A North Carolina sheriff’s office confirmed it placed a captain on administrative leave after he was videotaped earlier this month criticizing a harassment criticism filed by a black woman at a county fair.

A woman who goes by the name Veleria Levy on TikTok posted a video of her interaction with Cabarrus County Capt. Chris Measimer at a good in Concord, North Carolina, after filing a criticism a few verbal altercation with 4 people.

Levy said she was on the fair, where she was campaigning for the Democratic Party, when three men and a woman approached her and commenced talking about former President Donald Trump. The conversation become a heated argument, and Levy reported it to the fair manager, who directed her to a booth where the sheriff’s office was monitoring the event.

After each parties spoke with the sheriff’s office, officers ordered Levy and the 4 people she had argued with to leave the fairgrounds for disrupting the event.

Levy released a recording of her conversation with Measimer, who condemned her allegation that his reason for not taking her criticism seriously was racially motivated.

“You give them attitude. I understand why they probably didn’t get along with you,” Measimer says.

“No, because I stand up for myself. I’m black, so I stand up for myself,” Levy replies.

“I don’t want to listen to this black nonsense,” replies Measimer.

The Cabarrus County Sheriff’s Office in Concord, North Carolina, told Atlanta Black Star on Monday that an internal affairs investigation was launched after Levy turned the footage over to officers for review.

“Videos relating to Captain Measimer’s response to a citizen’s question at the county fair were brought to our attention and we took immediate action by placing him on administrative leave,” the sheriff’s office said in a press release. “Following an Internal Affairs investigation, disciplinary action was taken.”

The office also said officers spoke with Levy several times in regards to the incident and the interior investigation and located she was “satisfied with the actions taken.”

“We hold all members of our department to the highest standards of respect and professionalism, and any behavior that undermines these values ​​is not tolerated,” the statement read. “We hope to continue to cultivate a community built on trust and respect, and we are grateful for the opportunity to learn from our mistakes.”

In continuation videoLevy said the Department of Internal Affairs, with the sheriff’s office, called her to apologize and confirmed that Measimer had been placed on leave. She said she also gave them suggestions on the choice and hiring processes, in addition to DEI training.

According to the Cabarrus County Sheriff’s Office website, Measimer is the captain of the Harrisburg division. Harrisburg is considered one of five cities in Cabarrus County. The others are Concord, Kannapolis, Mount Pleasant and Midland.

Measimer’s duties include overseeing law enforcement in town, organizing security for major city events and acting as a liaison for all incidents in Harrisburg. He joined the Cabarrus County Sheriff’s Office in 2001 as a patrol officer and have become the primary captain of the Harrisburg Division in 2022. He has been a member of law enforcement for nearly 30 years.

Maya Harris, the younger sister of Vice President Kamala Harris, is moving into the highlight to address an urgent issue that resonates deeply with many Black women across the country: maternal health. On Monday, Sept. 23, she’s going to lead a very important discussion in Flint, Michigan, a subject that has been in the highlight this election season, because the Harris-Walz campaign emphasized.

Amid growing threats to reproductive rights in America, the campaign says its goal is to protect a girl’s right to select while also combating the broader health care disparities that Black women face, particularly in maternal health care.

During this key roundtable, veteran attorney and senior policy advisor Maja Harris shall be joined by a gaggle of national and native Black leaders, including Rep. Lauren Underwood (D-IL), U.S. Sen. Laphonza Butler (D-CA), Michigan Lieutenant Governor Garlin Gilchrist II, Paula Thornton Greear of Planned Parenthood Action Fund, and Danielle Atkinson, founding father of the advocacy organization Mothering Justice, according to the Harris-Walz Campaign.

Together, these leaders will delve into critical issues affecting Black maternal health, shedding light on the potential challenges posed by Project 2025. This discussion is a component of Harris-Walz’s ongoing “Fighting for Reproductive Freedom” bus tour, which kicked off in early September. The tour highlights the urgent need for motion and awareness in this vital area of ​​health care.

“From her days as a prosecutor to her time as vice president, my sister, Kamala Harris, has had only one client: the people,” Maya shared in an exclusive statement to ESSENCE. “As vice president, she made the Black maternal health crisis a priority and addressed this disparity. While Donald Trump travels the country bragging about overturning Roe v. Wade, which exacerbated this crisis, Kamala will continue to forge a new path forward, which includes signing the Roe Reinstatement Act into law once Congress passes it,” she said.

As ESSENCE previously reported, in the course of the September 10 presidential debate, Vice President Harris delivered a forceful response to Donald Trump’s defense of abortion policies. Harris stated, “The government and Donald Trump certainly shouldn’t be telling a woman what to do with her body.”

She described the difficult decisions women face, including medical complications and having to travel out of state to get an abortion. Trump, who appointed three Supreme Court justices answerable for overturning Roe v. Wade in 2022, has tried to portray his position as more moderate, criticizing extreme abortion bans and expressing support for exceptions in cases of rape, incest or when the lifetime of the mother is in danger.

