Cary Pride organizer calls for justice

A Cary Pride organizer is calling for stronger accountability after she says she was struck in the face with a metal flagpole while organizing a Pride event earlier this month. 

Sara Buxton, owner of The Night Market Company, was hosting the Alphabet Soup Pride Market at a downtown Cary Park on June 13 when, she said, a shirtless man entered the event carrying an American flag attached to a metal flagpole. 

“It was a great event,” Buxton said in an Instagram video, until a man she described as an “agitator” began running through the crowd. She said she asked him “to put a shirt on before he re-entered the event” because everyone else attending was wearing one. According to Buxton, the man then struck her in the face with the flagpole while shouting homophobic slurs.  

The reported assault left Buxton with a black eye and facial injuries. In the caption accompanying one of her Instagram videos, she wrote, “Queer owned businesses need your support always, not just during pride month. Throwing Pride events shouldn’t involve physical harm and violence.” 

Helicia Chiang, operations manager for the LGBT Center of Raleigh, witnessed the incident while staffing the organization’s booth at the event. She told The News & Observer that the man “turns around really quick” before “the flagpole smacks her directly on the side of the head and knocks her glasses off.” Chiang also said the man began “screaming profanities,” including an alleged threat involving a firearm, before leaving the park. 

According to The News & Observer and Metro Weekly, Cary police interviewed witnesses and charged Justin Keith Batchelor Jr., 25, of Cary, with misdemeanor simple assault. Both outlets reported that court records show Batchelor was issued a criminal citation rather than taken into custody. He is scheduled to appear in Wake County District Court for a disposition hearing on Aug. 13. Batchelor did not respond to The News & Observer’s request for comment.

In a follow-up Instagram video, Buxton said the assault has affected her beyond physical injuries. 

“In the days after, I couldn’t even go into Costco,” she said, describing a new anxiety around large crowds. Still, she said she plans to continue speaking publicly about the incident. “I’m not going to stop,” Buxton said. “I’m going to continue working toward an end goal of finding some sort of justice for what happened to me. And not just to me … but people like me.” 

The case has also renewed discussion about North Carolina’s hate crime laws. Wake County District Attorney Lorrin Freeman told The News & Observer that North Carolina’s ethnic intimidation statute does not include sexual orientation or gender identity among its protected categories. Instead, the law applies to crimes committed because of a person’s race, color, religion, nationality or country of origin. 

Federal law, through the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act, does provide protections in certain cases involving crimes allegedly motivated by bias against a person’s actual or perceived sexual orientation or gender identity.

But unlike protections based on race, religion or national origin under North Carolina law, LGBTQ+ North Carolinians do not have comparable protections under the state’s hate crime statute. Buxton’s case has become a reminder of that distinction, prompting renewed conversations about whether state law should more fully recognize bias against LGBTQ+ people.

This story is brought to you by Rosedale Health and Wellness and Dudley’s Place.