CECIL BROCKMAN
9-1-1 CALLS UNLOCK
POSSIBLE MYSTERY
IN BROCKMAN CASE
By Cash Michaels
Contributing writer
When former NC House member Cecil Brockman called Guilford County authorities in desperate search for a young, underage companion he would later be charged with allegedly sexually molesting, did the High Point Democrat do so because he was genuinely concerned that the 15-year-old may be hurt or injured somewhere, or because the 41 year-old former legislator knew the teenager’s phone allegedly contained sexually explicit videos of the two that would get Brockman in the hot water he’s in now, and wanted to retrieve it?
A recent story in the Raleigh News & Observer reveals the 911 call that Brockman made on Oct. 3rd, where he told the dispatcher, “…that he was trying to get in contact with his “friend,” who was walking down Old Greensboro Road in Thomasville, which is near High Point. “I’m trying to find him,” Brockman said. That 911 call, alongside another placed by a bystander who saw the teenager while driving, would end up drawing the attention of criminal investigators, who arrested Brockman later that week and charged him with two counts each of indecent liberties with a child and statutory sex offense with a person who is 15 years old or younger. The “friend” Brockman mentions in the call was actually a 15-year-old with whom he was having an illegal relationship, Guilford County District Attorney Avery Crump would later say.”
Brockman, who was eventually forced to resign his District 60 seat in the NC House because of his arrest, has vehemently denied that he knew the teenager was a minor child.
“Why should I pay the ultimate price because someone wanted to grow up too fast? Why should I bare (sic) the entirety of consequence for another person’s lie?” Brockman asked in a Nov. 4th handwritten letter from jail before he was released on bond.
“His father knew he was staying with me, a 41 year-old man and said nothing,” Brockman continued in his missive. “When he came to me to stay with me in NC [from Atlanta where they met in the spring], his father knew and said nothing. He didn’t have or do any schoolwork. His best friend lived in another state with her boyfriend. He told me he was a legally consenting age and he looked the age he claimed. He was 6’1 muscular. And we met on an adult doing app.”
D.A. Crump says evidence disputes Brockman’s claim, however. According to the N&O story, “Upon finding [the teenager] on the road, authorities brought the alleged victim to the hospital due to the condition he was in, Crump said in court last month. She declined to provide details publicly, telling the judge it was confidential medical information. A 911 call from a bystander, which authorities received prior to Brockman’s call, described seeing someone “slumped over” standing in the middle of the road. “He almost walked in front of three people, almost got hit,” the caller said in a recording…”
The N&O story continued, “Once the teenager was in the hospital, Crump said Brockman made multiple attempts to gain access to him. She alleged he did so with the intent of retrieving the individual’s phone and deleting any evidence of their relationship. Brockman’s attorney, Alec Carpenter, denied this claim, saying his client only went to the hospital because “he cared very much about this person.” A trial date has not yet been scheduled in Brockman’s case.
Brockman’s Nov. 4th letter, which some legal observers would say was a mistake, may actually help destroy the notion that he was desperately searching for the teen because he “cared very much” about him.
Brockman’s Nov. 4th letter clearly shows that by that time, at least, he was angry with the boy, and very concerned about his own welfare.
“My life has already been ruined. The career and legacy that I have work so hard for, always trying to do the right thing taken in a instant because someone lied to me.”
“I have paid severely for his dishonesty,” the former state house member continued. “I will never be the same.”
“I spent all of my 30’s in public service,” Brockman went on. “The thought of spending the rest of my life or 12 years in prison is unimaginable. Especially when I was the one that was lied to.”
Brockman concluded, “This amount of cruelty is unbarable (sic). I keep waking up and it’s a reality that I cannot change. I am so devastated, constantly hurt and sad. I do not know what to do. Praying God loves me and heals me.”
The question that will now plague Brockman’s defense once his case goes to trial is why did he try so hard to gain access to the juvenile once he knew that he had been found, was safe, and receiving medical treatment for his injuries?
What was the nature of those injuries, and did they, in any way, provide evidence against Brockman that authorities could followup on?
Did he, in fact, know what allegedly incriminating videos were on the teenager’s cellphone?
And despite his letter claiming otherwise, exactly when did Cecil Brockman determine that the “6’1 [and] muscular” young man he admittedly met on a dating app, allegedly flew to Atlanta, Ga. to meet and be with in May, then bring back to High Point to live with in August, only to lose track of in October, was, in fact, a minor child?
Brockman is charged with two counts of taking indecent liberties with a minor under the age of 16, and two counts of statutory rape.
Authorities say the investigation is ongoing.
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GOP BOARDS OF ELECTION
DO AWAY WITH SUNDAY
AND CAMPUS VOTING
By Cash Michaels
Contributing writer
With the candidate filing period for the 2026 midterm elections drawing to a close December 19th at 12 noon, county boards of elections (BOE) are firming up their plans for voting. And since all BOEs in North Carolina are Republican majority by court order, that means the rules for casting a ballot are going to be different from previous Democratic BOE-run midterms.
Important to black voters in Guilford County, especially students attending N.C. A&T University and UNC Greensboro in Greensboro, there will be no early voting site for the 2026 midterms on those campuses.
Republican BOE members rejected a proposal to establish sites on both campuses, which had early voting locations for the 2024 primary elections.
Elsewhere, BOE’s in Harnett and Craven counties have decided to eliminate Sunday early voting. Reportedly, Republicans on the BOEs in both counties disagreed with Democrats in allowing voters to cast ballots on Sunday, saying there aren’t enough voters who come to the early voting polls on Sundays to justify the costs. One Republican Harnett County BOE member is quoted as saying “It’s not needed.”
However, it’s been well-known for years that Sundays are very popular early voting days for churchgoers in the African-American community statewide. Wherever there is a significant black churchgoing community, congregations traditionally board church vans and go to their nearest early voting sites on Sundays after service during the early voting period to cast their ballots in what has become known as “Souls to the Polls.”
Republicans have long opposed “Souls to the Polls” not only because it draws significant numbers of black churchgoers, but primarily because those voters tend to be Democrats.
Now that they have control of not only the State Board of Elections, but the local county BOEs as well for the first time in ten years, Republicans are exercising that power to suppress opposition turnout as much as legally possible, political observers say.
County BOEs must submit their early voting plans to the State Board of elections by December 19th.
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