Dispatchers received a 911 call at 12:40 p.m. Saturday reporting “multiple individuals in distress” in the water near the end of Persimmon Street, Currituck County Fire and Emergency Medical Services Chief Ralph Melton said.

Ocean rescue lifeguards from Bismark Street were already in the water when the call came in and additional lifeguards were deployed. By 12:42 p.m., fire and EMS was dispatched to assist.

“The ocean rescue shift supervisor confirmed that one swimmer was unaccounted for and presumed submerged,” Melton said. He identified the boy as Amir Abou, who lived with his family in Woodbine, Maryland, a community west of Baltimore and east of Frederick.

Currituck Fire and EMS Capt. Bob Pugh deployed more than 20 lifeguards and a jet ski while the Coast Guard dispatched an MH-60 helicopter, which performed search patterns until 4 p.m. Meanwhile, rescue workers were “strategically positioned on beach access stairs” for an elevated spot to look for the boy, and to keep an eye on rescue swimmers in the water, Melton said. Other rescue crews prepared to take Abou as a patient if he was found. In all, more than 50 first responders were called into action for the search.

At 4:10 p.m., lifeguards conducting a line search on shore located Abou in the water.

Coast Guard ends search for 12-year-old boy pulled under water off Corolla beach

“He was immediately moved to an ambulance positioned on the beach for assessment and potential treatment,” Melton said. But the boy had been submerged for about three and a half hours and no resuscitation efforts were initiated. He was pronounced dead at 4:16 p.m.

The National Weather Service forecast for Saturday called for a moderate risk of rip currents along Outer Banks beaches.

“We extend our deepest condolences to the family and friends of the victim during this difficult time,” Melton said.

Authorities received a call at 11:30 p.m. from a surf-fishing visitor who witnessed a side-by-side utility terrain vehicle hit a horse standing on the beach near milepost 20, the Corolla Wild Horse Fund said in a social media post.

The driver fled the scene, but bystanders gave a detailed description and the UTV registration returned to 57-year-old Porter Williamson of Chesapeake, said Currituck County Sheriff’s Office Chief Deputy Jeff Walker.

While towing the UTV, deputies saw Williamson return to the scene, but he fled again and was caught after a short foot pursuit, Walker said. Williamson was charged with resisting, delaying or obstructing law enforcement and jailed on a $10,000 bond. Deputies also charged his wife, Rhonda Williamson, on the same charge for “false information to law enforcement,” Walker said. She was jailed on a $5,000 bond.

Bullwinkle, a 10-year-old stallion, suffered skin trauma, a broken right hind leg with fracture of the lower femur, left hind trauma and internal injuries from the force of impact, the CWHF said.

“Bullwinkle’s injuries were severe and ultimately fatal. Our veterinarian arrived on the scene early Saturday morning to humanely euthanize him,” said the CWHF, which manages the herd of about 100 wild mustangs roaming the northernmost beaches and swamps of the Outer Banks.

Last week, the CWHF posted a video of Bullwinkle fighting with another stallion, vying for the older stallion’s mares.

“He was in the prime of his life, and went from being a symbol of what it means to be wild and free to a tragic example of how irresponsible, reckless human behavior can cause pain, suffering, and irreparable damage to the herd in an instant,” the horse fund wrote. “Bullwinkle will never produce any foals. His genetics are gone from the herd forever and with such a small, endangered population the ramifications of that will last for generations.”

Meg Puckett, herd manager for the wild horse fund, said Bullwinkle died as he lived: wild.

“At no point did he welcome our intervention and he remained wary and defensive even as he laid on the dune unable to stand anymore,” she wrote in a Facebook post. “The fight drive that he was always known for never left him, right up to the end. He was exactly what a wild Banker stallion is supposed to be, and we are glad that he at least never had to leave the beach — he was never meant to.”

Bullwinkle was buried this weekend at the edge of the meadow where he was filmed last week fighting for a harem of his own.

