The Espinoza Sierra shooting: This week, District Attorney Jason Smith announced that there would be no charges against law enforcement officers who shot and killed 21-year-old Edilberto Espinoza Sierra in March.
It’s an incredibly tough story, and there’s very little to feel good about, no matter what you think about law enforcement’s version of events or the decision to clear the officers of wrongdoing. A young man is dead, his family left to somehow pick up the pieces and make sense of them. And, though we talk about this less, seven officers must now live with having taken a life.
My colleague Aaleah McConnell spent some time getting to know the family, and through them, about Edilberto Espinoza Sierra. They describe a charming, industrious, and promising young man. The family’s devastation — and anger — over his death is understandable. Any life snuffed out like that is a tragedy, but Espinnoza Sierra’s light seemed particularly bright, which has magnified his family’s grief. I think anyone could relate to that.
Whether the tragedy was avoidable, well, I don’t think you’ll find agreement there following Smith's press conference.
(Notably, Smith went further than some other DAs in similar situations, sharing segments of bodycam footage that are often argued to be protected by state law. There’s some ambiguity about how that law, which explicitly covers law enforcement agencies, applies to district attorneys’ offices. In this case, Smith seemed eager to provide what transparency he could to the media. Some criticized this, but given the notorious opacity created by North Carolina’s body cam law, I think it was a laudable effort.)
For some, the evidence presented by Smith — including witness testimony, the State Bureau of Investigation review, and body cam footage — paints a picture of a chaotic life and death situation that left officers no other option.
Members of the Wilmington Police Department and New Hanover County Sheriff’s Office, who were looking for an armed suspect in a shooting that had just taken place, repeatedly told Espinoza Sierra to stop and put his hands on the wheel, explicitly saying they would shoot him if he did not comply. Espinoza Sierra instead drove away, crashing into two cars. The evidence suggests his vehicle’s wheels were still spinning, and one officer said Espinoza Sierra was reaching for the center console, where a stolen handgun was later found.
One officer, fearing for his safety and the safety of others, opened fire. Six others followed suit, firing a total of 62 rounds. In the fusillade, at least a dozen bullets hit Espinoza Sierra.
I've heard from many, including family members, who feel like officers could have made different choices. While law enforcement officials said it's not their policy to shoot the wheels of cars, some still felt like disabling the vehicle somehow might have been an option. Others have argued that once Espinoza Sierra crashed, he could have been taken into custody without discharging any rounds. They note that, while a gun was found later, at the time officers didn’t actually see Espinoza Sierra holding a weapon.
I talked to some people who could see it both ways, understanding the situation officers were in, but also acknowledging that Espinoza Sierra might have simply panicked, possibly under the influence, and never meant to hurt anyone. And, while a nearly two-ton vehicle is itself absolutely a deadly weapon, once it was crashed, some questioned whether firing 62 rounds was excessive. Given that this was a crowded parking deck — part of the reason officers felt Espinoza Sierra’s vehicle was a threat — I also heard questions about the safety of bystanders; there were no reported injuries from gunfire besides Espinoza Sierra, but could there have been? I think that’s a fair question.
I will say, I’ve covered more than a few stories about law enforcement use of force that, in my opinion, were the result of police officers and deputies being put in situations for which they are woefully ill-suited — first and foremost, mental health crises. Many officers I’ve spoken to would agree: they lack the training and resources to deal with someone experiencing a psychotic break or other profound mental health episode (and it is, often, not what they’d prefer to be doing with their time).
In our newsroom, we’ve spent a lot of time discussing and documenting the ways we could help law enforcement approach those situations differently, or remove them from the equation as much as possible in favor of social workers and mental health professionals.
This wasn’t that kind of situation, where a social worker might have a much better outcome than a cop. This was, by most accounts, the type of thing we do expect law enforcement to do — respond to a shooting, locate the shooter, and arrest them.
So, could Espinoza Sierra have been taken into custody alive without endangering the officers or the public? I can’t tell you that. I do know that officials felt this outcome was consistent with the training, policies, and legal precedents that guide police behavior. Unfortunate but unavoidable, is how I heard it described.
Run this same scenario again, with the same law enforcement agencies, and I think you get the same outcome. Some, probably many, find that sad but satisfactory. Case closed. For others, who wonder if this is the way it has to be, I think the challenge is to imagine what version of law enforcement could do both the things we want them to — protect the public, apprehend violent criminals — and avoid the death of a young man like Espinoza Sierra. That conversation will be much more difficult, and take much more time, than those we have about any individual case.
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Election director postscript: Earlier this month, the New Hanover County Board of Elections unanimously nominated Eric Navagh as the new elections director for the county. Technically, it’s not an official hire, because the state elections office needs to approve it first — but rejecting a unanimous selection is uncommon.
