Harnett detective accused of Flock abuse | Identity thieves based in Chinese ethnic enclave? | Fact check: in-custody death, stroke of deportees | Selma mayor supports demographic replacement?
No. 188 — Aug. 2-Aug. 8, 2026
Yet another “New York pair” accused of stealing a Smithfield woman’s identity to make fraudulent transactions at establishments in Apex, Cary, and Garner is in fact a pair of Chinese nationals with “ongoing removal proceedings” who appear to be operating out of a Chinese enclave in a majority-foreign majority-Asian area of the Big Apple.
Two members of the Selma Town Council have resigned, with one citing “overreach” by the mayor, including pressuring law enforcement to “make life uncomfortable for the people that [he] want[s] out of Selma to make room for a new ‘Cary-type’ resident.”
Two stories have come out recently alleging that residents of Cary and Durham were not provided appropriate medical care after being detained by immigration enforcement, leading to the death of one and a stroke suffered by another. But were these really “boy scouts” being abused by ICE, or criminals who were suffering from pre-existing medical conditions?
A woman is accusing her estranged husband’s girlfriend of using her position as a detective at the Harnett County Sheriff’s Office to “stalk” and “harass” her using the department’s Flock automated license plate reader cameras. This method of surveillance has become a hot topic both locally and nationwide, is the law enforcement benefit worth the loss of privacy and potential for abuse?
Chinese pair accused of stealing Smithfield woman’s identity
New York Pair Returned To Johnston County To Face Fraud Charges - JoCo Report
Yang Li, 40, and Junya Zhao, 34, have been extradited from New York to face multiple felony charges from the Johnston County Sheriff’s Office for allegedly using a “financial card [] obtained by identity theft” to purchase a $99.95 gift cards at a Target locations in Apex and Cary and to attempt to purchase $459.55 in merchandise at a Home Depot in Garner.
According to court documents, Li and Zhao are residents at the same address in Flushings, NY, in an area of New York City with a population that is majority Asian and majority foreign-born, on a street apparently lined with Chinese businesses featuring Chinese signage. Li and Zhao are also subject to ICE detainers, identifying them as citizens of the People’s Republic of China who have “ongoing removal proceedings” against each of the pair.
As reported by the JoCo Report, Li and Zhao are also facing investigation for similar crimes in other other law enforcement agencies.
Zhao faces two counts of misdemeanor financial card fraud, one count of identity theft, one count of felony conspiracy, one count of obtaining property by false pretense, and one count of attempting to obtain property by false pretense. Li faces the same charges, as well as an additional count of misdemeanor financial card fraud and obtaining property by false pretense.
Besides the ICE detainers, Li and Zhao are each being held on a $50,000 secured bond.
Demographic replacement? Two Selma councilmembers resign over split with activist mayor
Two Selma Council Members Resign As Divisions With Mayor Boil Over - JoCo Report
‘We don’t work together’: Two Selma town council members abruptly resign during Tuesday meeting - WRAL
2 Selma council members resign minutes apart, citing division at Town Hall - ABC11
Two of out of the five members of the Selma Town Council have have abruptly resigned, following growing intra-council tensions and accusations of overreach, illegal ticket quotas, excessive code enforcement, and attempted demographic replacement on behalf of the mayor.
The now-resigned councilmembers Susan Parrish Watson and William Overby found themselves opposite Mayor Byron McAllister, Mayor Pro Tem Joe Scarboro, and Councilwoman Amy West Whitley earlier this year, when McAllister successfully lead a motion to censure Watson for accusations including making an endorsement in a Republican Congressional primary, despite McAllister making his own endorsement of at least one Democrat. (The motion passed 3-1, with Overby voting in the negative and Watson recusing herself.)
In her public statement regarding her resignation, Watson cited recent reporting and information regarding the resignation of Major Jeffrey Bass from the Selma Police Department, who accused McAllister of exerting political influence in matters such as attempting to remove police officer’s discretion in issuing citations, as he attempted to shift focus “away from crime reduction and toward issues such as stop sign enforcement, parking violations, patrol routes, and code enforcement complaints.”
Watson also referenced a recording of a meeting involving McAllister, Scarboro, and Bass, castigating McAllister for “malign[ing]” prior Selma mayors Cornelia Olive and Lt. Col. Charles Ernest Hester.
In the recording, McAllister linked the “changing population” to his vision of changing law enforcement priority, blaming previous crime levels on Selma being “dirt cheap, podunk, dust balls rolling through the street, piece of garbage fire.”
