NC sheriff rules out right-wing activist as suspect in power outage after praying with her

[turbinetree]

By Travis Gettys
Published December 05, 2022

A right-wing activist was investigated over a cryptic social media post claiming to know about the cause of a mass power outage in central North Carolina.

Emily Grace Rainey, a former U.S. Army psychological operations officer, posted about the outages that left nearly 40,000 customers without power, but Moore County sheriff Ronnie Fields told WRAL-TV that he prayed with her and determined her claims were not credible.

"Yes, we had to go and interview this young lady and have a word of prayer with her, but it turned out to be nothing," Fields said.

https://www.rawstory.com/emily-grace-rainey/

[Mad_Machine76]

1. Uh-uh

[cbabe]

2. (Oh, god.)

[magicarpet]

3. Dear Lord God Almighty,...

..... please tell the sheriff these allegations against me are untrue.

The Lord and Jesus spoke to the sheriff then and there.

No culpability was found during our prayer session.

Amen,.. have a delightful day.

[musette_sf]

4. Sheriff Co-Conspirator

[orthoclad]

60. Gotta get the story straight

God told 'em what to say

[yorkster]

5. Well, as long as they had a "word of prayer" as one does

when investigating such matters.
Hope he and the "young lady"
enjoyed their pray time.

[Wingus Dingus]

6. Mental note to portray myself as an evangelical Christian

if I'm ever in trouble.

[ZonkerHarris]

8. no shit, right?

[yankee87]

10. Same

All hail our Orange Buffoon

[TheBlackAdder]

26. That only works when you transverse the ass-holy realm and enter Dumbfuckistan.

[IronLionZion]

42. Try that in a blue city

I'm sure it will work just as well

[NullTuples]

48. With cops? Yeah, if you are white it still works in blue cities. CSPOA

[IronLionZion]

68. It would depend on the cop and the crime

I'm guessing many of them won't let you off that easy for evangelical Christian stuff. City cops are more diverse than the rural ones.

[ShazzieB]

70. City cops are indeed more diverse.

Especially outside the Bible belt. It's hard to imagine this happening in Chicago (to name an example I'm familiar with).

Chicago is heavily Catholic, for one thing. As a general rule, Catholics don't go in for this "I had a personal convo with God and he told me x" malarkey.

[NullTuples]

78. So you tweak it a bit and mention Cupich & Casey...

I do get your point though. Still, I've found that cops do let their personal biases very strongly influence who they help and who they shoot dead.
Even the white Catholic ones.

[ShazzieB]

85. Oh, for sure.

Cop biases are a well-known and serious problem. In this NC case, the problem seems have been compounded by the willingness to pray with the suspect and seek God's guidance (or whatever it was that happened there ). The behavior described here is exponentially more likely to occur in places where it's generally accepted by the culture as a whole.

I have lived in that culture. Not recently, but enough to know how those people think. Calling yourself a "Christian" who "loves the lord" and "seeks his guidance" can get a person quite a bit of social capital in some localities, but would get your face laughed in, in some others.

[Wingus Dingus]

50. Drop a few Praise Jesuses or Lord Willings here and there--

if you're ever getting hauled in or stopped for something. May not help, but probably can't hurt.

[orthoclad]

63. And tell the cop

to "be safe"

That's cop code. I've tried it. They react.

[Wingus Dingus]

66. Ha ha, I didn't know that. My husband always

says that to people, but he's just a regular non-practicing Catholic like me.

[orthoclad]

73. I said it to a cop

thinking "pandemic". He looked startled. I later learned that cops say that to each other.

[NullTuples]

80. Makes sense, they've been conditioned by their subculture to see everyone as an "insurgent"

Creeps me out when they call us, "civilians" instead of "citizens" or just, "people".

[orthoclad]

83. Yeah. That "civilians" thing gets me

Shows how militarized they think they are. And media are complicate.

[JonAndKatePlusABird]

88. Holy crap, you're totally right

Never put 2 and 2 together but that explains a couple of things I had been wondering about.

[NullTuples]

79. I want bumper stickers like the old James Bond license plates...

"Black Lives Matter"

(siren & lights)

(push button)

"Blue Lives Matter"

(lights off, cruiser speeds away)

"Sucker...."

[BlueWaveNeverEnd]

90. i had same thought. how many perps got let go because they prayed with the idiot

[Boomerproud]

7. How sweet.

I'm all googly moogely

[MyOwnPeace]

9. I asked an expert........

[tishaLA]

11. JFC can we get the FBI involved in this please?

We don't need theocrats mismanaging this

[obamanut2012]

22. They are as of today

[tishaLA]

25. Thanks for the info

It makes me feel some hope the right people might face consequences.

