 25CR440046-910), and is currently being held in Wake County jail on a total bond amount of $600,000.

Leave a comment

Red Bridge Photography

The trans/LGBTQ flag-decorated house at which the sting and arrest occurred is listed as belonging to Rebecca Faulk, who appears to be Bondowski’s fiance based on Rosen’s video and public social media posts.

The address is also listed as the location of Faulk’s photography business, Red Bridge Photography, whose offerings have included photographing newborns at an in-home studio, according to a 2021 profile, at which time Faulk claimed to be the sole resident.

The website for Red Bridge Photography includes images of fully unclothed infants; at the time of publication, Faulk has not responded to an inquiry as to whether Bondowski had ever been present for or had access to any photos of children/infants being captured.

The charge against Dixon was ultimately dropped, not due to his innocence, but due to a clerical error in the charging documents naming Dixon as the victim of the assault, which lead the judge to dismiss the case at the end of Dixon’s trial.

Subscribe now

The Triangle Trumpet had the opportunity to interview Patrick Howley, the actual victim of Dixon’s assault, about the incident.

“He is guilty, he did it,” said Howley. “A lot of these antifa guys get off on technicalities. So weird and mysterious.”

Howley began reporting on Dixon after it was reported that he had bragged about wielding a firearm against the man who would later be convicted of intentionally driving his vehicle into the left-wing counter-protesters at the 2017 Charlottesville “Unite the Right” rally, writing on Facebook that he had “used [his] rifle to chase off James Fields from our block...before he attacked marchers to the south.”

Share

When Howley began investigating at UNC-Chapel Hill, whose “Silent Sam” Confederate statue made it a focal point for left-wing/antifa, he found that the reality of the situation didn’t match how it was being portrayed.

“This riot culture there in Chapel Hill, it was not coming from students,” Howley explained. “They were hiding behind this idea that somehow it was students, but it really wasn’t, it was a complex Antifa network.”

After researching “a little sect of them” who had been active in Virginia and North Carolina, Howley described going undercover at the August 20, 2018 riot where “protesters” pulled down the Silent Sam statue.

However, when Howley confronted Dixon at that same event about the comments he had made regarding his interaction with Fields, Dixon chased him down and assaulted him, according to Howley and the video he captured:

Leave a comment

Dixon was charged with simple assault, with the criminal summons alleging that he “willfully did assault and strike DWAYNE DIXON by GRABBING HIS LEFT HAND AND ARM, THEN STRIKING HIM ONE TIME ON THE RIGHT SIDE OF THE FACE AND ONE TIME ON THE RIGHT UPPER CHEST WITH AN OPEN HAND.”

The case went to a bench trial three months later on November 15, 2018 before Judge Samantha Hyatt Cabe; after testimony from both sides, Howley believed the trial was going his way until the defense pulled out their trump card, the fact that Dixon was named as the victim in the charging document instead of Howley.

Assistant District Attorney Jeff Nieman, who has since been elected Orange County District Attorney, accepted the office’s responsibility for the mistake: “while it does happen, it’s an error that we take responsibility for, and I can assure everyone that it’s something we take seriously and will be very careful to avoid in the future.”

Howley says that there was no communication to him by the DA’s office on their decision not to refile the charge, a decision which Nieman confirmed to WRAL on the same day as the ruling.

(Coincidentally, Cabe was also the judge who dismissed the first case brought to trial from the pro-Palestine encampments arrests, leading Nieman’s office to drop the outstanding charges for the remaining defendants.)

Subscribe now

Although Dixon had previously been open in defending his “antifascist” justification for left-wing violence in 2018, such as in an Australian TV documentary (“The Hard Left Antifa And Their Call To Arms”) or on a Harvard panel (“You Don’t Stand Around and Let People Get Hurt: Antifascism After Charlottesville”), he appears to have kept a lower profile in the years since.

Dixon was only catapulted back into the public eye in 2025 due to an ancillary connection to recruitment flyers put up by John Brown Gun Club in celebration of Charlie Kirk’s assassination. (Dixon was an open member of Redneck Revolt, an militia-style antifa organization listed as an “offshoot” of the JBGC by the Counter Extremism Project.)

The flyers, which were found at Georgetown University, read “Hey Fascist! Catch!” (a reference to one of the engravings on a bullet casing allegedly left by Kirk’s killer) with a QR code to “Join the John Brown Club,” which the flyer described as “the only political group that celebrates when Nazis die,” echoing the extremist rhetoric used by antifa like Dixon to justify even lethal violence against anyone on the right deemed to be “fascist.”

Although Redneck Revolt claims to have been disbanded in 2019, Dixon’s previous membership in the group attracted scrutiny to his antifa history and association with the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he is listed as a Teaching Associate Professor at the Department of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies.

It was announced Monday that Dixon was being placed on administrative leave “following recent reports and expressions of concern regarding alleged advocacy of politically motivated violence.” However, after an antifa-organized protest, a legal threat by the ACLU, and a “thorough threat assessment,” the university concluded that they “found no basis to conclude that he poses a threat to University students, staff and faculty, or has engaged in conduct that violates University policy.”

Full Interview & Transcript

Read more

Subscribe now

According to the OCSO, Edwards was suspended on Saturday when the post by Mostly Peaceful Memes went viral and the extremist statements were brought to their attention, and was terminated this morning after the ensuing investigation "confirmed violations of both the Standards of Conduct and the Speech, Expression, and Social Networking sections of the policy manual."

“We must maintain the public trust as we go about our mission to protect, serve, and treat everyone with dignity and respect,” said Orange County Sheriff Charles Blackwood, a 45-year veteran of the department who was first elected sheriff in 2014.

Share

The Posts

In one post, Edwards declared "I am antifa," and that he would "never comply with a fascist regime," echoing the "antifascist" ideology associated with numerous acts of petty and grand terrorism across the United States, as well as the recent assassination of Charlie Kirk. (Along with this post, Edwards shared a link an anti-Trump folk song he wrote and performed.)

My name is Brian
I am 37 years old
I am in North Carolina
I am Antifa
And I will never comply with a fascist regime.

— Bdedwards87 (@bdedwards87.bsky.social) September 19, 2025

In another post, Edwards mourned that Reconstruction had not been more punitive for white Southerners, promising that there would be "war crime trials" when the "right wing is once again defeated," suggesting life sentences and/or the "guillotine" for his political opponents.

I maintain that the biggest mistake the US government has ever made was letting the traitors from the civil war off the hook and allowing them to come back into our country without punishment.

When this is over and the right wing is once again defeated. We will not make that same mistake. There will be war crimes trials and I can't wait to see every single one of them thrown in prison for the rest of their lives.

It may even be time to bring back the guillotine.

Leave a comment

Mostly Peaceful Memes responded to the news of Edwards' termination with a simple celebration:

Antifa Cops: 0

A meme page: 1 https://t.co/7rFGPdgPta

— Mostly Peaceful Memes (@MostlyPeacefull) September 22, 2025

In response to a request for comment, Mostly Peaceful Memes provided an even simpler statement: "For Charlie."

Subscribe now

Leftist extremism in Orange County

Orange County went for Vice President Kamala Harris in the 2024 election by a 51 point margin, making it only second to neighboring Durham as the bluest counties in the entire state of North Carolina.

The county is dominated culturally and politically by the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (and the town which has grown up around it), whose tens of thousands of students, staff, and faculty make up a significant portion of the county's census estimate of 152,877 as of 2024.

A 2024 review by the College Fix found that out of 239 professors at UNC-Chapel Hill who were registered to vote, only six were registered as Republicans while 203 were registered as Democrats. In addition, a 2022 survey found that a majority of self-identified conservative students at UNC-Chapel Hill reported having self-censored more than once, more than twice the rate of moderates and six times the rate of liberal students (54%, 21%, and 9% respectively).

Although antifa black-bloc "direct actions" have been more prominent in the nearby larger cities of Durham and Raleigh, certain events in Orange County certainly bear the fingerprints of antifa ideology and strategy, such as the firebombing of the Orange County Republican Party headquarters in 2016, at which attack a swastika and "Nazi Republicans leave town or else" were found graffitied on a nearby building.

