One right-wing extremist implied that multiple electrical substations were targeted to disrupt a drag show in Moore County. Local law enforcement authorities and the FBI are investigating.
Officials in a North Carolina county where more than 40,000 households remain without power amid freezing temperatures declared a state of emergency on Sunday afternoon, less than 24 hours after multiple electrical substations were damaged by gunfire in an apparent act of criminal vandalism.
As Harvard legal scholar Alejandra Caraballo documented in a detailed Twitter thread, one right-wing extremist implied that armed vandals deliberately caused power outages to disrupt a drag show at the Sunrise Theater in downtown Southern Pines.
Later, Rainey claimed that Moore County sheriffs visited her home, likely to question her about the aforementioned social media posts. As Caraballo noted, it is unclear if Rainey—who supposedly told law enforcement that “God works in mysterious ways and is responsible for the outage”—has “any actual knowledge or connection to the perpetrators.”
Emily Rainey, a local extremist who allegedly participated in the January 6th insurrection posted this. https://t.co/a6LEUVR6aX pic.twitter.com/au14oswJu8
— Alejandra Caraballo (@Esqueer_) December 4, 2022
Right-wing activists in other parts of the country, meanwhile, quickly endorsed the gun-induced power outage and ensuing disturbance of the drag event. Texas Freedom Coalition president Sarah Fields, for instance, tweeted “#ImOkWithIt” before deleting the celebratory hashtag from her post.