Navagh joined the elections office last summer and has been serving as the interim director since DeNay Harris was put on administrative leave in March (after a bureaucratically protracted process, Harris was officially fired a couple of weeks ago).
Harris’ high-profile clashes with county officials, on the heels of the abrupt exit of former director Rae Hunter-Havens (who was reportedly pushed out), led to concerns about recruiting someone for the position — which, on a good day, is still a stressful job. If the Board of Elections' next pick didn’t work out, they’d be in serious trouble heading into the midterm elections. Promoting from within has pros and cons, but officials I talked to spoke highly of Navagh, describing him as ‘solid’ and a ‘workhorse.’ Most seemed relieved to put the instability of the last year behind them.
But not everyone was happy with the pick.
About a week ago, Leslie Littlefield emailed the county Board of Elections’ three Republican members, introducing herself as a member of the New Hanover County GOP’s Data and Election Integrity teams, and CC’ing NHC GOP Chairman John Hinnant and Jules Rothlein, who has long headed up the local GOP’s ‘election integrity team.’
“I am writing to express my disappointment, and the shared disappointment of many team members, regarding the selection of Eric Navagh as Elections Director,” Littlefield wrote.
She listed a host of concerns, including the county’s alleged failure to post the job position properly and the “procedural haste” around Navagh’s hiring, which she called a “pick of convenience.”
Littlefield also complained that the Republican majority on the local elections board, which took over last year, hadn’t found a Republican candidate for the job (Navagh, a registered unaffiliated, reportedly leans left and has voted in Democratic primaries this year and in 2022).
“With a majority Republican Board which has not happened in a long time, there is an expectation that the board would seek out qualified Republican candidates. In your short term as Board members, you are 0 for 2,” she wrote. Littlefield alluded to elections board member John Lyon addressing the topic at a recent NHC GOP town hall, calling his explanation “unacceptable.”
Littlefield wrote that Republican State Auditor Dave Boliek, who has oversight over elections and appoints local board chairs, had “received numerous communications regarding this selection.” She added, “We hope the State Board of Elections will deny this appointment and require NHC and the Board of Elections to conduct a formal, open application process.”
Boliek’s office didn’t respond to questions.
Hinnant had noted on X that “this was the permanent hiring of a Democrat. The second by this Republican majority New Hanover County Bd of Elections.”
Conservative commentator Nick Craig, who used to run communications for NHC GOP, also wrote on X, “Republicans finally get a majority on the Board of Elections, and for the second time they hire a Democrat to run elections in New Hanover County. Unbelievable.”
When I asked Hinnant if Littlefield’s email represented the party’s position or just her personal opinion, he said she was “speaking for herself,” which Littlefield confirmed, despite her introduction as part of the NHC GOP’s election integrity team and explicitly speaking on behalf of ‘many team members.’
Hinnant didn’t respond to my follow-up questions by email and on X about whether the party officially took issue with the hire, either for the reasons outlined by Littlefield or based on other concerns.
I asked Jamie Getty, the Republican chair of the local elections board, about these complaints, and she rejected the idea that her board would consider political leanings in hiring the next director.
“I was selected as New Hanover County Board of Elections Chair by the State Auditor. The other four members were selected by the county parties. We must follow the law and the guidance from the State Board of Elections. The NHC BOE is nonpartisan. We do not consider political affiliation when making personnel decisions,” she wrote in a text message.
It’s worth noting that I’ve heard frustrations from Republicans that the local elections board didn’t nominate one of their own, as well as Democrats who were happy to learn Navagh leaned their way (or, at least, wasn’t a Republican). It’s unlikely, in this political moment, that the board could have found some monastic political celibate with no partisan leanings whatsoever — so, someone was going to be unhappy.
There are, no doubt, Republicans who believe that a Democratic director wouldn’t take their concerns about election integrity seriously — or, more conspiratorially, that they would somehow interfere to benefit Democratic candidates. Likewise, there are Democrats who fear that, given the relentless repetition of Trump’s lies about the 2020 election being stolen, a Republican director would somehow support baseless and unfounded election challenges, or contribute to the miasma of mis- and disinformation around the election process.
It’s not a good moment for public trust in institutions, to be sure. But I think the more you understand about how local elections are actually run — how painstakingly methodical their tallying and verification methods, how rigorously they comply with recount requests from candidates in both parties — the easier it is to tune out the noise.
For me, the decision by the local elections board, including its Republican majority, strikes a hopeful note, having made a choice that was pragmatic instead of partisan.
Recent drama notwithstanding, the elections office is usually, well, boring — and that’s a good thing. I think we’d all be better for a little less excitement there.