Share

Pro-Palestine "activism"

More recently, antifa tactics and ideology have been on display at the campus-focused pro-Palestine movement which swelled in popularity after the terrorist attacks on October 7th, 2023 and the subsequent Israeli retaliation.

Pro-Palestine activists have apparently successfully used anti-surveillance tactics, for which antifa is known, to repeatedly vandalize the UNC-Chapel Hill campus, such as at Polk Place earlier this month, or at the Naval ROTC Armory last September, where the demonstrators painted messages such as "DEATH TO US" and replaced an American flag with a Palestinian flag.

Despite UNC Police obtaining a search warrant for information related to the UNC Students for Justice in Palestine Instagram account last year, there appear to have been no related arrests.

The police did take rather effective action at the "Triangle Gaza Solidarity Encampment" on the UNC campus in April 2024, clearing out the demonstration and arresting three dozen rule-breakers who refused to leave in an early morning sweep. (Supporters were also spotted using antifa-like anti-media tactics to attempt to block coverage of the arrestees being released from the Orange County Detention Center.)

Although the local district attorney did prosecute the mass arrests, the arrestees were offered pretrial diversions in which even those charged with assaulting police were able to get their charges dismissed with a maximum of 36 hours of community service.

In the meantime, while the charges were open, black bloc antifa demonstrators were spotted marching through the streets of Chapel Hill in a late night "direct action" organzied by Triangle Stop Cop City, which vandalized the Chapel Hill Courthouse with messages including "Kill Cops," "Death to Cops", "Burn the Prisons," and "Jihad Now."

Ultimately, out of thirty-four criminal cases stemming from the UNC encampment, twenty-one defendants took pretrial diversion, six were dismissed by the DA due to the "arresting officer [being] unable to be identified," while the remaining seven were dismissed after the first case went to trial and the judge ruled that no "reasonable juror" could find guilt based on the evidence presented.

More details & analysis:

Leave a comment

UNC Law Student charged in Georgia black bloc terrorism

In March 2023, transgender-identifying UNC-Chapel Hill law student James "Jamie" Marsicano was among leftists activists charged with terrorism in relation to an attack on the Georgia "Cop City" law enforcement training facility under construction, in which black bloc antifa "[threw] large rocks, bricks, Molotov cocktails, and fireworks at police officers," according to the Atlanta Police.

Marsicano was banned from the UNC-Chapel Hill campus due to being charged with domestic terrorism; leftist activist held at least two demonstrations in protest of the ban, including one in which they delivered a petition with over 700 signatures asking for Marsicano to be allowed to walk in the 2024 graduation (Marsicano was able to complete his degree through classes at Duke).

Despite (or perhaps because of) the allegations, Marsicano was awarded the 2024 Winston Crisp Leadership Award by the UNC Student Bar Association for Marsicano's leftist activism, including as president of the university's National Lawyers Guild chapter, and organization known for collaborating and providing cover for violent and/or illegal antifa actions.

(In August, a Georgia judge dismissed the domestic terrorism charges against Marsicano due to due process and constitutional violations; he still faces charges in a related RICO conspiracy case.)

Subscribe now

"Take Back Title IX" bus vandalized

Last year, a bus associated with the Our Bodies, Our Sports campaign to keep transgender-identifying men out of women's sports was egged and defaced overnight in Carrboro after a tour stop at the nearby UNC-Chapel Hill campus.

The vandals "violated nearly every inch" of the bus" according to images shared by the tour's organizers which include transgender slogans and drawings of genitalia; the vandals also crossed out signatures of supporters which had been collected across the county. Although the incident was reported to the Carrboro Police, the perpetrators appear to have gone unidentified and unprosecuted.

Share

Previous coverage:

• UNC students protest decision to ban ‘Cop City’ activist (No. 15 — Apr. 15, 2023)

• Antifa UNC Law student dances into Georgia arraignment (No. 45 — Nov. 11, 2023)

• "Students for Justice in Palestine" interrupt public discourse event at UNC (No. 56 — Jan. 27, 2024)

• UNC students protest in favor of antifa law student banned from campus over "domestic terrorism" charges (No. 67 — Apr. 13, 2024)

• UNC Students for Justice in Palestine hold "encampment" in support of anti-Israel demonstrators at Columbia University (No. 68 — Apr. 20, 2024)

• Alleged domestic terrorist receives UNC award (No. 68 — Apr. 20, 2024)

• Anti-Israel protesters make 2nd attempt at UNC encampment (No. 69 — Apr. 27, 2024)

• UNC Pro-Palestine Encampment Shutdown Timeline (No. 70 — May 4, 2024)

• Pro-Palestinian demonstrators begin third encampment at UNC (No. 71 — May 11, 2024)

• "Take Back Title IX" bus vandalized in Carrboro (No. 77 — Jun. 22, 2024)

• Defense of American flag by UNC frat bros celebrated at RNC (No. 81 — Jul. 20, 2024)

• Interim UNC-Chapel Hill Chancellor Lee Roberts confirmed to permanent appointment (No. 84 — Aug. 10, 2024)

• Flagstock: was it the vibe? (No. 88 — Sep. 7, 2024)

• UNC students commit vandalism spree in support of Palestine (No. 90 — Sep. 21, 2024)

• Pro-Palestine leftists celebrate anniversary of October 7th attacks with "Week of Resistance" (No. 93 — Oct. 12, 2024)

• Chapel Hill removes "Power of Good Trouble" art display which featured pro-Palestine demonstrator (No. 99 — Nov. 23, 2024)

• UNC pro-Palestine encampment arrestees receive pretrial depositions (No. 101 — Dec. 7, 2024)

• UNC pro-Palestine encampment charges - how they were resolved (No. 103 — Dec. 21, 2024)

• Anniversary of "Triangle Gaza Solidarity Encampment" on UNC campus (No. 122 — May 3, 2025)

• One Year Later: review and analysis of UNC pro-Palestine encampment arrests (Original Article — May 8, 2025)

• Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools faces apparently unrelated same-day student walkouts (No. 126 — May 31, 2025)

• Domestic Terrorism charges dismissed against UNC antifa (No. 138 — Aug. 23, 2025)

• Palestine supporters vandalize UNC campus, again (No. 141 — Sep. 13, 2025)

Subscribe now

This article will attempt to address the factual question raised by this tragedy: just how many similar "repeat offenders" may be out in our communities?

The answer is perhaps most readily obtained in the state's largest county, where the Wake County Bureau of Forensic Services publishes readily accessible arrest records through its Arrest Records Portal and bulk records export.

The WCBFS arrest records indicate that there are 776 persons who have been arrested fourteen or more times in Wake County over the past ten years, representing 7.3% of the total arrests during this period, despite being only 0.8% of the arrestees. (see notes)

Eight were arrested fifty or more times during this period, with the most prolific being arrested seventy times.

Out of the 776 arrestees, 421 had a residence listed as "anywhere" for records related to at least two of their arrests, suggesting the arrestee was homeless at the time.

The arrests of these repeat offenders were somewhat disproportionately concentrated in Raleigh, with the Raleigh Police Department being responsible for 58.4% repeat offender arrests compared to 47.7% of all arrests.

Share

Top "Repeat Offenders" in Wake County

For each of the eight arrestees with the most arrests in Wake County, second degree trespass made up a plurality of the charges listed in the arrest records. Although this most common charge is the lowest level of misdemeanor under state law, each of these arrestees had at least two assault-related arrests including charges such as assault on a government official/employee, assault on a female, or even assault with a deadly weapon.

