Latest news with #TheN&O
Yahoo
07-05-2025
- Yahoo
He killed 2 NC teenagers but may only spend 4 years in prison. Here's why.
Three years after he sprayed bullets into an SUV of young people, killing two of them, a Durham man will spend seven to 10 years in prison, under a plea deal he took last month. And with 1,105 days' credit for time in the county jail, he could serve as little as four years for the two murders, according to sentencing paperwork. Keon Rayquan Beal, 24, was originally charged with five counts of attempted murder and two counts of second-degree murder in the Dec. 13, 2021, shooting. Isijah Carrington, 19, and Ariuna Cotton, 15, were killed and four children, ranging in age from 12 to 17, were injured, The News & Observer previously reported. The killings sparked a strong response from the Durham community, including Police Chief Patrice Andrews, who condemned the shooting in a news conference that day. 'There is no room in our city for this type of violence,' she said. 'It's senseless. It's beyond tragic. And lives are forever going to be changed.' Mourners console each other after a balloon release Thursday, Dec. 16, 2021 in Durham at the site of a Monday morning shooting that left two teenagers dead and four other children injured. What happened It was just after 3 a.m. when a stolen Hyundai SUV with seven adolescents inside crashed into a utility pole near Burton Magnet Elementary School that December day. Carrington and Cotton were dead by the time first responders arrived; Carrington had been shot six times, while Cotton, a student at Hillside High School, was felled by a shot to the left ear, according to their autopsy reports. The four injured victims' names weren't released by police due to their age, but Elijah Pryor, the father of a 17-year-old survivor, told WRAL his daughter was shot in the spine and would have to relearn how to walk. One child was not injured. Casings from at least two different guns, including a .223-caliber rifle and a 9 mm handgun, were found at the scene, the autopsy reports state. Both victims were shot at least once with each type of gun, and a third, semi-automatic handgun was found in the SUV, according to the reports. After escaping to Washington, D.C., Beal was arrested there April 9, 2022, and taken back to Durham. In his first court appearance, Assistant District Attorney Mary Jude Darrow said the shooting followed a dispute over a gun, The N&O reported. Beal drove two others in a high-speed chase after the SUV, believing the gun was inside, Darrow said at the time. Beal then rear-ended the Hyundai, sending it into the pole. 'Gunshots spewed from the Equinox [driven by Beal], which traveled up the block, turned around and came back, firing another round of bullets, the prosecutor said,' The N&O reported. Beal, who prosecutors said belonged to a gang tied to the Bloods, had previously been suspected in a 2020 incident where over 80 shots were fired into a building with four young people inside, according to The N&O's report. But Beal's defense attorney challenged the prosecution's claims, questioning how they validated his gang membership and stating he lived in Washington, D.C., only having returned to North Carolina to visit his child. What the district attorney says Beal was sentenced April 21 by Judge Josephine Davis, court records show. In exchange for his guilty plea to the second-degree murder charges, the five charges of attempted murder were dismissed, according to the sentencing document. Victims' family members could not be reached, except for one survivor's father, who told The N&O he was not aware of the sentencing and had begged the District Attorney's Office to take the case to trial. Cotton's grandmother died in March without seeing Beal sentenced, according to her obituary. But she'd told The N&O that her granddaughter, who lived with her after her mother's death, aspired to be a singer or dancer and always spoke her mind. Cotton couldn't wait for her 16th birthday that March, her grandmother said. Court documents don't explain Carrington's sentencing, though a sentencing chart provided by the District Attorney's Office lists that sentence length as part of the mitigated range for second-degree murder — meaning there would have to be evidence of circumstances that could justify reducing a sentence. District Attorney Satana Deberry has been criticized for light sentencing and poor communication with victims and their families. And it was Davis' courtroom that a homicide victim's family in an unrelated case stormed out of in March 2022 after a last-minute plea deal, The N&O reported then. Under North Carolina law, crime victims and their families, if the victim is deceased, have the right to be notified before sentencings and plea deals. They also should have the opportunity to speak with the prosecutor about the case and provide a victim impact statement, as The N&O reported last month. Deberry told The N&O that victims and their families were notified as much as possible before Beal's sentencing. The family member who alleged he wasn't notified had a disconnected phone number, but the surviving victims were cousins, so her office also tried to notify him through family, she said. As for the dismissed attempted murder charges, Deberry said, that was part of Beal's plea deal. Furthermore, witnesses were no longer able to testify in the case, and her office was never able to confirm a motive in the killings, according to Deberry. 'Certainly this case was very well-publicized when it happened, and any death of kids in our community is a loss that we hope to avoid in the future,' she said. 'Mr. Beal assumed responsibility for it and is in prison, where he should be.' NC Reality Check is an N&O series holding those in power accountable and shining a light on public issues that affect the Triangle or North Carolina. Have a suggestion for a future story? Email realitycheck@
Yahoo
