Out of control? Rooftop riflemen oversee Wake Forest street concerts | Convicted child sex predator charged with immigration fraud on TPS application | Democrat legislators' vulgarity-filled "satire"

No. 180 — Jun. 7-Jun. 13, 2026

Jun 16, 2026

Two lead Democrat legislators from Durham and western Wake have drawn attention for a vulgar “satire” video targeting their fellow representatives across the aisle.

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

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

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

Lead Democrat legislators publish profane “satire” video

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Previous Coverage:

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

Follow-up

Vance County jail escapees recaptured

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

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

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

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