Leave a comment

FITTS, MICHAEL TERRANN

Arrests: 70
Charges: 148

Top 5 charges:

• SECOND DEGREE TRESPASS: 37x

• INTOXICATED AND DISRUPTIVE: 15x

• MISDEMEANOR LARCENY: 12x

• INJURY TO REAL PROPERTY: 8x

• COMMUNICATING THREATS: 7x

Assault-related charges:

• ASSAULT GOVT OFFICIAL/EMPLY: 5x

• ASSAULT ON A FEMALE: 5x

• SIMPLE ASSAULT: 5x

LAWRENCE, TRACEY

Arrests: 69
Charges: 261

Top 5 charges:

• SECOND DEGREE TRESPASS: 46x

• POSSESS DRUG PARAPHERNALIA: 37x

• ASSAULT GOVT OFFICIAL/EMPLY: 12x

• RESISTING PUBLIC OFFICER: 11x

• INTOXICATED AND DISRUPTIVE: 9x

Assault-related charges:

• ASSAULT GOVT OFFICIAL/EMPLY: 12x

• SIMPLE ASSAULT: 7x

• ASSAULT PUBLIC TRANSIT OPERATR: 5x

• ASSAULT WITH A DEADLY WEAPON: 2x

• FTA-SIMP ASSAULT,RESISTING PUBLIC OFFICER: 2x

• SIMPLE ASSAULT(DURHAM): 2x

• ASSAULT GOVT OFFICIAL/EMPLY(DURHAM): 1x

• FTA- ASSAULT GOVT OFFICIAL (DURHAM): 1x

• FTA- ASSAULT W DEADLY WEAPON (X2) (DURHAM): 1x

• FTA-ASSAULT GOVT OFFICIAL/EMPLY: 1x

• FTA-ASSAULT WITH A DEADLY WEAPON(2)(DURHAM): 1x

• FTA-COMM THREATS;SIMPLE ASSAULT(DURHAM): 1x

• HABITUAL MISDEMEANOR ASSAULT: 1x

SANDERS, ANTHONY LEE

Arrests: 68
Charges: 138

Top 5 charges:

• SECOND DEGREE TRESPASS: 34x

• RESISTING PUBLIC OFFICER: 17x

• INTOXICATED AND DISRUPTIVE: 15x

• FTA-SECOND DEGREE TRESPASS: 12x

• COMMUNICATING THREATS: 6x

Assault-related charges:

• ASSAULT GOVT OFFICIAL/EMPLY: 4x

WILLIAMS, KEVIN MATTHEW

Arrests: 67
Charges: 146

Top 5 charges:

• SECOND DEGREE TRESPASS: 40x

• POSSESS DRUG PARAPHERNALIA: 34x

• FTA-SECOND DEGREE TRESPASS: 15x

• FELONY POSSESSION OF COCAINE: 5x

• AGGRESSIVELY BEG: 4x

Assault-related charges:

• FTA- SIMPLE ASSAULT; POSS DRUG PARA: 2x

• SIMPLE ASSAULT: 2x

MOORE, MACK ALLEN III

Arrests: 65
Charges: 177

Top 5 charges:

• SECOND DEGREE TRESPASS: 39x

• FTA-SECOND DEGREE TRESPASS: 14x

• INTOXICATED AND DISRUPTIVE: 11x

• HABITUAL LARCENY: 9x

• RESISTING PUBLIC OFFICER: 8x

Assault-related charges:

• ASSAULT CO/CAMPUS POLICE OFCR: 1x

• FTA-ASSAULT WITH A DEADLY WEAPON: 1x

ADAMS, MICHAEL LYNN

Arrests: 65
Charges: 117

Top 5 charges:

• SECOND DEGREE TRESPASS: 48x

• FTA-SECOND DEGREE TRESPASS: 17x

• COMMUNICATING THREATS: 15x

• FTA-SECOND DEGREE TRESSPASS: 3x

• ASSAULT PUBLIC TRANSIT OPERATR: 2x

Assault-related charges:

• ASSAULT PUBLIC TRANSIT OPERATR: 2x

• SIMPLE ASSAULT: 2x

TESSIEN, EUGENYA NICOLE

Arrests: 59
Charges: 151

Top 5 charges:

• SECOND DEGREE TRESPASS: 20x

• MISDEMEANOR LARCENY: 20x

• RESISTING PUBLIC OFFICER: 18x

• SIMPLE ASSAULT: 14x

• INTOXICATED AND DISRUPTIVE: 10x

Assault-related charges:

• SIMPLE ASSAULT: 14x

• ASSAULT GOVT OFFICIAL/EMPLY: 9x

• FTA-ASSAULT GOVT OFFICIAL/EMPLY(3)(ORANGE): 2x

• ASSAULT AND BATTERY: 1x

• ASSAULT PHY INJ EMERGENCY PRSN: 1x

• FTA-MISD LARCENY(2),SIMPLE ASSAULT: 1x

• FTA-SIMPLE ASSAULT: 1x

• FTA-SIMPLE ASSAULT(DURHAM): 1x

WOODS, KENNETH DESHON

Arrests: 50
Charges: 83

Top 5 charges:

• SECOND DEGREE TRESPASS: 23x

• POSSESS DRUG PARAPHERNALIA: 12x

• FTA-SECOND DEGREE TRESPASS: 8x

• MISDEMEANOR LARCENY: 4x

• ASSAULT ON A FEMALE: 4x

Assault-related charges:

• ASSAULT ON A FEMALE: 4x

• FTA-SIMPLE ASSAULT: 2x

• ASSAULT AND BATTERY: 1x

• FTA-ASSAULT ON A FEMALE: 1x

• SIMPLE ASSAULT: 1x

Subscribe now

Notes

This data is from arrest records published by the WCBFS, it is does not reflect the rate of prosecutions or convictions. (Reminder: our justice system considers defendants innocent until proven guilty.)

The 776 number is based on aggregating by first, middle, and last name: there may be discrepancies due to incorrectly or inconsistently entered names, or arrestees sharing identical names.

However, the arrest records for the eight top arrestees were verified by reviewing the mugshots in the WCBFS portal, revealing two discrepancies: there are three arrests of a separate Michael Lynn Adams, which were not counted in the totals, and most of the arrest records for Anthony Lee Sanders were listed as Anthony Sanders (the two sets were combined for the count).

Michael Lee Grace, 27, of Pompano Beach, FL is facing a total of over eighty charges of breaking and entering motor vehicles, larceny, fraudulently using stolen credit/debit cards, etc. across thirteen North Carolina counties including Chatham, Johnston, Person, and Wake, as well as extradition warrants for charges in South Carolina and Virginia.

A second Pompano Beach resident with a similar criminal record, Marcus Lavon Felder, 35, has been named as an uncharged co-conspirator of Grace's in a break-in investigated by the Appalachian State University Campus Police, and was also arrested in June on warrants from the Johnston County Sheriff's Office relating to three separate break-ins last October.

A third uncharged co-conspirator Larry D. Ware, III was named in the warrant obtained by the App State police, as well as by both the Burlington Police and the Greensboro Police in separate cases involving the use of stolen debit cards to fraudulently purchase gift cards at Walmart and Harris Teeter.

Subscribe now

Marcus Lavon Felder

The earliest of the crimes described in this set of charges occurred last year, when Felder allegedly broke the windows of three vehicles in Johnston County on October 27, 2024 to steal items such as a pocket book, a wallet and cash, and a drivers license. Felder is also accused of conspiring with a "person unknown" to use the stolen drivers license to cash fraudulent checks at several Truist locations.

Although the three arrest warrants were issued on December 30, 2024, Felder remained at large for the next five months (when Grace is alleged to have conspired with him to break into a vehicle at App State). The warrants were returned served on June 25, after which Felder was released on a total of $30,000 secured bond.

Felder faces three counts of breaking and entering a motor vehicle, three counts of injury to personal property (for causing a total of over $600 of damage to the three vehicles' windows), two counts of misdemeanor larceny (for a total of $385 in property stolen), and one count of felony conspiracy to commit identity theft.

According to Florida records, the New Jersey-born Felder was charged at the age of 16 in Broward County with burglary, grand theft, and assaulting a police officer, to which he plead no contest and was sentenced to two years confinement.

Felder appears to have been imprisoned at least two subsequent times in Florida for burglary/theft related crimes in the counties of Palm Beach and Miami-Dade, ultimately spending over four-and-a-half years behind bars before being released most recently in April 2021.

According to a 2017 article in the Quad-City Times, Felder was charged in Iowa with one count of conspiracy to commit a non-forcible felony after police were allegedly informed by his girlfriend that they were part of a group known to the police for stealing women's purses and committing check fraud.