“The mandate to change our attention slightly toward these persnickety things is part of the understanding of the changing population,” McAllister continued. “with an $1800 deposit to get utilities, we’ve had a few folks that have attempted to move into a new domicile in Selma, North Carolina, and cannot, they’ve had to go elsewhere. With rents starting now above $1000, the folks that would even harbor some of those fine individuals can’t be here anymore.”
In her characterization of these remarks, Watson described it as advocacy for replacing the population of Selma with newcomers more in line with the mayor’s preferred economic demographics: “what I hear is ‘let’s make life uncomfortable for the people that we want out of Selma to make room for a new “Cary-type” resident.’”
Although later to the modern “growth” in the Triangle due to its distance from the urban core, the population of Selma has began swelling at a significant rate in the last several years, with the estimated net increase in population of 1,089 (17.2%) between 2020 and 2025 being more than four times larger than the increase in the ten years prior, bringing it closer in line to the 18.7% increase in population across Johnston County during the same time period.
Related Coverage:
Hypocrisy? Selma mayor who endorsed Democrat leads censure of councilwoman for endorsing Republican (No. 162 — Feb. 7, 2026)
Deaths of deportation: narrative vs facts
Amid the criticisms brought against the current immigration enforcement efforts under the Trump administration is a lack of appropriate medical care for the illegal aliens being processed through the deportation system, with appropriately sympathetic anecdotes complete with grieving family members.
Is this mere politicization of an unavoidable rate of medical emergencies which would occur in any detention context, or is the federal government negligent in it’s minimum duty of care for detainees as is alleged (often by those who would prefer to “Abolish ICE.”)
Let us consider two recent local stories, with a Mexican resident of Durham reportedly dying of leukemia in ICE custody, and a Liberian reportedly not being provided his stroke medicine after being taken into custody in at his home in Cary.
Prisciliano Trejo Ricano
Man diagnosed with leukemia dies after time in ICE custody at Georgia’s Stewart Detention Center, advocates say - CBS News
ICE Detainee Diagnosed With Leukemia Dies After Transfer From Detention - Newsweek
A young Mexican man living in Durham died in ICE custody. - Enlace Latino NC
Mexican man from Durham dies after leukemia diagnosis in ICE custody. Read his words. - N&O
According to family, Prisciliano Trejo-Ricano was brought over to America by his parents at the age of three, and was arrested in June and taken to an ICE facility in Georgia, where he developed serious symptoms including coughing up blood and bruises which refused to heal, leading to him being transferred to an intensive care unit days after complaining on Facebook that he “hadn’t been treated or given any medication.” Trejo-Ricano was reportedly diagnosed with acute leukemia, and passed away shortly thereafter on July 24th.
What the family did not mention is why Trejo-Ricano was in custody, with North Carolina court records confirming a DHS statement that the 28-year-old resident of Durham was arrested on June 19th by the Durham County Sheriff’s Office and charged with driving while impaired, hit-and-run leaving property damage, driving without a license, and driving the wrong way on a one way street.
Trejo-Ricano was taken into ICE custody on June 25th and already hospitalized when he was released from custody on July 16th, with one anti-ICE source narrowing the timeframe, claiming that Trejo-Ricano requested medical care on July 6th and was taken to the hospital on July 13th.
What appears to be missing from the family’s recounting is any indication that he was sick or had a diagnosis before his detention, unlike other claims of detainees being denied medication for known conditions.
Given that blood cancer is not the type of disease one can catch in an immigration detention facility, and given the rapid progression once symptoms developed, it seems unclear that Trejo-Ricano’s prognosis would have been significantly improved if he had been at-large or in the custody of the Durham jail, instead of having been detained by immigration enforcement when his condition began to rapidly deteriorate.
Gabriel Johnson
Cary pastor in ICE custody received little medication before stroke, daughter says - News & Observer
Family of North Carolina pastor who suffered stroke in ICE custody says they had to beg to see him in Texas - The Grio
Pastor suffers stroke in ICE detention, will remain in custody pending removal - Christian Post
Pastor has stroke in ICE custody in North Texas, family says. Now they’re worried about his medical care - NBC 5 DFW
Raleigh woman claims inadequate care after she says father suffered stroke in ICE custody - WRAL
According to the family of Gabriel Johnson, the 55-year-old Liberian was arrested by immigration officials at his Cary home on July 15th, and has since suffered another stroke while in custody after having inconsistent access to the stroke medicine he was prescribed after suffering from a series of strokes in 2020, leaving him partially paralyzed in a Texas hospital.
