WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. (AP) - A law firm that advocates for victims of racial discrimination has filed a lawsuit over an incident in North Carolina in which it said a Black woman’s home came under siege by an armed group looking for a missing teenage girl.
The Washington-based Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law filed the suit Tuesday in a Pender County court on behalf of Monica Shepard and her son, Dameon. It said the armed group went to the Shepard’s home on May 3, 2020, seeking a biracial girl who had been reported missing earlier that day but was later found safe.
Named as a defendant in the suit is Jordan Kita, a New Hanover County sheriff’s deputy who was fired and is facing charges of forcible trespass, breaking and entering and willful failure to discharge duties. Also named are Kita’s father and 13 others including a local resident, Austin Wood.
The lawsuit seeks a judgment in excess of $25,000, a jury trial and punitive damages to be determined by a jury, among other motions.
James W. Lea, a lawyer for Shepard’s family, said Jordan Kita was in uniform and carrying his service weapon at the time he led an armed group that approached Shepard’s door. The lawsuit said the incident was an example of “the history of white mobs acting with impunity and reckless disregard” toward Blacks.
Wood was also carrying an AR-15 and showed it to a captain with the Pender County Sheriff’s Office who went to the Shepard’s home, the lawsuit said.
At one point, according to the lawsuit, Kita stuck his foot in the door of the home as he demanded the group enter. Lea said the teenage girl had been reported missing earlier on May 3 and subsequently was found safe elsewhere.
Monica Shepard told news outlets that her son had repeatedly tried to point out that the group had the wrong house but they wouldn’t leave. Eventually, a neighbor called the sheriff’s office. She said the group’s target was a home next door to the Shepards and a teen who lived there, but that person had moved out a month earlier.
According to the lawsuit, two Pender County sheriff’s deputies arrived on the scene, as did a sheriff’s captain. But the captain conducted no interviews and filed no charges, the lawsuit said. No injuries were reported and no one was arrested, according to the lawsuit.
The suit made reference to the state’s past history of mob violence against Blacks, including an outburst of violence instigated by an armed mob of white residents in Wilmington that led to the deaths of about 100 African Americans in 1898. The suit also referred to past lynchings of African Americans since the 1800s that claimed more than 120 lives in the state.
“The racialized context of Defendants’ attack on Plaintiffs’ home, the historical legacy of white mob violence against African Americans, and the failure of Pender County Sheriff Deputies to properly respond inform the nature of this action,” the lawsuit said.
At the time of Kita’s arrest, his attorney, James Rutherford, called the situation a “colossal misunderstanding.” In a statement issued Thursday, Rutherford said the case “is about destroying the Kita family’s good name and their lives, with a lie.”
“This case was never about an angry white mob. This is about a family desperately searching for a troubled teenage family member. The situation was urgent and time was of the essence,” Rutherford said.
Wood’s attorney, Woody White, issued a statement calling the lawsuit “a sad development in a case that began as a neighborhood full of good people searching for a troubled teenager, now being accused of inciting racial violence.”
But Elizabeth Haddix, who works in the committee’s North Carolina office, said White’s statement “demonstrates this sort of blind spot that white privilege creates in white people.”
“You can imagine, if that mob had been a bunch of Black people with weapons coming to the house of a white family. What do you think would have happened?” Haddix said.
The Shepards no longer feel safe in their home, according to the suit. Monica Shepard obtained a concealed carry permit and bought a gun, and a security system for her home, it said. The lawsuit said she wouldn’t have taken those steps if the group hadn’t showed up on her doorstep.
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This story was first published on Jan. 27, 2021. It was updated on Jan. 28, 2021, to correct the race of a girl who was missing. An attorney for a defendant in the lawsuit said the missing girl was biracial, not white as The Associated Press had erroneously reported.
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