30-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
NC State international students' visas restored after Trump reversal, university says
The visas of two international students at NC State University have been restored after the Trump administration initially revoked them earlier this month. NC State spokesperson Mick Kulikowski confirmed to The News & Observer by email Tuesday that the students' records in the Student and Exchange Visitor Information System, or SEVIS, have been 'restored to active.' The Trump administration throughout early April enacted sweeping terminations of immigration records for international students across the country. The actions impacted thousands of students, according to a count by Inside Higher Ed, including more than a dozen in North Carolina. In addition to the two students at NC State, six students at UNC-Chapel Hill and six at UNC Charlotte also had their visas revoked. All of those students' records have been restored, according to reporting by The N&O and The Charlotte Observer. Two Duke University students and an alumnus were also impacted by the administration's terminations, according to the Duke Chronicle, but the outlet reported Friday that it is unclear whether their records have been restored. The visa restorations in North Carolina and around the country come after the U.S. Department of Justice announced in federal court Friday morning that it planned to restore the statuses of the students who were impacted by those actions, as reported by Politico and other outlets. International students are required to obtain visas to enroll and study at colleges around the United States. In addition to visas, international students are assigned records in the federal SEVIS database maintained by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. If a student's visa is revoked, it does not automatically mean they must leave the country. But if a student's SEVIS record is terminated — as the NC State students' records initially were, according to the university — they could be subject to deportation or other removal proceedings. The two NC State students who were impacted by the visa revocations left the country after consulting with their lawyers and the embassy in Saudi Arabia, the students' home country. NC State Chancellor Randy Woodson told The N&O that both students were in 'good standing' with the university.' NC State's Office of International Services previously said the university did not initiate the terminations. It remains possible that the Trump administration could target visas again. Inside Higher Ed reported that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement would work to develop a framework for future terminations following the administration's reversal in court Friday. 'As this remains an evolving situation, we will continue to monitor and work with students on an individual basis as needed,' Kulikowski wrote. 'Over the past several weeks, the university has provided students with ongoing support, with the priority of helping them complete their studies.' NC State enrolls the most international students of any school in the public UNC System and hosts the second-most international students of any university in the state, according to federal data. According to a 2024 report by the U.S. Department of State, the university enrolled more than 3,700 international students from more than 100 countries during the 2023-24 academic year, most of whom were graduate students.
Yahoo
21-03-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Tallest man in America has died in Durham. He was a Globetrotter and a Wake deputy.
George Bell used to joke that he couldn't hide anywhere, standing 7-foot-8, so tall he could dunk a basketball without jumping. So of course the scouts picked him up, first for small colleges, then for the Harlem Wizards and their comedy-style companions the Globetrotters, whose owner confessed, 'He's an attraction.' When he tried out for the LA Clippers in 1988, he briefly qualified as the tallest man on an NBA roster. That dream fizzled. But later on, he wore another crown: Tallest Man in America. 'They told me I was blessed,' Bell said in 1994, interviewed by The News & Observer. 'Basically, they told me I should accept it, that I should love myself. I didn't feel ashamed.' Bell died in Durham Wednesday at 67, having stood two feet taller than the average man for his entire life — a stand-out quality that had him constantly catching eyes. In 1984, at the end of the summer Olympics in Los Angeles, he performed an act as an alien visitor for the closing ceremonies. 'I was looking to get into the movies and hoped it would open doors for me,' he told the Associated Press in 1988. 'But it didn't work out that way.' His turn as an actor would bear fruit much later when he landed a role on 'American Horror Story,' in which he played 'Tall Man Ghost' for three episodes. But for much of his life, he worked in law enforcement, in Virginia, in Durham and in Wake County, where he dwarfed former NFL defensive lineman and Sheriff John Baker Jr. 'I never heard him speak above a whisper,' Durham Sheriff Roland Leary told The N&O in 1994. 'But I always felt he was able to do whatever he wanted to do.' Born in Virginia, the oldest of six children, Bell shot up to 6 feet tall by the time he reached sixth grade. He suffered a tumor on his pituitary gland, which ruptured, causing temporary blindness, joint pain and a host of related health problems. His mother, Earline, told The N&O she punished George more than his siblings, even though he was 'never a bad boy,' because she knew 'I would kill myself beating him.' By 2007, he finally earned official recognition as America's tallest man on 'Good Morning America,' where he told the Associated Press, 'I've been dealing with a small man's world since I was a kid.' And in his passing, he leaves even larger footprints than he did inside size 19 shoes.
