The Holbert Building was packed with Spotsylvania County residents eager to speak at Tuesday’s board of supervisors meeting.
But while many of the speakers had data center regulations on their mind, several others wanted to address a litany of racial incidents in the county over the past five years, including one on July 20 in which two Black women recorded being accosted by two white men and one white woman on Partlow Road, allegedly leading the driver to wreck their vehicle and suffer serious injuries.
“We’ve heard a lot about data centers, and most people are saying: ‘They’re here and they’re not going to go away and there’s nothing we can do to stop them from coming,’” county resident and Spotsylvania NAACP member Wilhemina Sumpter told the board … “We know change is coming and it’s coming fast. But if you live in the African-American community, there’s one thing that does not change, and that is how we are seen and viewed and respected or disrespected in this community.”
Sumpter and other members of the county’s branch of the NAACP requested that the board adopt a resolution condemning racism and racial violence.
Later in the meeting, the board unanimously adopted a motion from Berkeley District Supervisor Kevin Marshall that stated: “Racism, whether it’s intentional or unintentional, individual or institutional, is harmful and dehumanizing and has adverse effects on our community. The Spotsylvania Board of Supervisors does not condone or support any form of racism anywhere in Spotsylvania County.”
Debra Straughter, also a member of the Spotsylvania NAAACP, said “just about everybody in this room who looks like me” has experienced a white resident driving up beside them and pointing their finger in the formation of a gun.
Sha Hinnant said she’s lived in the area for 62 years and is still afraid to go to certain places in “Spotsyltucky” at night.
“No matter how much education and training and how hard you worked to get ahead, so that you can participate in what we see as the future in this county, we still know there will be a pocket of people who have the N-word on the ends of their tongues and they will say it freely to you,” Sumpter said.
Board Chair Chris Yakabouski said the supervisors may have to reconvene a committee with Sptosylvania NAACP President Moe Petway and other pastors in the county to address racism. The Ministers Coalition for Social Change was formed in 2020 and began meeting monthly with support from the board of supervisors. Yakabouski was a part of the group, which can’t include more than two supervisors, as it is not considered a public committee.
“I’d be more than happy to start that up, but quite honestly, it’s sad that we have to do that,” Yakabouski said. “It really is. This has to stop. This is ridiculous.”
Yakabouski said the county cannot let a small group of “bad actors and their ignorance, stupidity and hatred define who we are.”
“We’re not going to allow that to happen,” he said. “So, I would ask that the greater community not fall into the trap of taking sides or excusing or saying, ‘You know it was one instance,’ because one is too many.”
Petway agreed in his comments that it’s been much more than one occurrence.
Other incidents Petway mentioned include: a white Spotsylvania homeowner pulling out a gun on a Black Amazon delivery driver; Dennis Lee Berry, a white county property owner, brandishing a gun at group of Black motorcyclists; Brent Alford, a white homeowner, shooting at a vehicle of Black teens who turned into his driveway while searching for a nearby party; and Richard Randolph, an Orange County man, allegedly threatening to shoot a Black woman on Plank Road before calling her the N-word last month.
Spotsylvania Commonwealth’s Attorney Ryan Mehaffey, who didn’t plan to speak but wanted to address Petway’s comments, said the NAACP president left out one major incident — the 2024 shooting of two Hispanic immigrants by Caroline County resident Douglas Cornett at a Sheetz gas station in Thornburg.
While some residents questioned how the cases were handled, Mehaffey defended his record. He noted that Cornett was sentenced to 99 years after he pleaded guilty to multiple felonies, including hate crime/assault and battery and malicious wounding resulting in permanent impairment.
According to court records, Berry was sentenced to 12 days in jail on a misdemeanor conviction of pointing and brandishing a firearm; and Alford was sentenced to five years with 3 ½ suspended after he was convicted of shooting into an occupied vehicle with malice.
Mehaffey noted that the delivery driver incident was resolved without charges being filed. Randolph and two of the Partlow residents involved in the July 20 incident are all facing misdemeanor charges.
“Brandishing a firearm is a misdemeanor? It’s not considered violent?” Straughter said. “I wonder if I pull a gun on you, would you consider it violent? You say you’re vigorously prosecuting violent criminals, but a felony shooting [involving teens] and the sentence is five years, reduced [by] three years and six months. I’m having a very difficult time understanding that. I wonder when it is ever going to change.”
Mehaffey told the supervisors that it “doesn’t offend me” if they adopt a resolution condemning racism and the recent incidents because “vitriolic racial slurs have no place in civil discourse.” He said if the slurs lead to a “breach of peace,” it may be a crime that will be “vigorously prosecuted.”
Mehaffey said he’s concerned about the “steady drumbeat” of viral racial incidents in the county.
Supervisor Deborah Frazier of the Salem District, the lone Black member of the board, made a statement condemning racism at the end of the public comment period.
Before Frazier spoke, Nicole Cole, a member of the school board and a Democratic candidate for the House of Delegates in District 66, implored the six white members of the board to get involved, reminding them that “the citizens that are perpetrating these violent hate crimes in our community look like most of you.” She encouraged the supervisors to be “exemplary leaders” by conducting town halls in their district to address the issue.
“When we do that,” Cole said, “then we all benefit in our community.”
