North Carolina woman arrested after ‘intentionally’ driving into group of Black teens

She "intentionally veered her car off the roadway and partially into the yard to strike the children."

Apr 21, 2021

A suspected white supremacist in Greenville, North Carolina, was arrested Sunday evening after she purposely drove her vehicle into a yard where a group of Black teenagers were playing basketball, striking one of them.

The Pitt County Sheriff’s Office announced Tuesday that Daina Renee Forrest, 35, has been charged with three counts of assault with a deadly weapon and felony possession of cocaine. The minor she purposely tried to run over was taken to Vidant Medical Center for treatment of his minor injuries, Newsweek reports.

According to a Pitt County Sheriff’s Office news release, Forrest had been driving around the area where the teens were playing ball on Garris Road in Greenville, and she repeatedly threatened them. Witnesses told deputies that Forrest was “waving a kitchen knife, while cursing and threatening the three juvenile teenage victims who were playing basketball in their yard,” officials said. The release also notes that she “intentionally veered her car off the roadway and partially into the yard to strike the children.”

Deputies tracked Forrest down and found damage on her that car was “consistent with having hit something/someone,” officials said. A police search of her vehicle uncovered a knife and “a bag of crack cocaine, and marijuana filled cigars.”

Forrest allegedly told investigators that her actions were not “a race hate crime.”

She is facing three counts of assault with a deadly weapon and a count of felony cocaine possession. She remains jailed as of Thursday at the Pitt County Detention Center under a $230,000 secured bond. Her case will likely get buried or largely ignored by the local media in favor of coverage of the latest police killing of an unarmed Black man in North Carolina.

As theGRIO previously reported, a deputy shot and killed a Black man while serving a search warrant Wednesday, authorities said, spurring an outcry from community members who demanded law enforcement accountability and the immediate release of body camera footage.

Authorities wouldn’t provide details of the shooting but eyewitnesses said that Andrew Brown Jr. was shot while trying to drive away, and that deputies fired at him multiple times. The car skidded out of Brown’s yard and eventually hit a tree, said Demetria Williams, who lives on the same street and ran out of her house when she heard the gunshots.

“When they opened the door (to the car) he was already dead,” Williams told The Associated Press. “He was slumped over.” She said officers tried to perform chest compressions on him.

A car authorities removed from the scene appeared to have multiple bullet holes and a broken rear windshield.

The Pasquotank County Sheriff’s deputy was placed on leave pending a review by the State Bureau of Investigation, Sheriff Tommy Wooten II said at a news conference. Court records show Brown was 42 years old and had a history of drug charges and a misdemeanor drug possession conviction.

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