MANTEO — The Virginian-Pilot has identified Edward Glaser III as the Dare County Sheriff’s Office deputy who fatally shot Manteo resident Sylvester “Demetrius” Selby, 44, on Oct. 2.
A Sheriff’s Office spokesperson said last week that the deputy who fired their weapon and who is on paid administrative leave pending investigation by the North Carolina State Bureau of Investigations (NCSBI), was hired on June 4, 2018.
According to Dare County human resources records, Glaser was the only Sheriff’s Office employee hired on that date. Of the seven employees Dare County hired in June 2018, Glaser was also the only Sheriff’s Office hire.
“Deputy sheriff master officer” is his current job title, according to county information, and he is white.
According to the Sheriff’s Office, two deputies responded to a “trespassing in progress” call around 11:30 p.m. on Oct. 2 in the 1300 block of Burnside Drive in Manteo, and the individual “came at them with a knife.”
A deputy fired their weapon and struck the individual, who died on scene, according to an Oct. 3 Sheriff’s Office press release.
The 911 call transcript the Sheriff’s Office released with redactions Monday afternoon seems to suggest a medical emergency.
“He needs an ambulance,” the caller said on the second page of the four-page call transcript.
The caller, who was not identified, spoke to a 911 dispatcher from the trailer on Burnside Drive where Selby was later shot, asking for an ambulance and confirming three times that an ambulance was needed before asking for both ambulance and police.
“He’s done this before … I don’t know if he needs to take his medicine or what,” the caller said, according to the transcript.
The caller described Selby as acting “crazy,” initially saying Selby was “irritating me,” but noting the last time such a scenario happened, police called for an ambulance.
“I don’t know how that stuff works but the police need to come out here cause (sic) last time they came out here they called … ambulance for him,” the caller said, according to the transcript.
According to Selby’s family, he had both Type 2 diabetes, for which he took insulin, and hypothyroidism.
He also found his daughter’s body after she was fatally shot by her then-boyfriend earlier in the year, and lost a sister and niece to gun violence less than two years ago.
The evening of Oct. 2, the caller was inside, heard a knock on the door and opened it, according to the redacted transcript.
After unlocking the door, Selby “jumped right now and jumped on (inaudible) and a knife fell out of his pocket. I grabbed the knife,” the caller said, according to the transcript.
Selby wasn’t “supposed to come here never,” the caller said, repeating that his visit was unexpected. The caller said he left Selby inside and remained “on the outside sitting on my trailer” during the call, stating no desire to go inside because Selby would “go berserk.”
The caller said Selby tore the blinds down and also said Selby was “drunk,” according to the transcript.
Selby’s family, after having read a copy of the same redacted call transcript, noted that the call seemed to be medical in nature.
“The first thing he asked for was an ambulance,” Demetrius Selby’s sister, Ebony Selby, said of the caller.
The family has questioned the alleged trespassing and the brandishing of a knife since the incident.
Ebony Selby now also questions how the dispatcher handled the 911 call.
The dispatcher should have made it clear to responding law enforcement that the “initial concern was a medical concern,” and officers should have waited to proceed until the ambulance arrived, Ebony Selby said.
She had said previously that her brother sometimes stayed at the family owned trailer in the 1300 block of Burnside Drive.
According to her and other family members, John Simms is the tenant of the trailer.
Simms is married to a cousin of hers, and she was unaware of any falling-out between Simms and her brother, Ebony Selby said.
Simms was unreachable by press time.
Many questions remain as the family has not yet been able to view the body camera footage from the two deputies who responded.
Dare County Sheriff Doug Doughtie has not responded personally to media or to the family since the incident.
The Sheriff’s Office has yet to provide the 911 call recording, initial law enforcement report from the night of Oct. 2 and other requested incident information.
The autopsy report from the state’s medical examiner’s office has also not yet been released.
A makeshift memorial by the family trailer has a cross, flowers and wooden and poster board signs. One sign asks with an expletive where Doughtie is, while others lament Demetrius Selby’s death. One reads, “ENOUGH!” and another says, “DEMETRIUS’ LIFE MATTERS!”
Two friends and neighbors of Demetrius Selby who wished to remain anonymous expressed concern with the deputy’s response.
Acknowledging that law enforcement is a “tough job,” one neighbor noted that a person “can’t take that stuff back” regarding shooting someone.
Like the family has done, they questioned why tasing or other tactics were not used.
Neither saw the incident. Both had been asleep the night of Oct. 2 and awoke to the sound of gunfire.
“Boom! A minute pause. Boom! Boom!,” one neighbor recalled, thinking at the time that a neighborhood resident must have purchased a new gun and was testing it out.
But then a series of gunshots rang out, and “nobody from the neighborhood is gonna shoot that many times,” the neighbor said, estimating 30 minutes passed between the first and last shots.
The death of their friend was “just sad,” the neighbor said.
Demetrius Selby was “everybody’s friend,” the other neighbor added.
