A North Carolina sheriff’s office is investigating whether Republican front-runner Donald Trump’s actions at a Fayetteville, N.C., rally last week “rose to the level of inciting a riot,” according to a statement from the department’s lawyer.
“We are continuing to look at the totality of these circumstances … including the potential of whether there was conduct on the part of Mr. Trump or the Trump campaign which rose to the level of inciting a riot,” said the statement from Cumberland Sheriff’s Office attorney Ronnie Mitchell. An associate in Mitchell’s office read the statement aloud to a Washington Post reporter.
The statement said the sheriff’s office was also looking into further charges against John Franklin McGraw, 78, who allegedly was the man seen sucker punching a protester as that person was being led out of the Trump rally by police. In addition, Mitchell said, the office was investigating how its own deputies reacted – or didn’t – during the incident.
“We are not in a position to comment further at this time,” Mitchell’s statement concluded. It did not give details about when the investigation into Trump’s behavior would conclude. Neither the county sheriff, Earl “Moose” Butler, nor a spokesman for the sheriff’s office returned calls for comment Monday afternoon.
Under North Carolina law, a riot is “a public disturbance involving an assemblage of three or more persons which by disorderly and violent conduct, or the imminent threat of disorderly and violent conduct, results in injury or damage to persons or property or creates a clear and present danger of injury or damage to persons or property.”
The charge of “inciting a riot” is a misdemeanor, defined this way: “Any person who willfully incites or urges another to engage in a riot, so that as a result of such inciting or urging a riot occurs or a clear and present danger of a riot is created.”
Trump’s campaign did not immediately respond to requests for comment. He was campaigning in North Carolina Monday, before that state’s Republican primary Tuesday.
The incident in Fayetteville happened March 9, in the early going of a Trump rally.
It was captured on videos, which showed an African-American protester with long hair wearing a white T-shirt being led out by sheriff’s deputies as the audience booed. The man extended a middle finger to the audience on his way out.
Then, out of nowhere, the man was punched in the face by a pony-tailed man, who appeared to be white, in a cowboy hat, black vest and pink shirt as the crowd began to cheer. The protester stumbled away, and then was detained by a number of the men in uniforms.
The protester was later identified as Rakeem Jones.
“Boom, he caught me,” Jones told The Washington Post in a telephone interview. “After I get it, before I could even gain my thoughts, I’m on the ground getting escorted out.”
McGraw was charged with assault and disorderly conduct the next day. On his Facebook page, Sheriff Butler said he also added a charge after viewing a video of McGraw, shot later on the night of the rally, in which McGraw said he enjoyed hitting “that loudmouth … who was “not acting like an American,” and threatened next time “to kill him.”
After seeing this video, the sheriff said, detectives also charged McGraw with the offense of “communicating threats.”
The first outlet to report that Cumberland County investigators were considering an “inciting a riot” charge was the TV station WRAL in Raleigh, N.C.
The incident with McGraw happened in the first few minutes of Trump’s appearance in Fayetteville, and it was the first major disruption of that event. In previous rallies, in other states, Trump had suggested that supporters “knock the crap” out of disruptive protesters, and said “I’d like to punch him in the face” as another protester was taken out. But in this incident, he had not mentioned anything about protesters until around the time McGraw allegedly threw the punch.
“Hello! Uh oh! Ohh! Uh oh! So early. So early. Allright, get ’em out! Thank you. We’re gonna have such fun,” Trump said then, as the crowd chanted “Trump.” “We’re gonna have such fun tonight. Get ’em out. Thank you. Do we love our police? Our police are great.”
Later in the rally, in response to another disruption, Trump was more forceful: “Get out of here. Go home to Mom!” he said, as the crowd cheered. “Nasty. Nasty. Why are they allowed to do things that we’re not allowed to do? Can you explain that to me? Really a disgrace.”
Butler, the elected sheriff of Cumberland County, is a Democrat in his sixth term in office.
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