The first will be held on Hatteras Island at the Avon Volunteer Fire Department, 40159 Harbor Road, on Tuesday at 2 p.m. The second will be held Wednesday at 10 a.m. at the Dare County Emergency Operations Center, 370 Airport Road in Manteo.

Topics will include preparedness efforts and why it’s important to never focus only on the category of a storm but instead on the storm’s potential impacts. At the end of each forum, time will be set aside for a community discussion during which attendees can ask questions and share their concerns.

For those unable to attend the free public forums in person, a virtual option will be offered on Wednesday at 10 a.m.

For more information and registration, see darenc.gov/Home/Components/News/News/8668/17.

The event draws an international field of competitors with a $15,000 pro prize purse. Both men’s and women’s professional and all amateur divisions will count as part of the Skim USA tour, and the professional men’s division will count as part of the United Skim Tour.

Professional men riders include three-time UST champion Lucas Fink, of Rio de Janeiro, and Gerardo Valencia of Barra de Navidad, Mexico. Professional women riders include the 2023 women’s Skim USA champion Sydney Pizza of Dewey Beach, Delaware, and the 2023 UST champion Chabe White, of Mazunte, Mexico.

The event will start at 8 a.m. both Saturday and Sunday and run until about 6 p.m. each day. The professionals will run during the best window for quality waves, which may change depending on the conditions throughout each day, organizers said.

“The Navy conducted an investigation into the events from last spring,” according to Ted Brown, co-director of media operations/installations and environmental public affairs officer. “The waste that washed ashore was confirmed to have been from USS George H.W. Bush. Appropriate action was taken as a result of the investigation and Sailors [sic] from the ship participated in cleanup efforts.”

Previously, in May 2017, “processed plastic disks” from USS Whidbey Island washed ashore on the Outer Banks, Brown said in an email. The sailors found responsible following that investigation similarly “were held accountable under the Uniform Code of Military Justice.”

The 2017 event totaled approximately 860 pounds of garbage. About 43 disks were recovered, each with an average weight of 20 pounds, according to Brown.

“The Navy has very strict procedures for [the] processing of trash and waste while at sea,” Brown said.

“Plastic waste is not permitted to be released into the ocean,” he continued. “All plastic waste is separated onboard, then processed into disks which are stored onboard until they can be properly disposed of ashore.  No fuel or oil waste is permitted to be released into the ocean. Other trash (i.e. metal, paper, food waste) must be processed, and there are requirements for how far offshore the vessel must be to dispose of these trash substances. These requirements have been in place for decades.”

Aside from the Navy’s two confirmed incidents of ocean dumping impacting the Outer Banks, “I think that we have a very strong reputation and history of being extremely environmentally friendly,” Capt. Dave Hecht said in a phone call.

Cape Hatteras National Seashore reported last year that beginning on April 27, its staff and the Town of Nags Head observed “plastic, metal, paper and textile fabric debris washing up in low densities along approximately 25 miles of beaches, from Nags Head to the villages of Rodanthe, Waves and Salvo,” according to an April 30, 2023, National Park Service press release.

The park service reported the incident to the U.S. Coast Guard’s Sector North Carolina. Staff from Cape Hatteras National Seashore, Pea Island National Wildlife Refuge, the Coast Guard, the Navy and the Town of Nags Head had been removing debris for three days at the time of the release and would continue to do so over the coming days, it said.

David Hallac, superintendent of the National Parks of Eastern North Carolina, said in a phone interview this month that staff called him at the time to report beach debris that was “all very similar—lots of flip-flops and Crocs, empty toiletry bottles like shampoo [and] food supplements like protein powder.”

Paper with “identifying marks,” Navy clothing and a Navy-issued boot clued them into the debris’ likely origin, Hallac said. The Navy “sent dozens of sailors down” to help clean up the beach once the park service got in touch with officials.