However, their timeline puts Johnson’s medical issues in immigration custody prior to him having any opportunity to suffer the consequences of missed medication, with Johnson being taken to WakeMed for high blood pressure just an hour after his arrest.
Johnson is sympathetically portrayed as a father, a husband, and a pastor by his supporters, but the DHS response to the story reports that he has a “lengthy rap sheet” with “convictions for drug possession, fraud, mail theft, use of unauthorized access devices, false citizenship, and multiple traffic offenses, and charges for harassing communication and simple assault.” (It is not clear when or where these reported crimes occurred.)
Although Johnson’s family claims that he has “legal status,” reporting by the News & Observer appears to clarify that this claim merely amounts to a “withholding of removal,” which is a very limited measure restricting the government from returning an illegal alien to their country of origin.
“Withholding of removal is a form of relief from removal, however it only guarantees that you will not be returned to your home country,” explains a Department of Justice website. “You may be removed to a third country where your life or freedom would not be threatened.”
According to DHS, Johnson has overstayed a six-month visa in 1987 by nearly forty years, and was subject to a final order of removal in 1991.
In response to the claims of denying medication, the third party operator of the detention center in Georgia where Johnson was held for two weeks prior to his stroke issued a statement that Johnson “was regularly monitored by facility medical staff, with all known medical issues being addressed.”
Harnett detectives accused of abusing Flock cameras in “civil domestic dispute”
Attorney: Harnett detectives misused Flock system to track woman - Daily Record
A pair of detectives at the Harnett County Sheriff’s Office are accused of improperly using controversial Flock cameras to spy on the wife of the boyfriend of one of the detectives, according to a letter sent by the woman’s attorney and published by the Daily Record.
According to the letter, Kymberly Parrish’s husband James Parrish “inexplicably arrives” any time she visits a farm property which the estranged couple jointly owns in northern Harnett County.
Furthermore, the letter claims that Kymberly Parrish received an anonymous phone call tipping her off that Detective Jayne Holland (with whom James Parrish is allegedly “cohabitating”) and her partner Detective Teresa Wells were using the department’s automated license plate readers to monitor Kymberly Parrish’s movements and relay them to her estranged husband.
After “mention[ing] the incident to a visiting law enforcement officer at her store,” the letter describes two officials from HCSO stopping by her business regarding the allegations, including one from internal affairs.
The letter’s demands include the preservation of records, an audit of the relevant logs, and the involvement of the State Bureau of Investigation.
Liberty vs Safety? The Flock controversy
UNC Police uses license plate readers also utilized by immigration enforcement - Daily Tar Heel
What the Flock?: An Explainer on the Controversial License Plate Reading Cameras Deployed Across the Triangle - INDY Week
Flock cameras use to get second look as privacy concerns grow in Chatham County - ABC11
Pittsboro leaders vote to terminate contract Flock camera contract - WRAL
Some Apex homeowners pushing back against license plate reader technology - CBS17
North Carolina authorizes AI-powered license plate reader cameras on all state roads and highways - Daily Tar Heel
Public Safety vs. Personal Privacy: Flock Cameras debated in Harnett County, across North Carolina - ABC11
The proliferation of Flock’s automatic license plate reader cameras across the country since the company’s founding in 2017 has attracted criticism across the breadth of the political spectrum.
Although the use of cameras monitoring public areas for law enforcement purposes is not exactly new, the linkage of perhaps over a hundred thousand cameras into a singular network for the sharing of automatically extracted data raises the specter of mass government surveillance to new heights.
While some are concerned about the abuse of this system by government officials in their official or unofficial capacities (as is alleged in this case), many on the left are concerned that it will be too effective in enforcing laws against protected groups such as illegal aliens or non-whites, with the anti-Flock activist organization “DeFlock” listing “Racist Policing” and “Put[ing] Undocumented People at Risk” as negative consequences of the technology.
The rallying of support against this method of surveillance is likely fueled by the fact that unlike NSA or Patriot Act surveillance, the tools of this system are prominently visible to the public; this accessibility not only leads to increased awareness, but also direct targeting such as the vandalism of multiple Flock cameras at a Wake Forest park last month.
On the other hand, Flock cameras are credited with being an effective tool for law enforcement, such as being used in Charlotte to locate a juvenile reported missing from Vance County, leading to the arrest of a Wake County woman on a charge of abduction of children.
But is does any amount of solved crime or any level of safeguards justify the use of this technology, or should we say with Benjamin Franklin that “those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety?”