News Roundup

Tragedy struck in Boone on Wednesday where two members of the Watauga County Sheriff’s Office were killed during a welfare check at a home.  Keep reading for more on this story and other news. Boone.  As the Watauga Democrat reports, Sgt. Chris Ward and K9 Deputy Logan Fox died after being shot by Isaac Alton Barnes while checking on the condition of two people who had not reported for work or responded to telephone calls from their employer.  Ward and Fox discovered the bodies of Barnes’s mother and stepfather Michelle and George Ligon upon entering the home and then were fired upon by Barnes.  Other officers were able to pull Ward out of the home and he was airlifted to the hospital, but Fox died at the scene.  An hours-long standoff ensued and ended with Barnes’s death, possibly by suicide.  News reports indicate that family members expressed some concern leading up to the incident about Barnes maintaining a large cache of weapons. Elizabeth City.  Protests continued in Elizabeth City this week in the wake of the killing of Andrew Brown Jr. by Pasquotank County Sheriff’s deputies while attempting to serve search and arrest warrants at Brown’s home.  The case received increasing national attention through the week beginning on Monday when a scheduled viewing of body camera footage by Brown’s family and their attorneys was delayed so that certain parts of the video could be redacted.  When the viewing occurred, it featured only a 20-second clip from a single body camera despite [...]