More than four days after one or more armed persons attacked two electrical substations with a high-powered rifle in rural Moore County, North Carolina, the perpetrators of the attack have yet to be identified or arrested.
The targeted attack on the electrical substations knocked out power throughout Moore County and for some residents outside the county, forcing the closure of schools and businesses. Since Sunday evening, the entire county as been under a state of emergency and nightly 9 p.m. curfew, which is set to expire Thursday morning at 5 a.m.
The aftermath of the attack left nearly 100,000 people without power for over 96 hours, endangering the lives of thousands of people, including many senior residents who rely on electricity to power at-home medical devices such as CPAP machines.
Police at the Moore County Sheriff’s office confirmed on Tuesday that at least one person has died since the power was knocked out, but they are still trying to determine if the person died due to the loss of power or of “natural” causes. The person was found dead in their Pinehurst home, which like virtually the entire county until Wednesday afternoon, had no power.
While officials with the energy company indicated it might be as late as Thursday evening until power was restored, as of Wednesday afternoon an “outage” map provided by Duke Energy indicated that power had been restored throughout the county.
In a “Wanted” bulletin issued Wednesday, the Federal Bureau of Investigation announced a $25,000 reward for information regarding the attack. The sparsely worded bulletin confirmed that the two substations that were attacked are separated by approximately 10 miles, seemingly indicating that there was more than one person involved in the attack.
One of the substations is located in Carthage, North Carolina, while the other is in West End. The FBI and police have refused to release a definitive timeline but have indicated that both power stations were attacked shortly after 7 p.m. this past Saturday night.
Photos released by local news outlets show that the attackers specifically targeted the equipment with aimed shots, not a wild “spray and pray” attack. In an interview on CNN with Jake Tapper, Juliette Kayyem, a member of the Council of Foreign Relations and a Department of Homeland Security official under the Obama administration, said that the fact that the shooting was “targeted enough to bring down two different facilities” indicated an “insider threat.”
“These aren’t drive-by incidents,” Kayyem told Tapper, “These are ones in which you’re targeting directly.”
Unnamed police investigators, speaking to CNN Wednesday, indicated that 20-25 shell casings from a high-powered rifle were found at both substations. The investigators reportedly told CNN that they were investigating threats disseminated on fascist forums online, encouraging attacks on critical infrastructure.
The investigators were also following up on online threats leveled against LGBTQ+ persons, given that the attack coincided with a drag show performance at the Sunrise Theater in the town of Southern Pines, which had been targeted by far-right elements, including the Libs Of TikTok Twitter account in the weeks leading up to the event.
Due to the deluge of threats received from far-right elements, incited by fascistic Republican politicians, theater organizers were forced to hire private security and request police presence outside the venue.
The electrical substation located in West End, North Carolina is roughly 15 minutes away from the Sunrise Theater, which was hosting the Downtown Divas drag show at the time the power stations were attacked.
Moore County is hotbed of far-right activity. While police have yet to name any suspects, they have admitted multiple times that the attacks were intentional, and seemed to indicate a degree of military training or expertise in electrical infrastructure. While not entirely located in Moore County, the largest military base in the United States, Fort Bragg, home to over 54,000 soldiers and encompassing 251 square miles, stretches into the eastern part of the county.
Moore County is dominated by the outsized influence of Fort Bragg, home to the 82nd Airborne and dozens of other military units and special forces brigades that have been engaged in imperialist wars and criminality for decades.
While she is not currently a suspect, immediately after the power went out, Moore County resident Emily Grace Rainey, a former US Army captain and leader of the far-right Moore County Citizens for Freedom, posted on her Facebook account: “The power is out in Moore County and I know why.”
She followed up her post with another one featuring the Sunrise Theater and said that God was “chastising Moore County.”
In the weeks leading up to the drag show, Rainey had repeatedly incited fascist violence against the theater, LGBTQ persons, and sponsors of the event. On November 16, one of Rainey’s profiles, Emily Grace, posted the flyer for the upcoming drag show and wrote that “Southern Pines NC is a small tourist golf town with many military residents.”
On November 18, the Moore County Citizens for Freedom Facebook group, which is administered by Rainey, posted the contact information for the sponsors of the show and captioned her post, “You know what to do.”
Following the attack on the power station, and Rainey’s seemingly public admission of guilt, or at least knowledge of the attack, Sheriff Ronnie Fields revealed during the press conference this past Sunday that he personally visited Rainey for an interview. In the press conference, Fields said that Rainey’s posts were false and that he had a “word of prayer” with her.
Following the press conference internet researchers discovered a photograph that Rainey had taken with Fields for a “Back the Red, White and Blue” event in October 2020.
It was also discovered that Fields’ personal Facebook account has been a member of the Moore County Citizens for Freedom, since September 11, 2020, one month before Rainey and Fields took the picture together and roughly three months before Rainey and other members of the Moore County Citizens for Freedom would travel to Washington D.C. to participate in Trump’s coup.
Rainey was still a psychological operations officer in the US Army when she bussed Trump supporters to the Capitol on January 6, 2021.
While it is unknown how many current and former military personnel Rainey transported to the Capitol in furtherance of Trump’s coup, last month James Mault, 30, of Fayetteville, North Carolina, home of Fort Bragg, became the first active duty Army soldier to be sentenced for participating in Trump’s coup.
Mault was sentenced to 44 months in prison plus three months of supervision after he was found guilty of assaulting police with a chemical spray on January 6. He was arrested at Fort Bragg this past October.