[onenote]

30. already are

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/12/05/north-carolina-power-outages-fbi-moore-county/

[NullTuples]

49. Yes, because I trust the FBI to not be right wing...

(that was sarcasm, btw)

[tishaLA]

75. Presumably you have a better option then.

I'm all ears.

[yardwork]

57. The FBI field office for this area of NC may not be much better.

I hope so, but...

[orthoclad]

64. How much evidence is already hidden?

[republianmushroom]

12. Seem there is a sheriff that needs to uncork his head from his ass

[orthoclad]

65. I bet he's a "constitutional sheriff"

That makes it OK. Until the constitution is "terminated" or "suspended". Then he's just The Boss.

[dalton99a]

13. "She is a white woman, she is ex-military, plus she is saved. A Good Christian Woman. NOT GUILTY!!!"

[NullTuples]

20. "And never mind that gun shops were plundered as soon as the power went down..."

[BlackSkimmer]

36. Is that true?

Or did you just make that up?

[NullTuples]

44. Apparently so. Within minutes of the blackout. At least 2 gun shops & the local Walmart.

From the local paper:

"10:30 p.m. Saturday:
Heavy police presence was around several gun shops and Wal-Mart in Aberdeen around 10:30 p.m. after reports of looting. One woman was detained in front Wal-Mart and police were conducting a headcount of employees outside of the store"

https://www.thepilot.com/news/substations-vandalized-by-gunfire-more-than-half-of-county-without-power/article_b3b19780-7370-11ed-865d-c78d0de5d921.html

The power went out at 10:00 & by 10:30 cops were at the gun selling stores that had already been looted so it would appear the break-ins all happened just after the power went out.

[yardwork]

58. It's almost like the gun thieves knew the power would go out.

[NBachers]

61. Oink Oink

[Marthe48]

14. wonder if the prayer went something like this

[niyad]

21. I love that Rob Reiner gave his mother the best line in the movie.

[barbtries]

23. lol

i did not have to play that - own the movie seen it so many times!

earlier i was telling my son about this story and i said, "she's in bed with the sheriff - not literally necessarily, but also not NOT literally necessarily."

[IronLionZion]

15. Not sure word of prayer works for other crime suspects

sounds like the police are working really hard on this investigation

[Orrex]

16. If you want to lose your mind, take a peek at her FB page

She's howling about libel and slander and baseless accusations.

Fields should be fired immediately with permanent loss of all pension and benefits.

[70sEraVet]

24. Right. And when he complains "How am I supposed to live without a pension?", tell him,

"Pray about it!".

[Orrex]

28. Yep, the Lord shall provide (nt)

[NullTuples]

17. You mean this NC sheriff?

Facebook account: "Re-Elect Sheriff Ronnie Fields 2022"

March 23rd, 2022
"It was an honor and privilege to hear Dr. Ben Carson speak during the Governor Holshouser Speaker Series at Sandhills Community College."

[YoshidaYui]

18. Prayed with her?

This is part of policing now? Oh my God… I guess it’s better than shooting somebody. Note: shoot me first pray later.

[barbtries]

19. bullshit.

she's an activist. i don't believe that she is not up to her neck in this act of terrorism.

[Fla Dem]

27. Delusional Young woman. Also involved in Jan 6 insurrection.

Not crazy about the Sheriff having his picture taken with her, and the way they're standing would indicate he had his arm around her waist.

Probably had arms training in service and my bet is she had something to do with the incident. Calling the sheriff to deflect any interest in her and I guess as they prayed together, it worked.

[NullTuples]

52. Involve, she took a sizable crew to DC that day...

[revmclaren]

29. Well, the FBI has joined the investigation

and somehow, praying with any suspects will probably be out.

[Takket]

31. Well. Just because they ruled out this one woman

Doesn’t meet there still isn’t a right wing plot to be uncovered.

[Initech]

32. Tell me you're in a cult without telling me you're in a cult.

[Abolishinist]

33. High chance that at a bare minimum

she knows those involved in this terrorism. She was in PsyOps, she knows how to influence others to do her bidding.

[Warpy]

34. "Saved" right wing evangelicals think it's OK to lie, cheat, steal, and murder

if they do it in the name of their lord and savior. While Rainey might not have done the job herself, she probably does at least suspect who did it.

I hope there is one FBI guy in NC whose conscience hasn't been destroyed by old time religion who will shove that boob of a sheriff out of the way and conduct a real interview.

[NBachers]

67. Yeah, I wanna see that scene in the movies where the FBI comes in & bigfoots the local yokels.

[Warpy]

74. I'll buy the popcorn, my treat.

[packman]

35. Sherrif Ronnie - A good Christian, A good Republican

Sheriff Fields is an active member of the Moore County Republican Men’s Club and was a past Precinct Chair of the Carthage Republican Party.