Leave a comment

Michael Lee Grace

Grace also has a criminal history in Florida, including a conviction for burglary and grand theft for breaking into a sedan and stealing the owner's purse on January 16, 2020 in Broward County; Grace was identified as one of the two perpetrators after he was booked into jail on charges of home invasion with a firearm (later dropped by the prosecutor) and his fingerprints were matched to those found at the scene. (Grace's partner in crime appears to have gone unidentified.)

Grace was later convicted of charges including burglary, grand theft, and credit card fraud in Palm Beach County and was imprisoned for at least two years until his release this year on April 18.

A little over a month after his Florida prison release, Grace was back to his old habits up here in Moore County, smashing windows to break into two vehicles on May 30 and stealing $1,480 in cash, tech, etc. as well as $1,000 in fraudulently purchased gift cards, according to the Pinehurst Police Department.

On June 19, Grace allegedly "conspire[d] with Marcus Felder and Larry Ware" to break into a vehicle in Watauga County and steal a purse, cash, tech, etc. worth $500, according to the Appalachian State University Campus Police.

However, Grace was not charged with the two previous crimes until after he had already been identified and arrested; court records show the first warrant against Grace was obtained in Person County on June 25 for a break-in three days prior, accusing Grace of stealing a purse worth a total of $1,083.68 and fraudulently using the victim's debit card to purchase over $500 worth of gift cards.

It is not clear from the warrants how Grace was linked to these crimes, but at least three more warrants were filed in Alamance, Orange, and Sampson courts for break-ins and/or financial card theft prior to his arrest on July 30th by the Pittsboro Police Department.

Since the arrest, additional charges have been filed in Chatham, Cumberland, Guilford, Johnston, Moore, Rockingham, Surry, and Wake courts, filling in Grace's alleged break-in spree across the state.

According to the statement released by Sheriff Wayne Coats, the department had received complaints regarding the sale of THC products to minors, which has been linked to overdoses and/or medical emergencies for minors including incidents at Harnett County schools requiring EMS response.

As per the list of the owners of the targeted premises, each appears to have a name of Middle Eastern/Arabic/Muslim origin:

• Omer Faisal Alfaqih

• Ammar Qaid Al Mathil

• Imad Aied Shibli

• Hythem Ahmed-Ali Essa

• Maged Ahmed Almansoob

• Hasan Issa

• Mohamed Saleh

• Hani Saleh

• Rouf Saleh

For reference, out of a sample of twenty results responding to a search for businesses registered with the NC Secretary of State listing individuals with a last name of "Saleh", a common Arabic name, eight of the results are for tobacco/vape shops, while another three are gas stations/convenience stores.

Subscribe now

Search warrants

According to the search warrants obtained, the investigations into these locations began with narcotics officers at the HCSO conducting initial controlled buys in February for THC products openly sold by the shops, including disposable vapes and live resin.

During one such buy, an investigator was told by another patron that the vape he was purchasing was "authentic marijuana" sold through a "legal loophole," which the clerk reportedly agreed with.

The samples were provided to NMS Labs in Winston-Salem, which confirmed that the items cited in the search warrants exceeded the legal limit of 0.3% THC concentration by at least 3x.

The officers followed up with at least one additional controlled buy at each of the locations including products which were observed to be "marijuana that was rolled up in wraps" or "cigarillos."

The search warrants named a wide variety of items to be seized, including controlled substances, drug paraphernalia, records, computers, and weapons; the execution of the warrants between August 6 and August 25 resulted in the seizure of 64 pounds of THC and $49,033 in cash, according to the HCSO.

Share

List of targeted locations

1. A2Z Tobacco and Vape
   333 N Raleigh Street Unit E, Angier, NC
   Owner: Omer Faisal Alfaqih
   Warrant Served: 08/15/25

   

2. 421 Vapor and Tobacco Express
   600 E Cumberland Street, Dunn, NC
   Owner: Ammar Qaid Al Mathil
   Warrant Served: 08/06/25

   

3. GoodFellas Smoke Shop
   166 N Raleigh Street Unit B, Angier, NC
   Owner: Imad Aied Shibli
   Warrant Served: 08/14/25

   

4. Up N Smoke Tobacco and Vapor #2
   12 E Depot Street, Angier, NC
   Owner: Hythem Ahmed-Ali Essa
   Warrant Served: 08/13/25

   

5. Chill Stop Vape Shop
   906 N Clinton Ave, Dunn, NC
   Owner: Maged Ahmed Almansoob
   Warrant Served: 08/07/25

   

6. ZaZa Happy Smoke
   915 S Main Street, Lillington, NC
   Owner: Hasan Issa
   Warrant Served: 08/19/25

   

7. Olivia Tobacco and Vape
   3819 NC-87, Sanford, NC
   Owner: Mohamed Saleh
   Warrant Served: 08/20/25

   

8. Tobacco & Vape Plus
   6767 Overhills Road, Spring Lake, NC
   Owners: Hani Saleh, Rouf Saleh
   Warrant Served: 08/22/25

   

9. Lucky Stop
   359 NC-24, Cameron, NC
   Owner: Rouf Saleh
   Warrant Served: 08/25/25

Based on the timing, as well as statements by the WFPD and the Wake Forest mayor, it appears the investigation was set into motion by a July 2024 article by Carol Pelosi of the Wake Forest Gazette publicizing allegations of embezzlement. The article was removed shortly thereafter in response to pleas and legal threats by Simpers and her attorneys, according to a statement published by Pelosi explaining the erasure.

In a statement provided to the Triangle Trumpet, Pelosi reiterated Simpers history of embezzlement, and expressed a desire for her to leave the town altogether:

Liz Simpers is a congenital embezzler and has proved it several times. She has a trail of nondisclosure agreements from the time she graduated from North Carolina's School of Design, and most likely before.

She can be pitied for her obsession but no one should ever hire her, place her in a position where she has any access to funds or believe her.

I hope she and her wife and family move from Wake Forest.

Subscribe now

Background

Simpers, who recently changed her legal name from "Elizabeth Ann Simpers," was elected to one four-year term on the Town of Wake Forest Board of Commissioners in 2017, before losing reelection in 2021.

Simpers was hired as the Director of Development for the Chamber's foundation in February 2020, before being elected as president of the Chamber in May 2022.

In a since deleted post and video, Simpers was even recognized as Wake Forest's 2023 NC Main Street Champion for her "professional endeavors" as Chamber president as well as being a "tireless advocate" downtown.

In April 2024, it was announced that Simpers was resigning from the Chamber due to "personal reasons."

However, three months later, on July 17, the allegations of embezzlement surfaced in an article written by Carol Pelosi in her independent local news publication, the Wake Forest Gazette, claiming that Simpers had been "allowed to resign" after being confronted and admitting to embezzling at least $40,000 from the Chamber.

The article (archived here) further reported that it was "widely known" that Chamber officials were aware, at the time of her appointment, that she had previously embezzled from the YMCA of the Triangle, where she had been associate branch director.

Two days after the publication of the article, according to Pelosi, she received a cease and desist order from Simpers' legal representation "demanding a retraction, an apology, and threatening legal action," as well as an email from Simpers herself "pleading to remove the article for her family’s sake."

Pelosi agreed to remove the article eleven days after its publication in exchange for an end to the legal threats, explaining to the public that it was not a retraction, but that it was the right decision for her as a local news publisher who ran the Gazette as a non-profitable service to the community.

In response, the community donated over $4,000 to a fundraiser created by Pelosi's husband to offset the legal costs to their family. (For transparency, the publisher/editor of the Triangle Trumpet, Stephen Horn, was among the contributors.)

Share

Investigation & Charges

The public interest created by the article lead to a number of inquires by community members and news outlets as to whether police were investigating the allegations, prompting Wake Forest Mayor Vivian Jones to issue a response on July 24, 2024 explaining that the WFPD had not opened an investigation into the allegations because the Chamber "ha[d] not reported being the victim of a crime."

However, approximately 13 months after the allegations had been made public, the WFPD issued a statement this week revealing that after a "13-month investigation," Simpers had been charged with four counts of embezzlement, a Class H felony under NC GS § 14-90.