Yahoo
15-03-2025
- Yahoo
Henderson man faces charges in fatal Durham shooting. What police say happened
Court documents shed light on a fatal Durham shooting after a Vance County man was arrested Thursday in the killing. Dmario Nashaun Person, 21, of Henderson is charged with murder, two counts of robbery with a dangerous weapon and two counts of felony conspiracy in the March 2 death of Ottoniel Lopez-Diaz, 48, of Durham, according to his arrest warrant. Lopez-Diaz was found fatally wounded just before 10 p.m. on East Umstead Street, The News & Observer previously reported. Another man suffered non-life-threatening injuries. A police spokesperson told The N&O on Friday that he was hit on the head with a pistol. That victim was Lopez-Diaz's son, the spokesperson said. His name was not released. Now, Person's arrest warrant indicates Lopez-Diaz may have been shot during a robbery gone wrong. Person is accused of stealing $298 from one man and an iPhone and wallet from a second man by threatening them with a rifle and handguns, the warrant states. Police also say he plotted with three other men to carry out the theft, according to the warrant. The N&O is not naming the alleged coconspirators because they had not been arrested as of Friday morning. Though Lopez-Diaz isn't named as a robbery victim on Person's arrest warrant, the robbery and murder charges are all on the same warrant, indicating they are related. Person remained in the Durham County jail Friday morning without bail.
Yahoo
02-03-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
UNC System president backs Trump appointee. What about political ‘neutrality' rule?
As Linda McMahon appears poised to become the next secretary of the U.S. Department of Education, the North Carolina native is garnering support from her home state. Peter Hans, president of the UNC System, expressed his support for McMahon's nomination in a letter — written on UNC System letterhead and signed in his official capacity — to members of the U.S. Senate on Feb. 12. McMahon, who graduated from East Carolina University in 1969, thanked Hans and the university system for their support in a post on X the same day. McMahon's 'longstanding commitment to service and strong belief in the enduring values of American higher education position her well for this critical leadership role,' Hans wrote in the one-page letter. Hans' endorsement of McMahon is not the first time he has supported officials or nominees who hold degrees from the state's public universities. In 2021, according to a letter provided to The News & Observer by the UNC System office, Hans urged then-President Joe Biden to choose Democratic Rep. Alma Adams, who represents North Carolina's 12th Congressional District and holds two degrees from North Carolina A&T State University, as his nominee for education secretary. While it is unclear if Biden seriously considered Adams for the role, multiple groups dedicated to promoting opportunities in higher education for Black students urged the former president to do so, according to news reports from the time. 'The president has lent his support to UNC System graduates seeking appointment, regardless of their political affiliation, to prominent education positions, as it benefits the university to have a healthy line of communication with those making decisions in Washington,' system spokesperson Andy Wallace told The N&O in an email. But much has changed in the state's higher education landscape since Biden entered office in 2021. Namely, UNC System campuses and the officials who run them are now expected, by a state law revised in 2023 and a system policy that references that mandate, to remain 'neutral' on 'political controversies of the day.' The law and system policy that require 'institutional neutrality' do not explicitly list examples of such 'controversies' or topics that universities and their leaders must avoid endorsing or denouncing. Hans' outward support of a nominee who could play a significant role in President Donald Trump's proposed overhaul, or possible dismantling, of the Department of Education raises questions about the topics or stances that system leaders are defining as 'neutral' and acceptable under the directives. Hans defended his support of McMahon when asked by The N&O on Thursday. 'I'm certainly not taking a position on any political issue,' he said, pointing instead to the benefits a 'good, positive relationship' with the education secretary would offer to the UNC System. Policies requiring universities and their leaders to avoid taking stances on political or social issues — also referred to as 'institutional neutrality' — aren't new. In 1967, a committee of professors at the University of Chicago published the Kalven Report, which is considered to be the key model of neutrality policies for universities. But the policies have become increasingly popular among university administrators in recent years. While many universities published statements after the murder of George Floyd in 2020, such statements have become less common in recent years as campuses have adopted stances of neutrality. That became particularly evident after the Israel-Hamas war began in October 2023, Inside Higher Ed reported. North Carolina lawmakers