Oversight, training, public trust at center of Orange County sheriff’s election
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- Both support community policing, de-escalation training and diversion.
- LaBarre seeks citizen oversight and participatory budgeting with votes.
- Questions linger over the 2020 inmate death and the Oct. 5 road‑rage case.
Orange County Sheriff Charles Blackwood is facing a new challenge in this year’s primary from David LaBarre, a Durham County Sheriff’s Office employee who lives north of Hillsborough.
On the issues, the men appear aligned.
Both are Democrats who support community policing, accountability and transparency, de-escalation and crisis training, jail alternatives, and mental health and addiction treatment services for offenders and officers.
LaBarre, 45, wants more public oversight of policies, decisions and the department’s $22 million budget.
Blackwood, 65, is seeking his fourth, four-year term and says the county manager prepares his budget with staff input. Voters give him feedback in county commissioner hearings and elections. His phone number is posted in the office lobby, he said.
LaBarre has also raised questions about a fatal fight between inmates in 2020, deputies’ handling of a 2025 road-rage incident, and Blackwood’s decision to send a larceny suspect who assaulted his deputies to the Alamance County jail.
Residents who reached out to The News & Observer have raised questions about LaBarre’s transparency, noting comments critical of his campaign were removed from his Facebook pages. He added most of them back after The News & Observer reached out.
Who are the candidates?
Blackwood: The Orange County native lives in Chapel Hill and joined the Sheriff’s Office in 1980.
- Past president, N.C. Sheriffs’ Association; chair, N.C. Governor’s Crime Commission; former member, N.C. Justice Academy and SBI Center for the Analysis of Police Use of Force
- Key programs: Coordinated Opioid Overdose Reduction Effort (COORE); Josh’s Hope database; LifeTrack rapid-response system; de-escalation and crisis intervention training;. crisis unit; Criminal Justice Resource Department partnership.
- Wants: Expand opioid, mental health and senior programs; focus on saving missing and exploited children, and N.C. Law Enforcement Accreditation.
LaBarre: The Durham native lives north of Hillsborough and joined the Durham County Sheriff’s Office in 2003
- He worked on patrol, anti-crime and narcotics units, Hazardous Devices Unit, and the FBI’s Safe Streets Task Force before a life-changing, tree-cutting accident in 2016.
- Sheriff’s Office planning and development director since 2017, working with the county and handling budgets, strategic planning and project management. Member, Justice and Mental Health Collaboration Program executive steering committee and Orange County Human Relations Commission.
- Wants: Fewer people going to jail because of mental, behavioral and substance-use issues, address systemic bias and over-policing of communities of color.
What is Orange County’s biggest public safety issue?
Blackwood: “You have to be prepared for whatever lands in your lap,” from a shooting to icy roads, he said, “and the way to do that is having a well-trained, cohesive group of individuals.”
His priorities are:
- Professional standards, consistent expectations and accountability.
- Staff wellness, training and support for deputies with mental health and substance-use issues.
- Technology, including the use of surveillance to solve violent crimes and missing person cases.
LaBarre: The biggest public safety issue is who feels safe in Orange County, he said.
“We got inmates that are not safe, we got immigrants that don’t feel safe, and now we’ve got a Black mother and her son that don’t feel protected [due to the October road rage incident]. … So who is safe in Orange County? Likely people that look like me and Charles: white folks.”
His priorities are:
- Data-based policing and community programs to address poverty, mental health and substance abuse.
- Accountability and transparency with a citizen oversight committee and participatory budgets.
- Involving community partners in nonviolent crime responses and jail diversion strategies.
How do you view public input?
LaBarre: He questioned spending on Blackwood’s vehicle and a cell phone app launched in 2024. He would “drive the oldest car in the fleet,” LaBarre said, and use the app money to start a deputy wellness program or offer re-entry housing vouchers to offenders.
“We’re at the point now where you need to have a seat at the table with a vote, an equally weighted vote to figure out what your taxpayer dollars are actually doing and whether or not they’re keeping us safe,” LaBarre said.
Blackwood: “I believe we’re a great steward to the taxpayers,” Blackwood said, saving money every year to return to the county.
He got the Jeep Wagoneer when his Chevy Tahoe was damaged in an accident, he said. It was provided while his vehicle was in the shop, but better served his need to travel for work, and was discounted to $61,000 due to roof damage, he said. A staff member still drives the Tahoe, he said.
The cell phone app appeals to young residents and people without a computer, he said. It cost about $20,000 to set up and operate the first year, and now runs about $8,356 a year, including support, maintenance and access to criminal cases and arrests.
County budgets show the sheriff’s roughly $2 million operating budget, not including personnel costs, is about the same as it was in 2014. Personnel costs — about 90% of the department’s budget — are up $11 million. He’s added 40 new positions, including more detention officers and two mechanics.
“A lot of these groups think that the appearance [of oversight] will improve community trust and accountability ... and the concept often breaks down when you start to peel the onion back and look at it in the lens of reality,” he said.
LaBarre criticizes Blackwood for jail death
Jail inmate Maurice King, 34, died in 2020 after an assault. In 2021, King’s mother filed a lawsuit. The News & Observer obtained security video footage showing four inmates entering King’s cell. One, Tyler Grantz, pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter.
The lawsuit accuses Blackwood and his staff of creating an unsafe environment by missing cell checks and letting inmates cover their cell windows. A judge set the case for trial last year, but that decision was appealed. A ruling will decide whether to settle in favor of the sheriff’s office or send the case to a jury.
LaBarre said Blackwood didn’t make changes after jail inspectors found visual obstructions, camera malfunctions, and problems with supervision rounds before the death. He would have made changes and added more officer training and technology, he said.
Orange County has since opened a new jail on U.S. 70 west of Hillsborough, which Blackwood said has fewer blind spots and three levels of observation, plus cameras. They walk through checking on everybody and what they’re doing, he said.
State inspection records show the jail was cited once — in January 2024 — for a semi-hourly round made 60 minutes after the first round, instead of 40 minutes.
“There’s only so much you can do” to keep inmates safe from each other, Blackwood said. “The job is easy. It’s just done with complicated folks.”
Was violent road rage downplayed?
LaBarre also criticized the handling of an Oct. 5 road rage incident. The victims reported a car passing them in a no-passing zone and stopping. A passenger got out, pointing a gun at a teenager before returning to the car and firing two shots into the air.
Samantha Russo was cited with assault by pointing a firearm and released, but after a public outcry, deputies charged her with felony discharging a firearm within an enclosure to incite fear.
That “was the last straw for me,” LaBarre said, but the “really disheartening” part was Blackwood’s comments to CBS 17 that it was more prudent to charge Russo and release her.
“I know what it would do to me if I was that mother or I was the father … as a result of a stranger sticking a gun in my child’s face and me feeling helpless,” he said.
Blackwood said the deputies did not know yet that the N.C. Court of Appeals had ruled Oct. 1 that it is a felony to fire a gun from a car, even if it’s not fired into another car.
“You do the best you can or [with] what you got. Sometimes you get it right, sometimes you don’t. Again, we’re human, but it wasn’t that the officers were neglecting any of their duties,” he said.
This story was originally published February 19, 2026 at 5:30 AM.