The Chamber issued a release the same day, stating that the organization had been "cooperat[ing] fully with investigators" regarding Simpers' actions, which had "caused harm to the Chamber and placed the organization in a precarious position."

According to the charges, Simpers fraudulently spent Chamber funds for personal use in the following amounts:

• $750.00 for hardscape and masonry work at her personal residence

• $1,000.00 for tree services at her personal residence

• $1,613.43 for plumbing services at her personal residence

• $65,984.76 for "items and services" including

  • a party bus rental

  • orthopedic services

  • professional photographs

  • residential plumbing repairs

  • various Amazon retail items

Simpers turned herself in to the Wake County Detention Center on Thursday, and was released on a $100,000 unsecured bond.

Subscribe now

Christhian Jonathan Buezo-Baires is accused of engaging in sexual relations with two girls 5-7 years his junior beginning when they were 13- and 14-years-old, the former of whom he is alleged to have eventually impregnated and abandoned. Buezo-Baires is also the subject of a detainer by Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

On the Lam

According to the charging document, Buezo-Baires "vanished" after police interviewed his alleged victims. He "unexpectedly stopped going to his work, changed his phone number and has not been seen by various family and friends," leading authorities to conclude that he was "actively trying to evade involvement with law enforcement."

Buezo-Baires successfully evaded capture until July 13, when Raleigh Police arrested him near his residence in North Raleigh for extradition to Washington on child rape charges. (It's not clear how long Buezo-Baires has been in North Carolina; his residence is listed on the arrest record as being in the North Hills at Town Center apartment complex.)

Buezo-Baires is currently held at the Wake County Detention Center on a $2 million bond. The facility has received an ICE detainer and administrative warrant, indicating that he is not a U.S. citizen.

Share

Although it is often an illegal immigrant who is named as the subject of such detainers, they may also be issued for foreign nationals who have/had legal status in the country. (ICE did not respond to a request for clarification as to Buezo-Baires' country of origin and/or immigration status.)

The detective with the King County Sheriff's Office who investigated the case was provided a photocopy of a Social Security card and US Permanent Resident ID for Buezo-Baires by a former employer, but noted that the name and date of birth did not match his school records, and that "a query of this specific name and birthdate combination yielded no concrete record."

Subscribe now

Criminal Information

Buezo-Baires was charged via criminal information in King County Superior Court (Case #23-1-07722-5) on December 29, 2023 with one count of Rape of a Child in the Second Degree (RCW 9A.44.076) and two counts of Rape of a Child in the Third Degree (RCW 9A.44.079).

Information - Christhian Jonathan Buezo-Baires

1.56MB ∙ PDF file

Download

Download

Prosecutors allege that Buezo-Baires had sexual relationships with two girls, beginning at ages 13 and 14, over a two year period between August 2020 and May 2022, beginning when he was either 18 or 20 (the investigation found inconsistent records of his birth date). The victims will be referred to here pseudonymously as Juana and Maria (Spanish interpreters were used to interview both the victims and family members).

The KCSO began its investigation on April 13, 2022 when deputies were called to Juana's home by her mother, who reported that her 14-year-old daughter had "consensual sex" with her boyfriend, Buezo-Baires, whom the mother believed to be 20 years old at the time.

In an interview with a KCSO detective, Juana said she first met Buezo-Baires outside her school, Highline High School in Burien, WA. School officials reported that Buezo-Baires had attended the same school but effectively dropped out by not attending classes, though he "still periodically appeared on campus" until he was "un-enrolled" in December 2021.

Juana’s mother also informed the detective about Maria, one of her daughter’s 14-year-old classmates, whom she had been told that Buezo-Baires was also possibly victimizing.

When detectives interviewed Maria days later, she said she met Buezo-Baires while attending Glacier Middle School in Buckley, WA, and began a "romantic relationship" with him in January 2021, at age 13, but denied any sexual activity.

The authorities’ attempts to locate or contact Buezo-Baires over the next seven months were unsuccessful.

Leave a comment

However, in November, a counselor at Olympia High School in Olympia, WA reached out to the local police about Maria, who was 7 months pregnant with a child she said was fathered by Buezo-Baires.

In subsequent interviews, Maria revealed that she had met Buezo-Baires through a cousin when she was twelve, at the end of seventh grade, and began "dating" him the next year, when their sexual relationship started.

Maria also disclosed that, upon entering high school, Buezo-Baires and his friends began threatening to "injure" or "inflict pain" on her and her family if she revealed their relationship. Even after wanting to end the relationship, she was too afraid to do so due to these threats.

After discovering her pregnancy, Maria said Buezo-Baires denied paternity and continued threatening her not to disclose their relationship, telling her that "even if [she] went to Guatemala, he would find [her] because he had friends over there."

Maria further reported that Buezo-Baires changed his phone number around the time she last saw him, coinciding with her initial police interview. Their last sexual encounter occurred a week before that interview, during which he took her phone to prevent her from calling for help and threatened to harm her and her mother if she did not continue.

Are Hispanics overrepresented in statutory sex offenses?

Although Buezo-Baires' alleged crimes occurred in Washington in 2020-2022, they echo a series of local prosecutions earlier this year, in which a total of eight defendants were charged with kidnapping, trafficking, and/or statutory rape in five incidents involving 14- and 15-year-old girls:

• February: Two men charged with taking 15-year-old girl from Harnett County to Dare County

• February: Two illegal aliens charged over 15-year-old girl found in Asheboro after being missing from Siler City for a week

• April: Illegal alien charged with taking 14-year-old from Lee County middle school

• April: Previously-convicted sex offender charged with taking under-16-year-old girl reported missing from Siler City

• May: Two illegal aliens charged after being found in Florida with 14- and 15-year-old sisters reported missing from Clayton

Six of the eight defendants in these cases are Hispanic, while five of these Hispanics are illegal aliens.

To determine whether Hispanics are overrepresented in statutory sex offense cases involving adult men and young teenage girls, the Triangle Trumpet estimated the ethnicity of perpetrators in Wake County using two methods. The results indicate that the Hispanic share of statutory sex prosecutions is nearly 4x their share of the population:

The U.S. Census Bureau counts race and ethnicity separately; for the above visualization, "white" refers to non-Hispanic white, "black" to non-Hispanic black etc.

Share The Triangle Trumpet

Methodology

Read more

Subscribe now

Although the initial version of Senate Bill 639 did not include any reference to raw milk, the version of the bill approved by the Agriculture, Energy, and Environment Committee included an additional section which would have banned the "herdshare" distribution of raw, unpasteurized milk, an arrangement in which the participants purchase a "share" of a dairy herd, and receive a portion of the milk produced.

The bill was further amended in the Judiciary Committee to retract the ban on herdshares and instead ban the distribution of "pet milk" for nonhuman consumption, with an additional subsection added to order the Agriculture and Forestry Awareness Study Commission to "study the advisability of allowing the dispensing of raw milk via herd share arrangements and the retail sale of raw milk and raw milk products."

Ultimately, the Senate passed a version of the bill which dropped the study, while also leaving the current laws regarding the distribution of raw milk unmodified.

Share

Colby "Bear" Hammonds

However, the bill still contains two disputed provisions, sections 17 and 19, which would respectively modify the Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services law enforcement officers and establish additional liability protection for pesticide manufacturers.

"By adding an additional role of law enforcement, it's going to create a situation of distrust between the farmers and the agency that's supposed to regulate them or help them out," said Colby "Bear" Hammonds, a multi-generational farmer and former candidate for Commissioner of Agriculture, in an interview at the farm where he lives in southern Wake County

."Currently right now we have school kids that come out on our farm about once every two months to take a tour of our farm; on many occasions I've invited North Carolina Ag representative extension agents out on my farm to assist with these kids and actually educate them on the process," continued Hammond.

"If this law passes, farmers like me are going to be less likely to openly invite North Carolina Department of Agriculture commission agents out on our farm out of fear of possibly being arrested for something we don't know or some regulation or that we anticipated."

Hammonds also addressed the limiting of liability for pesticide manufacturers: "The way it's written it it will cover over 15,000 different pesticides we use on our crops, our fields, our livestock. It also covers pesticides that sprayed in our homes for insects it also covers flea collars for our dogs any type of ointments you put on your dog skins."

