With focus on immigration, voters in NC’s seven largest counties elected black sherif

With focus on immigration, voters in NC’s seven largest counties elected black sheriffs

BY JOSH SHAFFER
jshaffer@newsobserver.com
November 08, 2018 12:42 PM
Updated November 08, 2018 07:02 PM

RALEIGH Voters across North Carolina this week elected a black sheriff in all seven of the state’s largest counties, bringing a new level of prominence to minorities in law enforcement.

Five of those counties — Durham, Guilford, Forsyth, Cumberland and Buncombe — sent black candidates to the sheriff’s office for the first time in their histories. And one of them, Buncombe County in the Blue Ridge Mountains, did so with a 90 percent white population.

Both election analysts and the winners said black candidates were propelled to office largely because they objected to hardline immigration policies and could appeal to voters who felt forgotten or afraid.

In Wake County, Democrat Gerald Baker ousted longtime Sheriff Donnie Harrison, who participated in the 287(g) program to partner with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the federal agency responsible for deportations and other immigration law enforcement. Baker’s campaign was aided by ads taken out by the ACLU, which accused Harrison of backing President Trump’s agenda and “stoking racial tensions.”

But Baker said he found an ally in the Hispanic community from the start.

“They indicated to me very early on in this campaign that they have not voted in several of the last elections because they felt like they didn’t have a voice,” Baker told The N&O on Tuesday.


https://www.newsobserver.com/news/po...faddenfolo.JPGDemocrat Garry McFadden won the Democratic nomination for sheriff on Tuesday, But he has no GOP opponent in November, so he will become Mecklenburg County’s first black sheriff.

Jeff Siner The Charlotte Observer

In Mecklenburg County, the state’s largest, Sheriff Garry McFadden won election unofficially after taking the primary in May because no Republicans opposed him in November. He, too, made opposition to 287(g) a plank in his campaign, and the race became an unofficial referendum on the program.

“I don’t see any documentation where it brings unity to the community,” McFadden told the Charlotte Observer in February. “I haven’t seen any data that says it makes your city safer.”
He added the effect spreads beyond Hispanic neighborhoods and curbs cooperation with law officers. “South Africa, Asia, anyplace,” he said. “You talk to these people and you see fear in their hearts.”

The seven candidates elected Tuesday are men, but black women have also made a mark on law enforcement leadership in North Carolina. Many of the state’s largest police departments have black female chiefs, including Raleigh, Charlotte, Durham, Fayetteville and Winston-Salem.

Across the state this election cycle, minority candidates benefited from widespread voter registration drives and free rides to the polls aimed at boosting participation, said Chaniqua Simpson, a doctoral student in sociology at N.C. State University and fellow with the Electoral Justice League, part of the grassroots Movement for Black Lives.

Internet memes and social media posts advised new or occasional voters to stay in line once the polls closed or to ask for provisional ballots if they were denied access to the polls — both new tools aimed at keeping minority voters from getting turned away, she said.

“We’re energizing voters of color who haven’t voted in midterms,” Simpson said.

In several cases, black sheriffs will replace white incumbents who held office more than a decade.

Sheriff Moose Butler retired in 2016 after serving 22 years in Cumberland County, and he personally endorsed his replacement, Ennis Wright. Appointed by the county commissioners, Wright sealed his first elected term on Tuesday.

But in Guilford County, the transition will not be as friendly.

Sheriff B.J. Barnes was described as “largely unbeatable” by ncpolicywatch.com, a publication of the NC Justice Center, a left-leaning think tank.

In a Facebook post shortly before the election, his opponent Danny Rogers accused him of sending a “racist dog whistle” with comments about busing to the polls, and of being aligned with Republicans who wanted to shorten early voting to curb minority traditions such as “souls to the polls” on Sundays.

https://www.newsobserver.com/news/po...-headshot.jpegClarence Birkhead, former police chief for Duke University and the town of Hillsborough, is running for Durham County sheriff.

But in Durham last spring, then-Mayor Bill Bell told the Herald-Sun that Sheriff Clarence Birkhead’s election continued a swing toward inclusion. In 2016, he noted, the city elected C.J. Davis: its first black woman as police chief.

Josh Shaffer: 919-829-4818, @joshshaffer08

https://www.newsobserver.com/news/po...KER-TEL-02.JPG

Wake County Sheriff-elect Gerald Baker, center, is congratulated by Jeanna Harris on his election win Wednesday, Nov. 7, 2018 outside the Wake County Public Safety Center. Travis Long

tlong@newsobserver.com@newsobserver.com

https://www.newsobserver.com/news/po...221343255.html

Activists vow to hold new Wake sheriff accountable on promise to end immigration program

BY THOMASI MCDONALD
tmcdonald@newsobserver.com

November 08, 2018 06:06 PM
Updated November 08, 2018 06:51 PM

RALEIGH Immigration activists and their supporters gathered in downtown Raleigh on Thursday to applaud Gerald Baker’s upset victory in the Wake County sheriff’s race.

