ROCKINGHAM — A man who was tasered by sheriff’s deputies at a Richmond Senior High School football game late last year is asking why those involved were not fired.
Stephen Sings, of Charlotte, was in downtown Rockingham with a group of supporters again protesting his arrest.
Sings was slated to appear in court Thursday, but sources say the case was continued.
Sings, who goes by Stephen Black on Facebook, went live on Dec. 6 as he tried to find a deputy to ask why his son was arrested. When the deputy refused to tell him, Sings insisted it was his “duty” to talk to him. At that point, the deputy told Sings to put his hands behind his back.
An altercation soon ensued eventually involving five deputies and resulting in Sings being tazed multiple times and, according to court documents, two deputies receiving cuts and bruises.
Sings said Thursday that deputies lied in their statements and encouraged those gathered to look at the video.
“Why do they have to lie?” he asked, standing behind a banner that read “All Black Lives Matter.”
“The whole system is corrupt, all the way to the judge, the (district attorney) … the magistrate, too. Because she came in and she looked at me like I was a dog,” he continued. “Not one officer has been fired. Not one!”
“They been fired all over the world … so you tell me what’s different for Richmond County? Because it’s a small little town, that we ain’t gonna pay it attention?”
Sings also called out other organizations and people who have protested those killed by law enforcement for not showing up to support him.
“Where y’all at?” he asked. “All y’all want to do is run to the people that are dead. Not saying that’s bad, but you’ve got to go for the people that’s living.”
Sings then went on to criticize Sheriff James Clemmons, saying if Clemmons stays in office, he will continue to let injustice go on.
“He didn’t do his job, his job was to fire all those officers,” Sings said. “What (would it take) for me to be dead for them to be fired?”
Sings said the officers joked about his encounter, where he could have died, adding that he will continue to fight.
“Y’all gon’ have to kill me now,” he said. “I don’t care if I have to go in front of every officer’s house and protest in front of them. I do not care. These people got nothing to lose. I don’t got nothin’ to lose.
He then called Clemmons a coward and asked why he didn’t come out the door to explain why he didn’t fire the officers.
Clemmons called in the State Bureau of Investigation to handle the case for “transparency and seeking the truth.”
The sheriff was recently appointed by Gov. Roy Cooper to the North Carolina Task Force for Racial Equity in Criminal Justice.
“I’m working every day to make sure the job is being done,” Clemmons told a group protesting police abuse following the death of George Floyd in late May. “If those officers are doing corruption, I call in the SBI to get rid of them … that’s what we have to do.”
Clemmons also released a statement condemning Floyd’s death and has marched alongside other protesters in recent months.
Following a unity rally this past Saturday,Clemmons said that sheriffs and police chiefs have the responsibility to hire and train officers who the community can support.
“The buck stops with me,” he said. “If there’s anything that my officers do right, you pat them on the back. Everything that they do wrong, you kick me in the pants. That’s what a leader does, that’s the responsibility that a leader accepts.”
Prior to the Sings’ Thursday rally, protesters were lying in the road on Franklin Street in front of Hillside Florist. Following the rally they rode up to Richmond Senior High School and were blocking U.S. 1 until asked to move by deputies.
At 4 p.m. they were still at the high school.
Sings is facing a dozen charges: two felony counts of assault with physical injury on a law enforcement, probation or parole officer; five misdemeanor counts of resisting a public officer; three counts of assault on a government official or employee; and one count each of disorderly conduct and injury to personal property.
His next court date has not yet been listed in online state records.
All defendants facing criminal charges are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.
