Raleigh City Council member cancels weekend event after Charlie Kirk shooting
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Raleigh council member cancels event citing fears after Charlie Kirk shooting
- Melton-Lambert cites personal safety, condemns growing political violence
- Incidents across U.S. prompt local leaders to express rising security concerns
A Raleigh City Council member canceled his upcoming office hours due to the “recent acts of political violence.”
“The truth is, I’m afraid,” City Council member Jonathan Lambert-Melton said in a post on X,” and it’s extremely disheartening to feel that way.”
“I’m struggling to articulate [the] lack of hope I feel for our collective ability to disagree respectfully,” he said in another post. “Political violence is an attack on us all. It must be condemned, strongly, and it must stop.”
The posts were shared online after the fatal shooting of Charlie Kirk, a right-wing activist and commentator who was fatally shot while speaking at a campus event at Utah Valley University.
“Given the shooting yesterday and this, I think, increase in political violence that we’re seeing just creep into our society, I just felt uncomfortable doing it on Saturday,” Lambert-Melton, a Democrat, said in an interview with The News & Observer. “I didn’t really feel comfortable publicly announcing where I was going to be alone for a couple of hours, and it’s just made me pause for right now.”
Lambert-Melton, who was first elected to the Raleigh City Council in 2019, routinely holds in-person and virtual office hours on a regular basis at coffee shops and local businesses to hear concerns and questions.
People can disagree with people over their positions, Lambert-Melton said, but “an act of political violence is dangerous for everybody.”
“I think political violence is a threat to all of us, and we all have to stand up against it,” he said. “I don’t think our democracy or our humanity can survive if this becomes the normal response just to someone you disagree with.”
Lambert-Melton has previously been stalked and harassed, say authorities who charged a Durham man in the case, and “that experience has, of course, impacted my concerns and fears as well.”
This isn’t the first time a Raleigh elected official expressed concern after political violence. Shortly after a man shot two Minnesota lawmakers and their spouses, killing two people, Raleigh Mayor Janet Cowell called 911 after a truck idled outside her home at 3 a.m.
“It all hit home,” Cowell said in an interview with The N&O. “And, so then, two nights later [after the Minnesota shootings] to have a car in front of your house at the same time of the night was just disturbing.”
Earlier this summer, a man was charged with threatening to kill 41 North Carolina lawmakers over a shrimping bill. And Sen. Thom Tillis shared three minutes of uncensored audio that included threats and vulgar language with The N&O earlier this year.
This story was originally published September 11, 2025 at 11:57 AM.
