Machete Attack in Tarboro Labeled ‘Hate Crime’

EDGECOMBE COUNTY – In addition to attempted murder, authorities say ‘Hate Crime’ charges may be coming after man seemed to target an Macclesfield couple, waiting behind their house and then attacking the husband with a machete until his wife shot at the suspect and ended the attack.

From CBS17:

“According to deputies, the suspect, identified as Carlos Antonio Washington, was waiting behind the couple’s house and attacked the homeowner once the victim went inside the house.

Deputies said the homeowner fought the suspect off momentarily and deflected the machete. The homeowner’s wife came out with a gun and shot at Washington – ending the attack.

The suspect ran to his car and started to drive on U.S. 258 toward Tarboro, deputies said.

While deputies were on the way to the scene, Deputy A. Lewis located the suspect’s vehicle.

Washington and the couple had no known interactions before.

“It was kind of scary,” said neighbor Dereck Draughon. “Everybody knows one another.”

Washington was not known to authorities before Friday’s attack.

The couple will be OK, deputies said. […]”

The ‘Hate Crime’ part comes from the fact that the suspect, Carlos Antonio Washington, is an active Black Hebrew Israelite; and the couple was white, presumably. The Black Hebrew Israelites are a radical racial/religious sect of African-Americans founded in the 1960s that believe they’re the true descendants of Ancient Israelites and often express their faith with rabid racism, Antisemitism, and occasional terror attacks.

Now, some news sources, like the one cited above, report on this interesting wrinkle to this scary story. Others conspicuously leave all that out.

WRAL, for instance, leaves all of that out. They report it like this:

“Police in North Carolina say they’ve charged a man with attempted murder after he attacked a person with a machete.

The Edgecombe County Sheriff’s office said the attacked occurred Friday morning in Macclesfield.

Police said Carlos Antonio Washington attacked a person with a machete outside the victim’s home. Police said Washington fled after being shot at by members of the victim’s family.

Washington was apprehended later by police and is being held at a local detention center. Police said the victim suffered minor injuries.”

That’s it; that’s all the info they thought was relevant to include about this crime. The story hasn’t been updated since November 29, even though local law enforcement has updated the public about the extraordinary nature of the crime.

Now, short shrift given to a local crime story isn’t necessarily offensive. But consider, for a moment, how WRAL would have treated this story if it were a member of the Ku Klux Klan ambushing an unsuspecting local black couple.

It would be a different kind of news post, wouldn’t it? A little heavier on the identities of the victim and attacker, more reading into the racist motivations, and all wrapped up in drawing wider cultural conclusions and how it implicates society (YOU) as partially at fault for the heinous ‘hate crime.’

That’s copy WRAL would run with, but the machete attack in Edgecombe County does not fit the narrative, so it gets the ‘nothing to see here’ treatment. Especially since a personal firearm was used to defend a family member from being murdered.

Washington is being held on $2.5 million bail. We’ll be interested to see what motivations are offered after the full investigation, and how quiet the Left-leaning media will be about it should those facts implicate toxic race and resentment narratives inspiring violence.