DURHAM POLICE CHIEF PATRICE ANDREWS
DURHAM POLICE INVESTIGATING
WHO SENT “THREATENING LETTER”
WITH RACIAL SLURS TO CHIEF
By Cash Michaels
Contributing writer
Investigators are probing who sent a “threatening letter” which contained racial slurs and a white powder which ultimately tested as not harmful to Durham Police Chief Patrice Andrews.
This startling episode comes on the heels of the controversy surrounding Chief Andrews now-deleted Facebook post several weeks ago where she criticized racist statements attributed to assassinated conservative Turning Point USA leader and activist Charlie Kirk about accomplished black women, like herself, “not having the brain processing power to otherwise be taken really seriously.”
Kirk was murdered on Sept. 10th while appearing at Utah State University. After his death, many of Kirk’s previous divisive remarks on his various podcasts and videos became better known, especially his negative views about black women (“If I'm dealing with somebody in customer service who's a moronic Black woman, I don't -- I wonder is she there because of her excellence, or is she there because of affirmative action?), Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.(“MLK was awful. He’s not a good person”), and the 1964 Civil Rights Act (“We "created a beast, and that beast has now turned into an anti-white weapon”).
In her now-deleted Facebook posting on her own personal page, Chief Andrews wrote regarding Kirk’s purported racial statements, “I won't stop being outraged at the way this man is being honored by people that I thought I knew. This man, who disguised himself as a Christian, shamed Black women like me, believed that gun violence was necessary to preserve the 2nd amendment, and created a culture of divisiveness through hate speech."
Members of Durham’s conservative Republican community were outraged by Chief Andrews’ posted remarks, and demanded that she be fired. In fact, a petition with over 2,000 signatures was circulated seeking her removal. But Durham Mayor Leonardo Williams and the rest of the Durham City Council refused, saying that Chief Andrews had the right to express her own personal opinions on her personal social media page on her own time, per city of Durham employee policy.
The Durham city manager was also supposed to have look into the matter. But apparently someone was not satisfied that Chief Andrews would not face any official punishment for her remarks.
It was 7:15 a.m. on Sept. 30th when Chief Andrews opened an envelope containing the threatening letter with racial slurs and an unknown sandy and granular substance in her office suite. She immediately radioed for assistance. A unit of the Durham City Fire Department arrived to confiscate the envelope to check to see if Chief Andrews had been exposed to a toxic substance.
All tests proved negative for harmful toxins.
That left Durham Police investigators with the task of tracking down who sent the letter to Chief Andrews.
“At this time, there is no known threat to the safety of staff or the public,” the Durham Police Dept. said in a press release afterwards.
Chief Andrews has led the Durham Police Dept since 2021. She is the second black woman ever to lead that department.
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“BLACK BELT” FEDERAL
REDISTRICTING CASE
APPEALED
By Cash Michaels
Contributing writer
The ruling by a George W. Bush-appointed federal judge that maintained black voters in the northeastern part of the state have not been illegally racially gerrymandered on a Senate redistricting map, is being appealed.
The plaintiffs, State Rep. Rodney Pierce and Mose Matthews filed a notice of appeal last week, a day after Republican U.S. District Court Judge James Dever III, a George W. Bush-appointee, ruled that essentially there is no more racism in Northeastern North Carolina, which is also known as the “Black Belt” for its high concentration African-Americans.
Despite the racial makeup, plaintiffs Pierce and Matthews, who are both black, challenged Senate Districts 1 and 2 as drawn by the GOP-led NC legislature as violating Section 2 of the federal Voting Rights Act because the districts were redrawn to allow two white Republican lawmakers to be elected. The plaintiffs maintain that the redrawn Senate districts diminish black voting power, thus not allowing African-Americans in the majority-black counties that were split to elect their own representation.
In his 126-page ruling, Judge Dever, however, disagreed, stating that he saw no violation of the 1965 Voting Rights Act in the way those senate districts were redrawn. Judge Devers added that because there was a “paucity of contemporary evidence of intentional discrimination concerning the right to vote against Black voters, the court gives plaintiff’s evidence little weight.”
“It is not 1965 or 1982 in North Carolina. It is 2025,” Dever added. “ Plaintiffs ignore the progress that North Carolina has made over the past 60 years and seek to use (the Voting Rights Act) to sort voters by race in order to squeeze one more Democratic Senate district into the map.”
Judge Dever maintained that 38 of the state’s 170 House and Senate members are black, making up at least 22% of the state legislature. He stated that almost mirrored Census figures showing that African-Americans make up 20.5% of North Carolina’s population.
Republican Senate Leader Phil Berger was ecstatic with the ruling.
“Big win!” He exclaimed on social media. “The [Voting Rights Act] can’t be weaponized to make up for the shortcomings of the Democratic Party. I am glad this latest attempt by partisan interests to undo our fair and legal Senate districts was rejected by the court."
But black lawmakers disagreed, saying that Judge Devers was incorrect in his ruling.
House Minority Leader Robert Reives said in a statement, “The judge got it wrong. Racially polarized voting still exists in parts of eastern North Carolina. That’s been confirmed by studies that show black voters in those parts struggle to elect candidates of their choosing…”
Former Senate Democratic Leader Dan Blue agreed.
“You’re measuring the wrong thing if you just measure the numbers. You have to measure how effective we have been in making sure all voices are heard.”
The ruling is significant because of rumors that Republicans may target the Black Belt region to be carved up again in an effort to help President Trump gain at least one more seat in Congress. Currently Rep. Don Davis, a Democrat, represents the First Congressional District there.
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