"The fact that they're trying to create some type of immunity to prevent us being able to sue them is just crazy to us," Hammonds warned. "There's a lot of outside organizations that have come into the state of North Carolina in the last two months to try to push this bill through."

Leave a comment

JP Phinney

JP Phinney, who founded and owns the Unleashed chain of pet stores with his wife Amy, sat down with the Triangle Trumpet at one of their eight Triangle locations to discuss the importance of the raw milk they sell for pet consumption.

"The main thing that gets us really worried about it is in some of the situations where it's used, there's no alternative, like when you have pups that are separated from their mother," explained Phinney. "They cannot have pasteurized milk—it has to be raw—they won't tolerate pasteurized."

"Every protein has amino acids that make it up...Some of those are still present after pasteurization, but they're out of balance," Phinney continued. "Raw milk also has naturally occurring bacteria like Bifidobacterium that's in there, Lactobacillus...but it's cooked out completely in a pasteurized product in the interest of safety."

Subscribe now

Chad Wilkins

The Triangle Trumpet also headed up to Seven Season Farms in Granville County to meet with Chad Wilkins, who spoke about returning to his family farm and getting into the business of producing high-quality raw milk.

"I grew up on this farm, so this has been in our family for four generations, now five generations," said Wilkins. "My wife and I had opportunity to come here, and the first thing we did was start with a milk cow; we started selling it, and found out we could produce a product better than what we had gotten at a lot of farms. Cleanliness is kind of a key thing when it comes to raw milk, and we were funny about that: keeping it cold is pretty critical."

"The challenge with herd shares is that not everybody wants to be locked in to having to pick up milk every week," explained Wilkins, describing the pros and cons of the two sales avenues currently allowed by law. "We never oversell the herd shares because those people have paid for their month ahead of time, so we wanna make sure that their milk is there."

"We never offer more than about half of what we get in a day as herd shares...the other half we offer is pet milk," continued Wilkins. "Now, am I gonna say that everybody who gets that pet milk is using it for their pets? Probably not, but a number of them are, and they tell us that they are, so I believe them."

"I don't understand why we're demonizing a raw food product and giving chemical companies, multi-billion dollar companies immunity from litigation."

Subscribe now

Organization

The event was promoted as an "emergency protest" in support of the Los Angeles riots titled "From LA to Raleigh: ICE Out!" by organizations such as the Triangle branch of the Democratic Socialists of America, as well as Triangle branch of the Party For Socialism and Liberation and Mi Barrio Durham with an Instagram post which accrued over thirteen thousand likes.

The Party for Socialism and Liberation has been associated with organizing previous demonstrations which have escalated into civil disorder and rioting, including a protest of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in DC last July at which a Durham man set fire to a stolen American flag, to which he plead guilty and was sentenced last month to four months probation, 40 hours of community service, and $525 in restitution.

Share

The Protest

The antendees of the protest appear to have been predominantly Hispanic, with the primary message of opposing President Trump and the enforcement of immigration law, which was illustrated by signs such as "Chinga la Migra" and its English translation "F*** ICE," or chants of "F*** Trump" and "no hate, no fear, immigrants are welcome here."

Leave a comment

As with previous local anti-immigration protests, many of the participants were decorated with the flag of their homelands, primarily Mexico. There did appear to be more American flags than at these previous events, perhaps in response to the backlash regarding the "optics" of marching with exclusively foreign flags on American streets.

Share

The protest did also include some elements representing the "intersectionality" of the left, including at least one Palestine flag, protesters in Keffiyehs, and the accompanying chants of "Free Palestine;" as well as more generic messages of "solidarity," abolishing all borders, or ending wars.

Subscribe now

Escalation

The demonstration also included a small cadre of antifa/black bloc style participants, at least one of whom was most likely responsible for graffiti left as the marchers circled the State Capitol block, including "F*** ICE" on the NC Court of Appeals building, "RPD" on the NC Museum of History, and "GAZA" on a traffic sign.

Share

According to one TikTok commenter, the perpetrator was a "yt [white] boy who had a spray can" and that "protestors were trying to stop him."

Leave a comment

Despite their lack of permit, the march was escorted by the police, who also blocked off streets from motor vehicle traffic to divert traffic around the demonstration. The march was also accompanied by protest "marshals" in reflective vests as well as the green-hatted "observers" from the left-wing National Lawyers Guild.

Subscribe now

After the marchers returned to Moore Square, there were fireworks set off in/near the demonstration, which one participant in the march attributed to two young white men on electric motorbikes attempting to "cause chaos" and "incite violence," in a video posted to TikTok:

Share

Future Events

There is a similar "radical" event scheduled for 7:30 PM tomorrow night in Durham at CCB Plaza, which has a similar or greater risk of escalation, suggested by a flyer encouraging participants to "mask up!" in "solidarity with the LA resistance."

In addition, there are at least ten locations across the Triangle listed for the nationwide "No Kings" protest in the Triangle area. Although these have a similar aim as last night's event, to oppose Trump and immigration enforcement, they present less of a risk of escalation due to the midday timing and the association with somewhat less radical and more mainstream liberal organizations.

Under one school of thought, H-1B visas benefit the economy by attracting top talent and filling critical shortages, but skeptics argue that the program is rife with abuse and results in the replacement of Americans with lower-paid foreigners across economic sectors.

Subscribe now

Analysis of nearly 60,000 certified H-1B applications in the Greater Triangle area over the past five fiscal years (2020-2024) reveals that although the towns surrounding the RTP core have a high number of tech-related visa applications, many of the applications with the lowest salaries are, in fact, for educational positions which a layman would not colloquially consider "specialty occupations."

For instance, four of the ten applications with the lowest minimum annual salary are for "Teacher" and "School Counselor" positions ($34,150 and $35,360 respectively) at the Granville County Public Schools (GCPS), one of the local school districts which relies on 3rd party contractors recruiting visa applicants to help alleviate the "teacher shortage."

Share

Although the Greater Triangle area contains three of NC's ten largest counties (Wake, Durham, and Johnston) and the accompanying large school districts, the H-1B visa program is most heavily utilized by two of the area's more rural school districts, Granville and Vance, with 73 and 89 applications respectively in the past five years. (Among the other local districts, there were 44 applications for Durham, 33 for Johnston, 8 for Chapel Hill-Carrboro, 5 for Chatham, 3 for Person, 2 for Lee, and 1 for Wake).

Leave a comment

Granville County Public Schools

In an interview with This Week in the Triangle, Granville County school board member Danielle Hayes described foreign recruitment as a necessary stopgap measure to fill teacher vacancies, which she attributed to factors such as previous management missteps, the overall lack of teacher candidates, as well as the difficulty in competing with larger better-paying neighboring districts.

Nearly every county supplements the state salary for teachers, but the amount by which they do so varies widely: from $217 in Mitchell County to $10,650 in the Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools with a weighted average of $6,508, per the 2024 data compiled by the North Carolina Association of County Commissioners. (The state certified teacher salary schedule for the same fiscal year ranged from $39,000 to $67,220 per year depending on the education, certification, and experience of the candidate.)

Although Granville offered a $5,916 supplement for the year, it is bordered to the southwest by Wake, offering $9,828 (the second highest in the state), and to the southeast by Durham with $8,361:

Subscribe now

Cap Exemption

The number of H-1B visas is nominally capped at 85,000 per year, which are awarded to applicants via a lottery process. However, nonprofit employers like school districts can bypass the lottery and file for "cap-exempt" H-1B visas with a "Memorandum of Understanding" (MOU) between the district and an "institution of higher education," such as a college or university.

Such an MOU is one of the requirements in the service agreement between GCPS and Global Recruitment, LLC, one of the two contractors used by the district to recruit visa employees (emphasis added):

Additionally, the following information is required from the School District for the attorney to file the H-1B application: (1) a copy of their MOU/MOA from a university describing its affiliation with the university to qualify for the Cap Exemption status; (2) a completed Information About the School District form; (3) a copy of the School District's W-9; and (4) a copy of the School District's EIN that establishes the legal name of the School District. This is necessary for filing a correct LCA with the Department of Labor."

