The Shield of Wake Forest: Protecting Our Neighbors from the State

We are blessed in Wake Forest.

When you see a Wake Forest Police officer on Friday Night on White, or responding to a wreck on Main Street, you aren’t seeing an occupier. You are seeing a neighbor.

Our local department does an outstanding job. They are approachable. They are kind. They are warm. When you speak to them, you get the distinct impression that they genuinely care about this town. They live here, their children attend school here, and their reputation is built on trust, not intimidation.

But the execution of Renee Good by federal agents in Minneapolis has cast a long, dark shadow that reaches all the way to Franklin and Wake counties. It forces us to ask a hard question: If the federal government comes to our town to do violence, who will stand between them and us?

The issue isn’t our local police. The issue is the encroachment of a federal apparatus that views local sovereignty as an obstacle and local citizens as subjects.

The Trojan Horse of Technology

We have spent millions of our local tax dollars on “modernization.” We have installed the FLOCK cameras.

The technology is impressive. It catches car thieves and helps solve crimes. But we must ask:

What does it give away?

Every piece of surveillance technology we install is a potential backdoor for the “King’s Men.” When we plug our town into Flock’s data grid, we are effectively handing the keys to our city to agencies like DHS and ICE, agencies that have repeatedly shown they do not share our values.

The camera that helps a Wake Forest officer find a stolen Honda Civic is the same camera that tells a federal task force where a political activist buys their groceries. We have built a surveillance apparatus with our own money, intended for our own safety, but it is being weaponized by a distant executive branch to track and target Americans.

This is how the King’s Men get in. They don’t need to kick down the gate; we invited them in through the fiber-optic cables.

A Shield Around Our Town

The mandate of “To Protect and Serve” must evolve. In 2026, protecting Wake Forest means more than just stopping burglars or drunk drivers. It means protecting our citizens from federal overreach.

Our local police are the last line of defense for our civil liberties. If federal agents want to come into Wake Forest to conduct “saturation patrols,” set up checkpoints, or execute warrants that violate the spirit of our Constitution, our local authorities should not just be passive observers. They should be the shield.

This is about Local Sovereignty.

We need to push for more local power and authority. We need ordinances that explicitly prohibit the sharing of local surveillance data with federal agencies. We need law enforcement officers in Wake and Franklin Counties, empowered to say “No.”

When the federal government acts like a criminal organization, executing unarmed women in their cars and lying about it, we have a moral obligation to treat them with the same scrutiny we would apply to any other violent gang attempting to operate on our turf.

Reinforcing Our Walls

My family has lived on this land for twelve generations. We were here before the Department of Homeland Security was a gleam in a bureaucrat’s eye, and God willing, we will be here long after it is gone.

We are patriots, yes. But our patriotism is rooted in the soil of North Carolina, not the marble hallways of D.C.

We love our country enough to demand that it live up to its promise. And right now, that means drawing a hard line. We support our local police because they are local. We trust them because they are accountable to us.

But we cannot allow the warmth and kindness of our local officers to be used as a mask for the brutality of the federal state. We cannot let our town become a hunting ground for agents who do not know us, do not love us, and do not answer to us.

The violence we saw in Minneapolis is a contagion. The only vaccine is strong, sovereign local governance.

It is time to put a shield around Wake Forest. It is time to tell the King’s Men that their jurisdiction ends where our community begins.