[Joinfortmill]

37. Jesus. Hope the FBI follows up on this prayer meeting

[StormKing]

38. For the moment, let's trust him

I read other reports on this. I don't often side with law enforcement (ACAB!) but I suspect they are right. And the prayer? Well they share faith. 🤷 As long as it's consensual and reciprocal.

[Tom Yossarian Joad]

46. Are you serious?

[littlemissmartypants]

87. Welcome to DU, StormKing. ❤️

[Deep State Witch]

40. Oh, FFS!

She was bragging about how it was "God's Will" that the power went out because of the drag show.

I wonder how many people in Moore County are going to die because their electricity is off?

[Ford_Prefect]

41. I'll believe the FBI when they tell me it's so.

I don't expect that she participated in it. She may know some of the actors involved if only online. She says it was a response to a Drag show. I lived in NC for 36 years and I met a few people there who could have gone over the edge and done this. I doubt she was referring to a specific real connection but I'm not working for the FBI and have no specific insights into where the RW fringe in NC has gone.

The Oath Keeper types would definitely be on my list of potential culprits. It is the kind of thing they were known for discussing online.

[NullTuples]

54. She *is* an Oath Keeper type. Took an entire crew of people to DC on Jan 6th...

[Ford_Prefect]

76. I still say she has to be interviewed by the FBI. I don't accept Sherriff whosis

having prayed with her as legally correct testimony. Nor should anyone else.

Seems to be crossing a psychological line to start shooting up utilities like that to put so many people in the dark and the cold. But maybe that's where she's at?

[NullTuples]

77. Psych ops were her specialty in the armed forces...

[LymphocyteLover]

43. *head-desk*

[FakeNoose]

45. I'd be more inclined to believe a lie-detector test than a prayer

Just sayin'

[Tom Yossarian Joad]

47. This is fucking insane! WTF was he doing investigating her in the first place being buds with her?

[AllaN01Bear]

51. hem. conflict of intrist.

[iluvtennis]

53. SMDH

[Evolve Dammit]

55. Dear God. Protect us from your pretend followers who are Roman soldiers in disguise.

[SergeStorms]

56. If only Derick Chauvin had prayed with George Floyd.

What a difference that would have made.

No, George Floyd got a knee across his neck. Wait, let me guess. What was the skin pigmentation of this poor, innocent right-wing woman? I'm guessing she was lily white, right?

[jmowreader]

81. There's a picture of her upthread

I stock eight kinds of paper and four kinds of sign board that aren't as white as she is.

[liberalmuse]

59. Homeland Security was created for stuff like this, wasn't it?

Using our tax dollars to circumvent investigating a serious crime. This guy needs to be removed.

This makes me want to cry. Our country has become so ridiculous.

[Ilsa]

62. Uh, yeah, because Christians never, ever lie about anything,

especially whether they could be guilty of a horrible felony.

[LiberalFighter]

69. One of the sheriff's buddies behind it?

[Turbineguy]

71. Maybe they should just leave the power off.

Who knows what new-fangled contraptions could come of it.

[Lucinda]

72. FFS...

[DFW]

82. It sounds like they had a word of prayer with her, and THAT'S what turned out to be nothing.

I'm sure a few words of prayer were had with John Wilkes Booth on April 14th, 1865, too.

[jmowreader]

84. Who could have possibly done this crime? Let us see...

Possible suspects:

The Hardware Department manager of the Southern Pines Lowe's. He's got twenty pallets of generators in stock his manager wants him to get rid of because they need the rack space for the spring laydown. Since hurricane season is over no one is buying generators right now, so he needed a reason to have a huge sales event. (Probability: 1/10. Most people in Southern Pines already have a generator...because, after all, they ARE in the North Carolina Hurricane Belt.)

The Moore County Board of Realtors. They want a reason for lots of people to sell their houses and move to Fayetteville, and having everyone's lights go out might convince them to do it. (Probability: about the same as the Lowe's guy. Who the hell wants to voluntarily move to Fayetteville?)

The Substation Manufacturing Division of Siemens USA. An order for a new substation would really perk up the division's quarterly numbers. (Probability: 0.5/10. His numbers are just fine the way they are, thank you very much.)

A bunch of Oath Keeper loons who want to take advantage of the bedlam to loot all the gun stores in Moore County to gear up for their civil war, using a drag show as an excuse. (Probability: 10/10. They would do this.)

Uhh...can we have the judge tack on "performing in 10 drag shows" to their sentences?

[Trenzalore]

86. Some Christians are not that smart

If you drape yourself with their faith language they will literally believe anything. I guess that is how the televangelist made it for the past 70 years.

[JanMichael]

89. Hell the sheriff may be in on it too. I know a lot of rural NC...

..."officials" that are rabid right wing nut cases.

Dangerous people.