“Certainly truckloads of debris” were removed from the beach, Hallac said. His understanding was that the loose debris that washed up originated from bagged trash dumped off the ship.

“Two hundred fifty to 300 bags or sacks of trash may have been dumped over the edge of the vessel,” he said. “Presumably a lot of that sunk. A significant amount of debris did leave that ship…including things that are not normally dumped in the ocean, like plastics.”

On the north end of Hatteras Island, Pea Island National Wildlife Refuge experienced similar debris on its 12 miles of shoreline.

Staff on the beach doing nesting shorebird work last spring reported an “abundance” of plastic and trash, “almost that would be like your household waste-type plastic,” according to Dawn Washington, refuge manager for Alligator River National Wildlife Refuge and Pea Island National Wildlife Refuge.

The refuge had an interim manager at the time, but records indicated items like water bottles, containers for protein shakes and powder, shampoo and other toiletry bottles, laundry detergent and cleaning product bottles washed up, she said.

Meanwhile, Roberta Thuman, town of Nags Head spokesperson, said “very little” debris washed up in Nags Head last spring from the Navy ship, and she didn’t recall any washing up from the 2017 incident.

___

A larger issue with debris

Some trash can always be found on area beaches, from a variety of sources, according to both Hallac and Washington.

“You’re going to see stuff out there, either washing ashore anytime of the year or [from] people leaving it because people are allowed to be on the beach and not everybody does the right thing—pack their stuff out,” Washington said.

“We do have debris washing up every day from offshore,” Hallac said, “from a variety of land-based and marine-based sources.”

Ocean dumping for land-generated waste was common worldwide until its “harmful impacts” became more widely known in the 1970s, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s website.

The Outer Banks Surfrider Foundation partnered with several northern towns in Dare County years ago to coordinate regular beach cleanups through the Adopt-A-Beach program.

This year, for the first time, the National Park Service launched its own Adopt-a-Beach program for its 75 miles of coastline.

Washington, who became refuge manager in December, started organizing monthly beach cleanups this year. The next one is slated for Aug. 1 at 10 a.m. Interested volunteers can meet participating staff at the Pea Island refuge’s visitor center, located at 14500 N.C. 12 in Rodanthe.

Hallac encourages visitors and residents to do their part to keep beaches clean, but to call the park service if any trash isn’t immediately identifiable as safe to clean up.

“Sometimes we find things that are actually hazardous,” Hallac said. During his tenure, fuel containers, flares, “training bombs” and torpedoes have been found on the beach.

Last week, the Dare County Board of Commissioners adopted a measure banning the intentional release of balloons within unincorporated areas of the county. Violators will face a hefty $250 fine.

The county action followed similar votes in recent months in five of the county’s six towns. In April, Duck became the first to adopt a ban, with a civil penalty of $250 for violators. On May 1, Nags Head commissioners approved a ban with a $50 fine, followed by Southern Shores on May 7 with a $250 fine, Kitty Hawk on June 3 with a $250 fine and Kill Devil Hills on July 8 with a $25 fine.

Earlier this year, Southern Shores resident Debbie Swick spearheaded an effort to make the release of balloons illegal on the Outer Banks and across the state, launching “Ban Balloon Release in North Carolina” and a Change.org petition.

“Balloons are something we can control,” Swick told Dare County commissioners at the July 16 board meeting. “Not trying to make them go away, just trying to act responsibly.”

Inflated balloons are popular for graduations, gender reveals, weddings and memorials, but they can wreak havoc on the environment.

Birds, turtles and other animals commonly mistake balloons for food, which can harm or even kill them, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Marine species like dolphins, whales and turtles, as well as animals such as cows, dogs, sheep and birds have all been hurt or killed by balloons, the agency said.

Balloons can block the digestive tract, leaving animals to slowly starve to death. Animals can also become entangled in the balloon, or its ribbon, rendering them unable to move or eat.