adopted a stance of neutrality for its universities in 2023, amending an existing state law that dealt primarily with free speech on campuses. When the UNC System last year repealed its policy on diversity, equity and inclusion requirements, the policy that replaced it explicitly referenced the law and formally directed universities to comply with it. The former state lawmaker who sponsored the bill previously acknowledged to The N&O that there was 'gray area' when it came to what topics might be off-limits to campus leaders under the mandate, though he cited the Supreme Court's overturning of Roe v. Wade, foreign policy and the Second Amendment as possible examples. But some proponents of institutional neutrality argue that administrators retain their rights to speak about issues related to education under the policies — perhaps even if those issues veer into the political. For example, in a joint letter to college trustees last year, the Academic Freedom Alliance, Heterodox Academy and the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), wrote that campuses should be neutral 'on social and political issues that do not concern core academic matters or institutional operations.' And the letter further recognized that defining the lines between neutrality and 'position-taking' requires 'careful prudential judgment' from leaders. Wallace, the UNC System spokesperson, wrote to The N&O that institutional neutrality policies 'would discourage a university official from taking a political stand on an issue, but it would not prevent an official from supporting UNC System alumni for prominent non-elected positions.' In defending his support of McMahon, Hans noted that the education secretary oversees policies and activity at the Department of Education that trickle down to the state's universities. 'I find it to be a benefit to the UNC System to have someone to call in a position of influence in Washington,' Hans said, 'because every four years, we're going to elect a president of the United States, they're going to nominate a secretary of education, and we're affected by those policies and decisions made there.' Another longstanding system policy prohibits university employees from participating 'in political activity while on duty,' including 'actions directed toward the success or failure of a candidate for public office.' But system general counsel Andrew Tripp views that policy as dealing solely with elected officials, not those who are appointed to administrative offices, according to a note on the issue prepared by Tripp and provided to The N&O by Wallace. 'The federal Secretary of Education is not elected — neither Rep. Adams nor Ms. McMahon qualify under the policy's definition of 'candidate,' and, accordingly, President Hans' endorsements do not constitute political activity limited by the policy,' the note read. If confirmed as education secretary, McMahon would likely play a key role in implementing major changes to — if not a significant overhaul or even dismantling of — the Department of Education. Trump campaigned on abolishing the department, which has been in operation for nearly 45 years and last year had the smallest number of staff of any Cabinet agency and a $238 billion budget. Among other responsibilities, the agency works to create policies, provide and oversee federal financial aid, collect and provide data on the schools, recommend education reform, protect against discrimination and provide equal access to schools. In early February, Inside Higher Ed reported, Trump said he nominated McMahon as secretary of the department with the hope that she would 'put herself out of a job.' Legally, Trump himself does not have the power to eliminate the Department of Education, though he could take action to severely limit its functions. Already, the Department of Government Efficiency has made the agency one of its targets in sweeping cuts across the federal government. Testifying to a Senate committee for the job last month, McMahon said she believed Trump would not 'ask me to do anything that's against the law,' though she said she agreed with the president's vision to 'return education to the states.' McMahon, the former World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) executive who grew up in New Bern, previously served as administrator of the Small Business Administration during Trump's first term. She does not have a professional background in academia or higher education. That's been a source of concern from critics, while her supporters have viewed it as a positive, The N&O reported. In his letter, Hans wrote that McMahon has a 'demonstrated record of service and philanthropy in higher education,' noting that she has funded distinguished professorships and student scholarships at ECU. She also spoke at ECU's commencement ceremony and received an honorary doctorate from the university in 2018. 'She will leverage these experiences to be an effective listener and collaborative partner on policy issues facing U.S. post-secondary education in the future,' Hans wrote. Hans' letter concluded: 'It is my honor and pleasure to recommend Linda McMahon as Secretary of the United States Department of Education.' Washington Correspondent Danielle Battaglia contributed.