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A weekend with the Proud Boys: Earlier this week, I came across an article in Esquire — “My Weekend Getaway with the Proud Boys” — by Jen Golbeck, a professor who covers some of the darker corners of the internet both academically and as a journalist.
The article’s lede framed the story: Who are they really? A dangerous gang of white supremacists? A men's club that likes to troll the libs? I went to their clubhouse in the North Carolina backwoods to find out.
Golbeck’s motives were anthropological and sociological: “By learning why and how the Proud Boys are able to separate their self-image from their actions, I hope to better understand the contradictions that exist in America today.”
But the approach was more gonzo. Golbeck surrendered her phone and spent the weekend with the Proud Boys, asking them questions, sharing a drink with them, and watching as they played with firearms and a flamethrower in the woods. It wasn’t full Hunter S. Thompson — Golbeck didn’t gear up, or light anything oon fire — but that was the basic vibe.
My initial reaction, which some of you saw on social media, was not overly positive. I called it a “cringeworthy attempt at edgy relevance.”
And, while I admit I was being a bit churlish, my response was based on the fact that, four years ago, my colleague Kelly Kenoyer and I had interviewed these same people. We scrapped the interview because it didn’t reveal anything new – they said the same ignorant and cruel things to us that they’d said on social media and group chats, the same stuff that was widely reported by 2022 – and, given that, we couldn’t justify giving a platform to a bunch of trolls who craved exposure and attention more than anything.
I heard from a lot of folks who were frustrated that Golbeck, despite providing some accurate framing for the harm caused by the Proud Boys during January 6, and allowing them to basically out themselves as confused, often self-contradictory bigots, was also getting kind of cozy with them. (A line where she admires the bar in the woodland retreat rankles some; “my tropical vacation with Hitler,” one commenter wrote.)
Some of you suggested that I might reach out to Golbeck, so I did — and was pleasantly surprised when she got right back to me.
We chatted for about 45 minutes. She heard me out about my concerns, we talked about our different perspectives on covering the Proud Boys, and compared notes on some of the members we had both spoken to (they were apparently not thrilled that we, the ‘lame stream media,’ had scuttled the interview with them years ago).
I think she made a good case for wanting to understand what the Proud Boys represented. As I wrote on social media this week, she told me her goal was to deflate the image of the Proud Boys as some kind of well-tuned militant unit, but also to expose some of their contradictory and sometimes heinous philosophies — while acknowledging that those beliefs are far from isolated fringe positions. As Golbeck notes in the piece, in substance if not style, some of those beliefs are quite similar to what a lot of people in small conservative towns might think.
I might have taken a different approach (I sure as shit wouldn’t have given up my phone), but I could at least appreciate where she was coming from.
I did want to share another concern, which I heard from more than a few readers, which was that Golbeck had kind of just parachuted into our region.
Apparently, the Cape Fear chapter of the Proud Boys was the only one that agreed to chat with her — they apparently missed a meeting where other chapters decided not to talk — so Golbeck drove down to the Wilmington area. Her article, however, didn’t mention any of the creepy or threatening things the chapter has done here locally: threatening advocates, leaving business cards in women’s bathrooms, attempting to intimidate parents with young children at a library event, and flaunting a state anti-Klan law even after the district attorney said it ought to be enforced.
Locals might not know whether or not the Cape Fear Proud Boys were part of the violence on January 6, but many have had bad experiences with them in person. Reading Golbeck’s article, which was for a national magazine audience, they felt left out of the frame.
This, I think, gets at both the strength and peril of this kind of journalism, of using a local story as a metonymy or metaphor for a national story. It is, in my editorial opinion, better than top-down theorizing, the kind of consultancy-class guessing about what ‘real’ America is like that produces so many bad portraits of the country (the kind of thing that has waylaid the national Democratic party, many would say).
But at the same time, if you actually happen to live in whatever smaller community is suddenly getting national attention, you’re bound to be some degree of annoyed. When The New York Times or CNN covered Hurricane Florence, or the racist officers fired from the Wilmington Police Department, or some other occasional event that raised our media profile from semi-regional to national, they always got some detail wrong. They also routinely stole or ignored some piece of local reporting (I’m not sure which is worse).
Golbeck’s far from the only person to roll through town on their way to the next story. But she’s one of the only ones who actually picked up the phone to talk about it, which goes quite a long way, I’d say.
Our conversation ended on a refreshingly open-ended note. She said she hadn’t intended to just drop the story on our community and leave – and said she’d be happy to talk more, and to hear from some of the folks who shared their concerns with me. As I said online, I don’t know exactly how that might come together, but I look forward to the conversation
