Robeson County resident Charles Black offers feedback during a meeting about community safety.
SPECIAL REPORT
Robeson County residents want safer communities
David Powell, a Robeson County resident, said the county needs to do more to help formerly incarcerated individuals reintegrate into society to avoid high recidivism rates.
It’s been 1,214 days since Stephanie Minnigan-Judd got a good night’s sleep.
Her son, Tahleel, was just 25 when he was shot and killed in Robeson County in December 2020. Nearly three and a half years later, the man charged in the case has not gone on trial.
“The things that go on in this county are just unimaginable,” she said. “There’s nothing to ease the pain, it just gets worse.”
______
______
Minnigan-Judd was one of dozens of community members who gathered at the Southeastern Agricultural Center in Lumberton on Monday to share their stories of grief, loss and perseverance. Hosted by the N.C. Department of Transportation and the Governor’s Crime Commission, the meeting’s goal was to identify ways for Robeson County residents to come together to create a safer community free of gang violence and traffic deaths.
After the loss of her son, Minnigan-Judd created Fallen Angels, a nonprofit dedicated to supporting Robeson County families who have lost loved ones to gun violence. It’s her way of providing healing to parents in need.
Guns, gangs and drugs are persistent problems in Robeson County, as they are in much of rural southeastern North Carolina. Robeson had the highest overall crime rate and the highest violent crime rate in North Carolina in 2022, according to the State Bureau of Investigation.
There have been at 11 homicides in Robeson County so far this year.
‘We have to come together’
The meeting on Monday also heard from residents like Dean Thomas, who lost his mother, Annie, after they were both hit by a drunk driver last June.
Find more of this story in Saturday’s Robesonian, delivered to subscribers and available in locl news racks and grocery stores.