But he made no apologies for rolling back federal abortion protections, stating, “I did a great service by doing that. It took courage.” Trump also repeated a lot of his familiar talking points, falsely claiming there may be broad support for restoring abortion rights to the states and falsely accusing Democrats of favoring late-term abortions, including falsely claiming that some states allow abortions even after the infant is born. Moderator Linsey Davis immediately fact-checked the problem, explaining, “There is not a state in this country where it is legal to kill a baby after birth.”

The timing of this conversation about Black maternal health couldn’t be more crucial. Just last week, news broke about Amber Thurman, a 28-yr-old Georgia mother who died in 2022 after being denied a obligatory medical procedure following complications attributable to the state’s restrictive abortion laws. ProPublica He said it was the primary case of an abortion-related death that had been publicly disclosed by an official state commission deemed “avoidable.”

Her death highlights the intense consequences of those policies, especially for black women who’re overrepresented thrice more likely to die from pregnancy-related causes than white women in the United States.

To speed up change, on September 18, the Global Coalition for Transnational Solidarity and Action to Close the Maternal Health Care Gap for Women and Girls of African Descent was officially launched. United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) in New York.

The initiative, supported by several countries, including the United States, goals to address the health of black women, already undermined by systemic racism in the health care system and further threatened as abortion rights are rolled back. The maternal health crisis is not any longer a distant political debate—it’s a matter of life or death for black moms and their families.

For the Harris-Walz campaign, Flint, Michigan, is a key stop on the Harris-Walz bus tour, which began Sept. 3 in Palm Beach, Florida, which recently passed a near-total abortion ban. The tour, which incorporates greater than 50 stops in key states including Michigan, goals to galvanize and mobilize supporters by reminding them what’s at stake if reproductive freedoms are usually not restored.

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — Several top staffers for Republican Gov. Mark Robinson of North Carolina’s campaign have resigned, sending shockwaves to the brink of further disruption CNN report presenting evidence that he posted disturbing posts on a pornographic website forum greater than a decade ago.

The campaign said in a press release Sunday that senior adviser Conrad Pogorzelski III, campaign manager Chris Rodriguez, the campaign’s finance director and deputy campaign manager “have all resigned from their roles with the campaign.” Information in regards to the recent campaign hires might be released soon, the discharge said.

“I appreciate the efforts of those team members who made the difficult decision to withdraw from the campaign, and I wish them well in their future endeavors,” Robinson said in a press release.

Pogorzelski, who helped Robinson win the lieutenant governor position in 2020 in his first campaign for public office and later became his chief of staff, said individually Sunday that other employees — a deputy finance director, two political directors and a chief operating officer — had also left the campaign.

Pogorzelski wrote within the text that “he and others from the campaign left of their own free will.”

A CNN report on Thursday revealed earlier posts Robinson says he made on the porn site’s message boards. In those posts, he referred to himself as a “black NAZI,” said he liked transgender porn, said in 2012 that he preferred Hitler to then-President Barack Obama and lambasted the late Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., calling him “worse than a bug.”

Robinson denied writing the posts and said Thursday that he wouldn’t be forced out of the race by “sordid tabloid lies.” He avoided direct discussion of the controversy during a gubernatorial campaign event Saturday night on the Fayetteville Raceway. The event got here after earlier within the day President Donald Trump made no mention of Robinson on the rally held about 90 miles (145 kilometers) away in Wilmington.

Before Saturday, Robinson was a frequent guest at Trump campaign stops in North Carolina. The Republican presidential candidate has long praised Robinson — who, if elected, can be North Carolina’s first black governor — calling him “Martin Luther King on steroids” for his speaking style.

Robinson on Sunday continued to precise optimism that he could beat Democratic candidate Josh Stein, the incumbent attorney general, in November. Polls showed Robinson trailing Stein.

Still, Robinson said polls have “underestimated support for Republicans in North Carolina for several cycles,” and with a big portion of the electorate undecided, “I am confident that our campaign remains in a strong position to make our case to voters and win on November 5.”

Robinson has a history of creating provocative comments, equivalent to suggesting that girls who sought abortions “weren’t responsible enough to keep their skirts down” and comparing abortion to slavery.

Elections

Stein said Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union” that Robinson “is completely incompetent and unfit to be governor of North Carolina, and we will do everything in our power to prevent that from happening.”

Polls show Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris in a detailed race in North Carolina and nationally. Democrats have seized the chance to spotlight Trump’s ties to Robinson, with billboards showing them together and a brand new Harris campaign ad highlighting the GOP candidate’s ties in addition to Robinson’s support for a statewide abortion ban without exception.

On Sunday, Republican U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina told NBC’s “Meet the Press” that Robinson deserves a likelihood to defend himself against the allegations, which Graham described as “troubling.” He said Robinson is a “political zombie if he doesn’t put forth a credible defense,” while arguing that the problem won’t hurt Trump.

“If they’re true, he’s unfit to hold office,” Graham said of Robinson and the claims within the CNN report. “If they’re not true, he’s got the biggest defamation lawsuit in the history of the country.”