Man threatened Black family with a metal rod for renting North Carolina home, feds say
A Black family in North Carolina moved out of the home they were renting after a man threatened to shoot them for living there, according to federal prosecutors.
Now that man faces prison.
Douglas Matthew Gurkins, 34, pleaded guilty Thursday to one count of criminal interference with the Fair Housing Act, prosecutors said in a news release. He could be sentenced to up to 10 years in prison and ordered to pay $250,000 in fines.
“This defendant threatened citizens of this district — a mom and her four children — because of their race,” U.S. Attorney Robert J. Higdon Jr. for the Eastern District of North Carolina said in the release. “This is not who we are as Americans and prejudice of any kind is intolerable.”
Gurkins’ harassment of a Black family in Eastern North Carolina dates to December 2014.
According to prosecutors, he told the family “they did not belong in their home” before threatening to shoot them and any other Black person who stepped foot on their property.
“After making this threat, the defendant brandished a metal rod in a threatening manner. The family moved out of the neighborhood a few days after this incident,” the release states.
Court filings show he also used racial slurs during this incident.
Gurkins reportedly harassed two more Black families in the same neighborhood over the next four years, according to the release.
N.C. Department of Public Safety data show Gurkins has faced numerous criminal charges in two different counties since 2010 — including communicating threats on four different occasions in Pitt and Beaufort counties. Gurkins was also charged in 2017 with stalking and trespassing, both misdemeanors.
He did not serve any time in prison for those charges, according to DPS data.
The 34-year-old is also the subject of a civil lawsuit filed last year in Eastern North Carolina, federal court filings show.
A retired Black couple accused him of threatening, intimidating and insulting them starting in 2017 after he moved into the other half a duplex they rented from Gurkins’ aunt, according to the complaint.
He repeatedly referred to them using racial slurs and threatened to “beat her Black a--” when speaking to the wife, the lawsuit states.
Gurkins yelled these comments at the couple when they were outside their home and through the walls of the duplex, according to court filings. The couple subsequently took out a no-contact order against Gurkins.
The lawsuit goes on to accuse Gurkins of behaving similarly with other Black tenants of his aunt’s.
Gurkins, his aunt and the property management company, Remco East Inc. in Greenville, are named as defendants.
They deny the allegations in the lawsuit, according to court filings.
The case is ongoing in the Eastern District of North Carolina.
After Thursday’s plea agreement, Gurkins is being held without bond by the Wake County Sheriff’s Office, jail records show.
