YANCEYVILLE, N.C. — The North Carolina NAACP is asking for equal justice in a Caswell County shooting that federal authorities are reviewing to see if it qualifies as ethnic intimidation.
The Sept. 5 shooting on Brown Road injured two black children, a 7-year-old and 10-year-old. A third child was uninjured.
John Clyde Fuqua, a 52-year-old from Leasburg, has been charged with two felony counts of assault with a deadly weapon inflicting serious injury and two misdemeanor counts of assault with a deadly weapon. Fuqua is white.
District Attorney Joel Brewer said on Sept. 11 that he notified the U.S. Department of Justice, “where ethnic intimidation is treated more seriously than the North Carolina legislature deems to treat it.” Ethnic intimidation is a misdemeanor in North Carolina.
Fuqua appeared in Caswell County Superior Court for a pretrial hearing Tuesday. The president of the state’s National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, the Rev. Dr. William Barber II, attended at the request of the children’s families.
“This is a very tragic and sinister event when you have children involved whose lives have been violently disrupted,” Barber said. “It is important that the law works just as it would if an African-American man had shot and hit three white children. All we want is equal justice.”
Barber also said he was concerned about the initial $5,000 bond that Fuqua received when deputies charged him the weekend of the shooting. Fuqua posted the bond and was released.
“He was back home before the children were back from the hospital,” Barber speculated.
A judge increased Fuqua’s bond to $135,000 a few days later and officers took him back into custody until he posted that bond also.
On Tuesday, Brewer gave a Caswell County grand jury a bill of indictment that would add “with intent to kill” to Fuqua’s charges. The grand jury rejected the bill after hearing evidence and deliberating through the morning.
Barber said he and the families of the children were “deeply disappointed” by the grand jury’s decision and that they would speak to their lawyer.
Barber believes that if a black man had shot three white children, “with intent to kill” charges would have been included from the start.
“We don’t intend to back up in any way when it comes to these children,” he said. “This is now bigger than Caswell County. This is about the judicial system in North Carolina and the South.”
Email
Facebook
Google
Twitter
Favorites
More
Advertisement