They also vowed to hold Baker accountable after he promised to end a controversial immigration program that has led to more than 1,000 deportations in Wake in less than five years.

The rally was hosted by Familia Si, 287(g) NO, a campaign aimed at ending Wake County’s participation in the program that allows local law enforcement agencies to partner with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Ivana Gonzalez, a Wake County resident and one of the organizers of the rally, said she was pleased with Baker’s victory Tuesday.

“But this is just the beginning. We are here to make sure change happens within,” Gonzalez said. “Baker needs our support. But we need to make sure he keeps his promise to make sure everything is done.”

Baker, who worked as a sheriff’s deputy in Wake for 28 years before he retired in May, won more than 54 percent of the vote. He ousted Donnie Harrison, who was first elected in 2002 and was seeking a fifth term.

In 2007, Harrison first received funding from the Wake County Board of Commissioners to hire 12 full-time 287(g) officers, who could act in some ways as federal immigration agents.

At the time, North Carolina had the most sheriffs who volunteered to participate in the program, according to a study by Felicia Arriaga, an assistant professor of sociology at Appalachian State University.

Between 2013 and 2017, the Wake sheriff’s office processed nearly 11,000 people through the 287(g) program. Of those, 1,483 people were deported, according to previous N&O reporting.

“What motivated us was this system that has been separating our families,” Griselda Alonso said through a Spanish interpreter at the rally.

The event in front of the Wake County Courthouse drew about 30 activists, including members of the citizen-led Police Accountability Community Task Force, the North Carolina A. Philip Randolph Education Fund and the American Civil Liberties Union of North Carolina.

Marcus R. Bass, a spokesman with Advance Carolina, a nonprofit in Raleigh that advocates for African-American voter participation in statewide politics, quoted famed civil rights activist Fannie Lou Hamer.

“None of us are free until all of us are free,” he said.

“Today, this is a a referendum on humanity,” Bass continued. “Why is this important? Since the end of slavery, the criminal justice system has been used to break apart families. Humanity, freedom and equality rests solely on the criminal justice system.”

Bass said Baker’s victory was “a resounding rejection of Donnie Harrison.”

Camilo Coronilla of Fuquay-Varina observed his 47th birthday Thursday in the Wake County jail.

His wife, Carolina Campos, said her husband, who works as a carpenter, was delivering supplies to a co-worker when he was stopped Saturday and charged with driving without a license.
Campos pulled out of her purse a copy of the citation that showed her husband’s pickup truck was stopped at 5:44 p.m.

Coronilla cannot be released from custody because deputies who work with ICE determined he is in the country illegally, his wife said.

Although Campos spoke into a microphone, she was barely audible while saying her husband and his family are law-abiding people.

“We do not steal. We do not kill. We do not commit any crime,” she said. “We just want our husband back.”

Coronilla’s teenage daughter, Mayra Campos, who was holding her toddler sister, said her father was the victim of racial profiling.

“This is not only affecting our family, it’s affecting the community we’re in,” she said. “This is dreadful and scary for a child.”

Voters in North Carolina’s seven largest counties elected black sheriffs this week. The candidates say they their victories are due in part to their opposition to hardline immigration policies.

Leading up to the election in Wake, the American Civil Liberties Union spent $100,000 to air a radio ad that accused Harrison of “pushing Donald Trump’s anti-immigrant agenda, tearing families apart and stoking racial tensions.”

Wake is among six North Carolina sheriff’s offices that participate in 287(g). Through the program, a suspect who is already detained for a criminal offense can be run through a national database. If it becomes clear the suspect is in the country illegally, ICE can request a detainer and take the person into federal custody.

Karen Anderson, the executive director of ACLU North Carolina, told the rally participants that 287(g) “does not make our communities safer.

“Instead, it terrorizes our immigrant friends and our neighbors, it encourages racial profiling and tears families apart, as we so heartfelt heard today, and diverts resources from true community needs,” she said.

“At this time in our history, as the Trump administration pursues a vicious anti-immigrant agenda, the policies of local government are more important than ever. On Tuesday, Wake County voters made it clear: They do not want their local government using county resources to fuel Trump’s deportation machine.”

https://www.newsobserver.com/news/lo...221359150.html

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Keep the family together...deport them together!

So now the illegals will run (and drive) freely without fear in more North Carolina counties, including my own (Wake County). Such a shame. Of course this is not extremely surprising considering the large number of Northern transplants that are now living in N.C.

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Originally Posted by MW

So now the illegals will run (and drive) freely without fear in more North Carolina counties, including my own (Wake County). Such a shame. Of course this is not extremely surprising considering the large number of Northern transplants that are now living in N.C.

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This scourge, this invasion, this cancer has infected all our communities all across America!