Mylar balloons can take a century to break down, releasing microplastics “that are now inundating our oceans and affecting all of us,” Swick said.

Last year, the National Park Service picked up a record 1,786 balloons along a 70-mile stretch of Cape Hatteras National Seashore, more than double the number collected in 2022. Park biologists collected the balloons while monitoring nesting shorebirds and keeping watch over sea turtle nests.

“The release of helium balloons is a major and devastating problem everywhere,  but especially to our beautiful coastline and to its inhabitants,” Swick said.

She said she’s thrilled that most Outer Banks localities have adopted a ban, but she’s not done yet.

Swick spoke last week to the Manteo and Currituck County boards of commissioners about the importance of a balloon-release ordinance and plans to send out letters to every county commissioner in North Carolina in the next few days.

“There’s still a lot of work to be done, but I couldn’t be prouder of the place that I live,” Swick said.

The kayaker launched from the beach near Ramp 43, east of the Cape Point Campground near Buxton, National Park Service spokesperson Mike Barber said in a release.

Bystanders reported seeing the kayak capsize while the man attempted to ride a wave roughly 50 yards from the beach, the release said. They swam out to help pull the man from the kayak and brought him to the beach. First responders were notified shortly before 10:30 a.m.

Life-saving efforts were initiated but the kayaker died, Barber said. The man is from Florence, South Carolina, but the park service did not release his name.

Because the fatality occurred while kayaking, the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission is investigating.

“We send our condolences to the kayaker’s family and friends,” Cape Hatteras National Seashore Superintendent David Hallac said in the release.

Basnight addressed the recent “evolution of misinformation” in the community about the project during his approximately hourlong presentation at a public hearing held the evening of July 10 at First Flight High School in Kill Devil Hills.

Three school administrations dating back to 2015, and “actively since 2018,” have worked toward establishing an early college in Dare County, Basnight said.

Research on early college students in North Carolina shows the benefits of these public schools, formally called cooperative innovative high schools, he said.

“They have higher ACT scores, higher attendance rates, lower suspensions, lower dropout, higher enrollment in four-year universities, are more likely to vote and less likely to be convicted of a crime during late adolescence,” Basnight said.

The early college schools’ focus is on students completing either an associate degree or a trade certification along with their high school degree, he said.

Originally, the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction outlined its targeted student populations as first-generation college students, English language learners, students from low socioeconomic backgrounds, students who want an accelerated academic track, minority students and students at risk of not graduating, he said.

Those targets have been condensed into three: First-generation college-goers, students at risk of dropping out of high school and students who would benefit from accelerated learning opportunities.

“I don’t know any students who are left out of these categories,” he said. “That’s why it’s for everyone.”

The Dare County Board of Commissioners discussed the early college proposal in public meetings over several months this year and last year and was poised to vote on the project as part of its budget process on June 3.

But three Democratic county commissioner candidates spoke against the project and what they called a lack of public input on it.

Commissioners also received emails opposing the project, and they ended up voting on budget items except for the early college, choosing to wait for the board of education to schedule and hold a public hearing first.

Commissioner Ervin Bateman said during the June 3 meeting that he received 17 emails asking him to not vote on the project or to delay the vote.

“I used to belong to that entity,” Bateman said. He was registered as a Democrat until 2021, when he switched his party affiliation to Republican, according to an article in The Coastland Times.

“This is political, and that’s wrong,” he said vehemently.

Some of the emails opposing the early college, which The Pilot requested and received from the county, did come from Democratic candidates and registered Democrats. Others came from registered Republicans and independents.

About 80 people attended the July 10 public hearing, which both commissioners and school board members attended, and 14 members of the public spoke. Six public commenters expressed firm support, and eight shared concerns.

Joe Tyson, principal of First Flight High School, spoke passionately in favor of the early college. He called it “a gateway to boundless opportunities for students, [who] can earn college credits [and] invaluable skills, and develop a passion for lifelong learning — all before they even graduate high school.”

