The official interpretation of an altercation related to a bill being considered by the General Assembly has changed, but a group representing victims in the alleged assault say the recent response by police is too little, too late.

On June 23, a group of Indigenous people gathered near a field in the Bridge View neighborhood of Carteret County’s Cedar Point. Organized by the Tuscarora Tribe of North Carolina, the gathering was described as a prayer ceremony related to archaeological finds — including human remains — that developers discovered while clearing the site for home construction.

That discovery halted construction to give the state archaeology office time to determine what to do about the site, which it describes as historically significant. In June, the legislature made headlines and faced immediate backlash when it proposed a change to coastal development rules that would make holding up development projects such as Bridge View more difficult.

Against this backdrop, the prayer ceremony was scheduled and Indigenous people from central North Carolina and other places headed to join the Tuscarora on the coast.

What happened next was an altercation between some of the people who had come to the ceremony and some of the residents of the part of Bridge View that has already been developed, including an off-duty deputy.

A video shown during a news conference on Wednesday shows some of the altercation, including a man wrestling a woman to the ground and holding her down as others try to pull him away. 

Original reports from the Carteret County Sheriff’s Office said two residents had been injured in the altercation — one stabbed in the arm with a pocketknife, and that an arrest warrant had been issued. By the next day, the incident was being described in the media as a violent clash between protestors and residents. 

That story has changed.

On Wednesday, Maj. Derek B. Moore, of the Carteret County Sheriff’s Office, said the off-duty deputy involved in the altercation — James Gilbert De La O Jr. — has been arrested in connection with the June 23 incident. He was charged with communicating threats, assault on a female and filing a false police report. The case is still under investigation and further charges could follow, Moore said in a news release. De La O was released on a written promise to appear in court.

The charges and the altercation are from Carteret County, while De La O worked until Friday as deputy in neighboring Onslow County.

De La O (referred to as Deputy J. Delao is a written statement from Onslow County Sheriff Chris Thomas) was employed from May 5, 2014 to July 12 of this year. “I am aware of the incident that occurred in Carteret County involving an off-duty deputy who is no longer employed with the Onslow County Sheriff’s Office,” Thomas said. “The Onslow County Sheriff’s Office is not involved in the criminal investigation related to this incident.”

De La O was working as a bailiff at the time of his separation from employment, Thomas said.

The change in narrative is no surprise to the Indigenous groups that have argued since June that reports had it backward, but Crystal Cavalier-Keck, an Alamance County activist and co-founder of 7 Directions of Service, said during a news conference on Wednesday that charging one person fails to get at the core issue.

“We celebrate the win of our innocence, being declared two weeks too late, after the media has already painted a biased and racist imagery of our culture, with some imaginary stabbing and knife carrier,” she said. “We do not accept this display of justice as it belittles our value and experience. We take it as the current reflection of the status quo …”

Cavalier-Keck said the incident amounts to a hate crime, with women and children being terrorized while law enforcement and the media conveniently interpret the event in a way that matches their expectations. 

She said the purported stabbing injury was likely the result of De La O grabbing in a headlock a woman wearing feather-shaped earrings made of metal. A teenage girl was punched in the face and a resident who carried a pistol also drove around the site with the pistol visible on his dashboard. 

“I am sorry that in North Carolina, Onslow and Carteret counties, you do not get a pass in 2024,” she said. “The secretary of interior and assistant secretary of [the] Bureau of Indian Affairs, along with many other Congress and Senate leaders around the country, as well as North Carolina Statehouse representatives and senators have been alerted. The Department of Justice hate crimes specialists have already been brought into this investigation.”

Cavalier-Keck said her group would be working with an attorney and looking into civil rights charges, but that a larger solution related to Indigenous burial grounds needs to be found. 

“We’re going to need our elected leaders to step up,” she said. “They’re going to have to come to terms with this.”

Meanwhile, the Carteret County News-Times reported that commissioners on Monday approved a contract for an archaeological survey of portions of the site of a long-planned boat-launching facility on a 67-acre parcel off Highway 24. The project, as planned, includes six ramps, a transient floating dock, a 159-space boat trailer parking lot and an access channel to the Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway. 

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For questions or comments, or to pass along story ideas, please write to Clifton Dowell at [email protected] or contact the NC Insider at [email protected] or @StateAffairsNC on X.

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