Wilmjax News

One man is being sought by authorities and three people have been charged after a mobile home brawl Sunday that left two people shot, two people stabbed and one person severely beaten with a 2-by-4 board.

The Onslow County Sheriff’s Department is looking for Marlyn Sample, 33, of Lakewood Drive, the man authorities said shot a another man in the back and a pregnant woman in the leg.

Carlis Sample, 31, and America Batten, 24, both of Swain Loop Road, and Antoinette Patton, 32, of Rocky Run Road, were all charged with assault on a female, breaking and entering and felony conspiracy, according to warrants.

Marlyn Sample is charged with two counts of assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill, according to warrants at the magistrates office.

The man shot in the back was taken to Camp Lejeune Naval Hospital and then airlifted to Pitt County Memorial Hospital in Greenville, Sheriff Ed Brown said. He was in stable condition, Brown said Monday.

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State NAACP officials aren’t taking no for an answer.

A written request asking the New Hanover County school board to meet with local representatives of the civil rights organization will be made today, N.C. NAACP President William Barber said in an interview Monday.

This is the third attempt NAACP officials have made in five months to meet with the elected body.

On March 26, New Hanover County NAACP President Harold Beatty e-mailed school board Chairman Don Hayes wanting to discuss concerns about the district’s new magnet schools.

Beatty sent a second letter June 1 hoping to talk to the board about the selection process for a new superintendent.

Both requests were denied because of the board’s inability to meet with every organization that would like to do so, Hayes said in a June 14 Star-News article. By 8 p.m. Monday, he had not returned messages left on his cell phone and at his home.

“We’re never deterred by a no,” Barber said.

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A Rocky Mount councilman removed himself from an economic development board during Monday’s City Council meeting because of what he said were racially motivated comments made by people on the board against the black members of the council.

Councilman Andre Knight said that when Carolinas Gateway Partnership board Chairman Frank Harrison said earlier this month he supports Tom Looney for Ward 4 because the council needs leadership, the message was full of racial undertones.

Knight pointed to Harrison’s $1,000 donation to first-term councilman and mayoral candidate David Combs, who is white, as an indicator in addition to his $1,000 contribution to Looney that Harrison does not support the black members of the council, an allegation Harrison denies.

“It’s clearly racial,” said Knight, who also called comments made by local businessman Tom Betts into question.

Betts called the Telegram from Berlin to respond to Knight’s criticism. He said his support for Looney stems from Looney’s past experience on the council. Looney is challenging incumbent Lois Watkins, who was appointed to the council in March.

He said his comment regarding the importance of “having the city governed correctly” was not an indictment of the council.

“To portray this as racist is the farthest thing from the truth,” Betts said. “We don’t need to get into personality conflicts. It’s just that some people are more qualified.”

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Greensboro, NC — The Guilford County district attorney has asked state investigators to look into whether N.C. A and T State University inappropriately moved $380,000 from a campus vending contract to a former chancellor’s discretionary fund.

The state auditor issued a report last month that said that money from the contract was moved inappropriately to the Chancellor’s Discretionary Fund that the N.C. A and T Foundation maintains. The transfer occurred while former Chancellor James Renick was in office.

District Attorney Doug Henderson asked the State Bureau of Investigation to also look into possible misuse of a grant from the Office of Naval Research.

“There were sufficient serious questions raised in the audit to justify an investigation of a criminal nature,” Henderson said Monday. “Whether they merit prosecution is another issue that will be addressed somewhere down the road.”

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