Kenny Brite, a Republican candidate for the board of education, also voiced his support. He said he’d talked to community members about it, including one Rodanthe man who said his son had registered for school with his mom’s address in Currituck County specifically so he could attend the early college in Currituck.

Aida Havel, a Democratic county commissioner candidate who spoke publicly June 3 and also emailed her concerns, said at the July 10 hearing that “there has been some suggestion that the opposition to the early college is political.”

Havel said she wanted to clearly share her concerns, noting, “I am not against the idea of early college.”

She continued, “I think it is fiscally irresponsible to build a $20 million building while not promptly taking care of what we already have; what message is that sending to our children?”

Several other speakers asked why the early college concept couldn’t be brought into the existing high schools.

“The early college program sounds wonderful for the kids that get to be a part of it,” said Jim Metzinger, a Manteo High School teacher. “Why can we not embed that model in our current high schools?”

Bobby Outten, county manager and attorney, explained toward the end of the meeting that the funding for the proposed early college, which comes from state lottery funds and “a portion of the sales tax fund,” could only be used for the construction and major repairs of school buildings.

The county cannot “redirect those resources into trying to implement the program” in existing schools because they are “capital resources,” Outten said.

He explained that the money could similarly not go toward teacher salaries, which Basnight also addressed in his presentation.

Several people who emailed concerns had been upset the proposed early college funding wasn’t directed to teacher salaries or to other school improvement projects.

“This is not an either or,” Basnight said during his presentation, stressing that needed school repairs are not being ignored.

The school system’s ongoing capital improvements plan is a plan that is constantly in flux, he explained. He also thanked commissioners for recently providing funding to raise local teachers’ salaries, and he promised to return before commissioners to ask for more.

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Sylvester Demetrius Selby’s manner of death was a homicide due to a “stab wound of the anterior left chest” by a 3-inch folding pocketknife, with two gunshot wounds to the torso listed as “contributing conditions,” according to the four-page “report of investigation” by the North Carolina Office of the Chief Medical Examiner (OCME).

A .40-caliber handgun and a pocketknife are both listed as the “means of death” in that report.

The OCME’s autopsy report — a separate, 12-page document — lists the stab wound as Selby’s cause of death. It lists two gunshot wounds of the torso and recent cocaine and methamphetamine use as “other significant conditions.”

Selby’s family disagrees with the conclusion of the autopsy records.

“It feels like it’s planted,” Selby’s sister, Ebony Selby, said in a text message. “Because in the video we saw, he walked out of the apartment normal and speaking. He did not stop movement or breathing until the 3rd shot was fired. So none of us believe the knife wound was the cause of death.”

She said both Deputy Edward Francis Glaser III and “John Simms, the man who stabbed him [Demetrius Selby] in our families’ home…should be charged and locked up right now!”

“Deputy Glaser’s bullets killed Sylvester Demetrius Selby, not the knife,” a July 5 statement from the family’s attorneys asserted. “The body camera video of the shooting speaks for itself. The Dare County Sheriff’s Office could put this argument to rest right now by releasing it.”

While immediate family members viewed the law enforcement video footage of the incident, the Dare County Sheriff’s Office has not publicly released its video footage. In North Carolina, the media and members of the public can only obtain law enforcement video footage with a judge’s order.

The family’s and law enforcement’s accounts of the incident differ greatly.

After seeing the footage, Selby’s family filed a $5 million-plus federal lawsuit on Dec. 7 naming Glaser and Dare County Sheriff Doug Doughtie as defendants and requesting a trial by jury.

A court date has not been set for the case, nor has any ruling taken place as of press deadline, according to the online case information.

Christopher Geis, a Winston-Salem based attorney representing both Glaser and Doughtie in the case, said he filed the autopsy report with the court this week.

“Cause of death is pretty important in a wrongful death case,” Geis said.