According to the 2023-2024 fee structure attached to the Global Recruitment agreement, the school district agreed to pay $22,500 per teacher recommended for H-1B sponsorship by the contractor as well as an additional $5,000 if the teacher lasts until the next school year, which appears to indicate that the district has paid a minimum of approximately $1,260,000 paid in contractor fees alone for 56 H-1B visas applied for by Global Recruitment's lawyer on behalf of GCPS in the past two years.

Share

Language Barrier

Anecdotally, a recurring complaint from parents of students in North Carolina with foreign teachers is a language barrier preventing adequate communication and learning to occur. (Global Recruitment appears to recruit H-1B applicants primarily or exclusively from the Philippines.)

According to Hayes, GCPS does not administer a standardized English proficiency test to the H-1B applicants, but does still maintain full control of interviewing and selecting out of the candidates they are provided by the contractors.

Hayes also transparently admitted that one of her children struggled with understanding a foreign teacher at a GCPS school, but did credit the responsiveness of the school's administration towards the issue.

Leave a comment

Shortages, at their root, are a function of the economic laws of supply and demand.

The demand for teachers is largely "inelastic," meaning that roughly the same number of teachers are needed regardless of whether the cost of teachers is high or low.

The supply of teachers, however, is very much dependent on the compensation offered, though intangible factors such as safety or administration support also play a role.

Although it does not break down specific causes like pay, the most recent report on the State of the Teaching Profession does reveal that the most common cause of attrition is "resigned due to career change," making up 17.15% of the 8,886 teachers who left the North Carolina public schools during the 2023-2024 year. The report also counted up to 7,141.41 vacant positions or partial positions "for which there is not an appropriately licensed teacher who is eligible for permanent employment" for a vacancy rate of 7.61% across the state's public school districts.

On the cost side of the law of supply, a number of school boards in the state including Harnett, Lee, and Granville have sent letters to the legislature this year requesting that the state increase the minimum starting salary for teachers to $50,000, with the Wake County Board of Education reportedly supporting this figure as well.

Republican legislators, including Erin Paré and Mike Schietzelt of Wake County, proposed just such a bill this year in the NC House, H192, which was co-sponsored by a total of 57 representatives including:

• Maria Cervania (D-Wake)

• Sarah Crawford (D-Wake)

• Zack Hawkins (D-Durham)

• B. Ray Jeffers (D-Durham, Person)

• Ya Liu (D-Wake)

• Howard Penny, Jr. (R-Harnett, Johnston)

• Joseph Pike (R-Harnett)

• Renée A. Price (D-Caswell, Orange)

• Donna McDowell White (R-Johnston)

This proposal has been incorporated in to the House's budget plan, announced today, which would raise the starting teacher pay to $48,000 in 2025-2026 and $50,000 in 2026-2027.

On the other hand ,the teacher salary schedule for 2025-2027 in the Senate budget proposal would in fact be a cut, in real terms, as the 1.2% nominal starting salary increase from $41,000 in the 2024-2025 schedule to $41,510 in the proposal is significantly less than the biennial (or even annual) inflation rate. (However, the Senate's proposal does introduce new bonuses which may make up for this loss in purchasing power.)

So reads Article I Section 14 of the North Carolina Constitution, mirroring two of the rights protected by the First Amendment to the United States Constitution (which was first applied to the states by the Supreme Court of the United States in 1925 under the newly invented "incorporation doctrine.")

However, the right to speak freely does not include the right to destroy property, engage in violence, block streets, or violate content neutral restrictions on public property, such as a prohibition against the erection of temporary structures.

In fact, if certain groups or causes are allowed to step outside the bounds of legality without consequence, it can impinge on both the ability of citizens with opposing views to exercise their own free speech as well as the ability of uninvolved citizens to go about their lawful business unmolested.

Thus, when a police action is taken against a protest or demonstration, it behooves us to loop back around after the justice system has had a chance to take its course and take a deeper look beyond the arrest numbers in the headlines to gain an understanding of how (and whether) the laws are applied. This type of post-adjudication analysis also provides us a baseline to compare whether the law is applied equally in the context of political expression which may or may not align with the sensibilities of the public and their democratically elected district attorneys.

In this article, we will be reviewing nearly three dozen arrestees at the "Triangle Gaza Solidarity Encampment" at UNC one year ago, which was dispersed by police on its fifth day after the participants willfully violated university policy by erecting tents on a public lawn at Polk Place.

Subscribe now

Background

Following the Hamas attacks on October 7th, 2023 and the subsequent Israeli retaliation, two facially dissimilar groups have joined forces in opposing Israel: Arabs/Muslims, who support their co-ethnics and co-religionists in Palestine, and leftists, who view Israel as a "settler-colonial state" which ranks on the wrong side of the neo-Marxist oppressed-oppressor matrix.

Share

Timeline of This Week in the Triangle's 2024 reporting on related stories

• "Students for Justice in Palestine" interrupt public discourse event at UNC (No. 56 — Jan. 27, 2024)

• Durham Police make arrest over stolen Israeli flag at City Council meeting (No. 60 — Feb. 24, 2024)

• Durham City Council passes Israeli-Palestine ceasefire resolution (No. 60 — Feb. 24, 2024)

• Raleigh Police arrest 26 pro-Palestine demonstrators for blocking downtown traffic (No. 60 — Feb. 24, 2024)

• UNC Students for Justice in Palestine hold "encampment" in support of anti-Israel demonstrators at Columbia University (No. 68 — Apr. 20, 2024)

• Anti-Israel protesters make 2nd attempt at UNC encampment (No. 69 — Apr. 27, 2024)

• UNC Pro-Palestine Encampment Shutdown Timeline (No. 70 — May 4, 2024)

• Pro-Palestinian demonstrators begin third encampment at UNC (No. 71 — May 11, 2024)

• Pro-Palestine Duke students stage walkout of Jerry Steinfeld's commencement speech (No. 72 — May 18, 2024)

• Memorial Day: Vandals desecrate WWI monument with pro-Palestine graffiti (No. 74 — Jun. 1, 2024)

• "Free Palestine" protest at 4th of July fireworks display in Raleigh (No. 79 — Jul. 6, 2024)

• Defense of American flag by UNC frat bros celebrated at RNC (No. 81 — Jul. 20, 2024)

• Interim UNC-Chapel Hill Chancellor Lee Roberts confirmed to permanent appointment (No. 84 — Aug. 10, 2024)

• NC Democrats disavow mockery of pro-Palestine protesters at DNC watch party (No. 86 — Aug. 24, 2024)

• Flagstock: was it the vibe? (No. 88 — Sep. 7, 2024)

• UNC students commit vandalism spree in support of Palestine (No. 90 — Sep. 21, 2024)

• Pro-Palestine leftists celebrate anniversary of October 7th attacks with "Week of Resistance" (No. 93 — Oct. 12, 2024)

• Chapel Hill removes "Power of Good Trouble" art display which featured pro-Palestine demonstrator (No. 99 — Nov. 23, 2024)

• UNC pro-Palestine encampment arrestees receive pretrial depositions (No. 101 — Dec. 7, 2024)

• Durham socialist charged with burning US flag at pro-Palestine DC protest (Original Article — Dec. 11, 2024)

• UNC pro-Palestine encampment charges - how they were resolved (No. 103 — Dec. 21, 2024)

Leave a comment

The Inspiration

One prominent tactic employed at campuses nationwide by this coalition in the spring of the following year is the encampment a la "Occupy Wall Street" in which student-centered demonstrations took over outdoor spaces at public and private universities and colleges in "solidarity" with Palestine.

Although the first such encampment after the October 7th attack was reportedly at Stanford University, beginning on October 20, 2023 and lasting over a hundred days, the phenomenon didn't begin to build steam until April 2024, when protesters attempted to establish a "Gaza Solidarity Encampment" at Columbia University, only for police to take action to clear them out a day later.

Subscribe now

First UNC encampment attempt

The next day, on April 19th, UNC Students for Justice in Palestine organized their own "Triangle Gaza Solidarity Encampment" at Polk Place in front of the South Building on the UNC campus to "stand[] in unwavering solidarity with the 100+ students at Columbia University who were unjustly detained and punished" as well as to make their own Palestine-related demands of the university, including "divest[ing] from all products and contracts it maintains with Israeli or Israel-supporting companies."

However, the UNC administration quickly informed the demonstrators that the tents they had erected were in violation of the university's Facilities Use Standard. According to the university, "the group did not initially make efforts to comply, but later removed the tents after university personnel took steps to remove the structures."

Although the protesters attempted to evade the restrictions by putting their tents on folding chairs and marching around with the tents held in the air, this first attempt at an encampment ultimately fizzled.

Share

Triangle Gaza Solidarity Encampment

The protesters returned to campus on Friday, April 26th for a second attempt at an encampment, initially setting up their tents without poles in order to comply with the university policy on "structures."

The occupation continued over the weekend, with over 500 supporters including activists from Duke and NC State gathering at the UNC encampment for a march on Sunday afternoon, which was supported by organizations including local branches of the Party for Socialism and Liberation, Jewish Voice for Peace, and the Democratic Socialists of America, according to the Daily Tar Heel.

On Sunday evening, the occupiers made the decision to flaunt the university rules by re-erecting their tents (with tent poles) and gathering with linked arms around the encampment to resist any attempt by the university to enforce its rules.

Although the administration warned the demonstrators that their tents were in violation, the encampment continued unmolested throughout Monday, as organizers warned the attendees of the possibility of police action and rearranged the encampment for those willing to be arrested to remain.

At around 5:30 am Tuesday morning, the overnight campers were officially warned that if they did not vacate the location by 6:00 am they would be subject to arrest, citing violation of university policies and trespassing into classroom buildings during the nights.

Law enforcement followed through on the warning, and proceeded to arrest 36 of the demonstrators on charges including second degree trespass, resisting a public officer, and assaulting a government official or employee.

The arrests were just the beginning of the day's excitement, with the daytime protesters returning in numbers to retake the area from the police, pulling down the large American flag only for a group of primarily Jewish fraternity brothers to iconically return it to it's proper place, as well as various encounters between the demonstrators and police as well as classic anti-media tactics such as using umbrellas to block mainstream TV reporters as arrestees were released from jail.

However, our focus will remain with the arrestees and their subsequent journey through the legal system, specifically the 34 out of the 36 whose cases I was able to identify in the NC eCourts system:

Leave a comment

Legal Process

Although one might be tempted to equate the number of arrests reported in headlines with a number of law-breakers being punished, an arrest is only the first step in our innocent-until-proven-guilty criminal justice system, which also grants the prosecutor, the judge, and potentially a jury decision making power in whether a case is dismissed, or possibly allowing the defendant to receive greatly reduced consequences compared to the sentence received after a guilty verdict at trial.

After an arrest has been made, the district attorney has "prosecutorial discretion" whether or not to pursue a criminal case, which is often used by Democrat DAs to drop demonstration-related cases, which tend to be associated with left-wing causes.

Subscribe now

Prosecutorial Discretion

In this case, the District Attorney of Orange and Chatham Counties Jeff Nieman, a Democrat, made the decision to initially pursue each of these 34 criminal cases; however, seven months after the arrest, Nieman's office filed to dismiss six of the cases, reporting to the court that "the arresting officer is unable to be identified." Another six cases were voluntarily dismissed after an unfavorable court ruling at trial, as will be discussed further down, while the remaining arrestees received pretrial diversions:

Although I have not prepared an analysis of the outcomes of arrests at comparable left-wing demonstrations in the Greater Triangle area, one anecdote can be drawn from one of the arrestees, Zoe Christina Schwandt, who had been charged in 2020 with impeding traffic, resisting a public officer, and false imprisonment for a Black Lives Matter demonstration which trapped a number of cars on Capital Blvd., as well as with failure to disperse in relation to an anti-democracy election night protest by black bloc antifa which involved property damage and throwing fireworks—each case is listed as "dismissal without leave by DA" in the eCourts system.

Share

Pretrial Diversion

In addition to dismissing cases outright, North Carolina prosecutors have the ability to offer "diversions" which allow defendants to avoid trial by agreeing to abide by certain conditions such as completing community service. These diversions are significantly more favorable for defendants than the more commonly known plea deal, in that they result in the charges being dismissed (with eligibility for expunction) instead of resulting in a finding of guilt and sentencing on their permanent record.

The majority of these cases were resolved with pre-plea "deferred prosecution," with an additional two receiving a post-plea "conditional discharge."

NC GS § 15A-1341 provides statutory guidelines for probation-based deferred protection and conditional discharge "for the purpose of allowing the defendant to demonstrate his good conduct," requiring among other conditions that the defendant has never previously been on probation, ensuring that these diversions could only be applied to a citizen once in their life.

However, it appears that it was a "nonstatutory" deferred prosecution which was accepted by nineteen of the defendants charged solely with second degree trespass, requiring twenty-four hours of community service, but without probation and the one-time use limitation.

The two defendants receiving a diversion who had charges beyond trespass (assaulting a government employee and resisting arrest) were put on probation with conditional discharge agreements for thirty-six hours of community service. Conditional discharge differs from differed prosecution in that the defendant must first submit a guilty plea, though that plea is ultimately not entered by the court and the charges are still dismissed if the agreement is fulfilled.

Leave a comment

Trial Dismissals

Two days after the last of these twenty-one defendants accepted diversion agreements, the first of the remaining defendants went to trial, Charles William Soeder.

Soeder's attorney, left-wing activist Gina Balamucki, had filed a motion to dismiss the charges of trespassing and resisting arrest, arguing that the encampment was "constitutionally-protected activity in public forum and in compliance with all University regulations" and that the notice to disperse given to the demonstrators on the morning of the arrests was "vague" and "did not identify which University policy was violated."

Motion To Dismiss - Charles William Soeder (24cr001863-670)

10MB ∙ PDF file

Download

Download

However, the notice did clearly reference the Sunday night decision by the protesters to no longer abide by the university's policy against erecting their tents, as was even reported by the left-leaning UNC student newspaper The Daily Tarheel: "Protesters within pro-Palestinian encampment put tents back up in violation with UNC policy" (Sunday, April 28, 2024).

At the close of the state's evidence, Judge Samantha Hyatt Cabe ultimately granted the dismissal without mentioning the constitutional argument, instead ruling that no "reasonable juror" could convict based on the testimony provided:

The State presented its evidence to the court, including the testimony of Deputy Jeter with the Cumberland Co. Sheirff's [sic] Office. At the close of the state's evidence, Defendant's counsel made a motion to dismiss.

This Court, considering all evidence in light most favorable to the state, finds and concludes that the state failed to present sufficient evidence to pursuade [sic] a reasonable juror of Defendant's guilt beyond reasonable doubt, and as a result, that the charge of 2nd Degree Tresspassing [sic] should be dismissed.

Therefore, it is hereby ORDERED, that the charge of 2nd Degree Trespassing in the above-captioned case be dismissed.

In response to the ruling, Nieman dismissed the remaining cases, as he told the News & Observer: "in light of the ruling on the case last week, and our evaluation of the evidence in the remaining cases, we do not think that we will prevail at trial and we are deciding to dismiss the cases."

It appears that this ruling was unexpected for defendants such as Jackson Prause, who explained his decision as one of the last to take the diversion agreement as allowing him to "focus more on forms of resistance, which is a better focus of my time and energy than taking my case to trial, given the relatively low chance of beating my charges."

Nieman appears to lay the blame for the insufficient evidence at the feet of the police who gathered evidence and made the arrests, diplomatically describing the day as "a chaotic situation" which "caused challenges for the law enforcement officers to pass along the information we normally expect in preparation for a trial."

Whether this result will serve as a learning experience for law enforcement and prosecutors dealing with occupational demonstrators or whether it will more function as an encouragement to those willing to push the limits of rules and policies remains to be seen.

Arrestee analysis

Although the sample of arrestees may not be fully representative of the demonstration's attendees, as the arrestees self-selected by being present at the encampment in the early morning hours and refusing to disperse when ordered to do so, we may nonetheless gain some measure of insight with a bit of quantitative analysis.

Read more