Doughtie did not respond by press deadline to questions The Pilot sent Tuesday by email, including if there were plans to release the footage or if charges had been filed against Simms or anyone else in the case since the autopsy reported Selby’s death was a homicide by pocketknife.

___

The autopsy

The autopsy details that Selby’s stab wound was 3 to 4 inches deep in the direction of “front to back with minimal right-to-left or vertical deviation” and caused six types of injuries, including to the heart and left lung.

The autopsy details injuries from three gunshot wounds, one of which is described as “penetrating” and two of which are described as “perforating.” It also lists two “graze gunshot wounds” as “additional traumatic injuries.”

Entrances and exits are listed for each of the three detailed gunshot wounds, but only one bullet was listed as recovered.

The penetrating gunshot wound was described as entering in Selby’s “left upper back” and exiting his “anterior left chest.”

Injuries from that shot included lacerations of his left lung lobes “left posterior 5th rib with fracture,” left anterior 5th rib, among others.

“Recovered: One large-caliber, deformed, copper-jacketed projectile,” the autopsy said for that gunshot wound.

___

Much unknown

The OCME publicly released documents pertaining to Selby’s death on July 3, nearly nine months after the Oct. 10-dated autopsy exam took place in Greenville. A medical doctor with a different name from the medical examiner digitally signed that “the facts stated herein are correct to the best of my knowledge and belief” on the autopsy exam report April 11.

The “report of investigation” by the medical examiner was dated Oct. 7.

It is unclear why the dates differ and why two different dates are listed on the autopsy report.

The special prosecutor assigned to the case cited the autopsy in his February decision, but his statement seemed to attribute Selby’s death to Glaser’s bullets.

Glaser will not face charges for shooting Selby, Charles “Chuck” Spahos, a Cary-based prosecutor assigned to the case, announced on Feb. 21.

“Deputy Glaser was justified under North Carolina law in that it appeared that it was necessary to kill in order to save himself or others from death or great bodily harm,” Spahos said in the statement.

The same release also noted that the autopsy performed in Greenville “discovered that Mr. Selby also had a knife wound to his chest that contributed to his death.”

The only surviving witnesses of the incident were Glaser, Sgt. DuWayne Gibbs and John Simms, the resident of the trailer outside of which Selby was killed, according to the prosecutor’s release.

According to an Oct. 3 Sheriff’s Office press release, two deputies were responding to a “trespassing in progress” call when Selby “came at them with a knife.”

A deputy fired their weapon and struck the individual, who died on scene, according to the release.

In the account shared by Selby’s family’s attorneys in December, Selby was bleeding from a chest wound and “stumbling in the opposite direction” when Glaser first shot him, then was unarmed on his hands and knees the second and third times Glaser shot him.

“Deputies could see the blood dripping from Selby’s wound and the fact that he was holding a kitchen knife in one hand, in a nonthreatening manner, and an apple in the other as he was exiting the home,” according to a Dec. 8 press release from the Law Offices of Harry M. Daniels, LLC, announcing the family’s lawsuit filing.

Two knives and three .40-caliber shell casings from the deputy’s weapon were found on the scene, according to the medical examiner’s four-page investigative report.

One knife was a 4-inch kitchen knife and one was a “three-inch folding knife, which was noted to have blood on the blade,” the report said.

In the July 5 statement pushing back on the autopsy’s conclusion, the attorneys said Selby even after being stabbed was able to follow the deputy’s orders to exit the house and put his hands up.

“In fact, Mr Selby was so coherent even after Deputy Glaser shot him once, that he felt the need to shoot him two more times and it was only then that Mr. Selby died laying on the ground choking on his own blood,” the release from Daniels’ office said.

In the redacted 911 call transcript the Sheriff’s Office released Oct. 16, the caller asked for an ambulance and confirmed three times that an ambulance was needed before asking for both ambulance and police.