Man arrested for threatening FEMA workers in North Carolina speaks out

William Jacob Parsons, who was arrested Saturday on charges of making threats against Federal Emergency Management Agency employees, is publicly defending alleged actions that disrupted the agency’s efforts to help Hurricane Helene victims.

Parsons, 44, told local news outlet FOX8 WGHP that he was exercising his Second Amendment rights when he brought his gun to a FEMA site in storm-battered Lake Lure, N.C.

“They want to sit here and lie and say I was carrying guns around,” he said. “I had one gun on me, which was legally owned and sitting on the side of my hip, and I had a rifle and another pistol that were in my vehicle that were both lawful and legal to own.”

Parsons said he was motivated by social media reports claiming that FEMA was withholding supplies from hurricane victims in western North Carolina. Such false claims are part of a wave of misinformation that has hampered hurricane recovery efforts across the Southeast.

“I viewed it as if our people are sitting here on American soil, and they’re refusing to aid our people,” Parsons told FOX8.

The Washington Post’s efforts to reach Parsons on Wednesday were not immediately successful.

In a Facebook post before his arrest, Parsons had called for people to “overtake” the FEMA site in Lake Lure, where Helene’s muddy floodwaters left widespread devastation, FOX8 reported. In a profile picture on Facebook, Parsons had also included the caption “verified harmful extremist.”

The Rutherford County Sheriff’s Office confirmed in a statement Monday that it had arrested Parsons for threatening FEMA workers, but that it had not substantiated reports of “trucks of armed militia” hunting FEMA employees. Both FEMA and U.S. Forest Service personnel relocated and stopped doing some of their work on Saturday as authorities investigated the reported threats.

[FEMA resumes door-to-door visits in North Carolina after threats tied to disinformation]

Helene made landfall Sept. 26, tearing through parts of Florida and Georgia before devastating much of western North Carolina. At least 250 people have died as a result of the storm, with more than 100 deaths reported in North Carolina. Hurricane Milton then made landfall last week near Sarasota, Fla., bringing powerful winds, tornadoes and deadly floodwaters.

As the country digs out, false claims about the storms have divided the Republican Party. While Donald Trump and his allies have spread the falsehoods, other GOP lawmakers and officials have sought to counter these rumors without directly criticizing the former president.

[ Trump backers are more primed to doubt the election than they were in 2020]

Rep. Chuck Edwards (R-N.C.), who has pushed back on the rumors, said in an interview Wednesday that the threats against FEMA workers are an “unfortunate” consequence of misinformation.

“It’s unfortunate that there are folks out there now that are expressing their frustration with what’s going on against the very folks that are here trying to help us,” he said. “It’s impeding our progress. And I would hope that we would not have anyone else out there that would get in the way of their neighbors getting help.”

Edwards said law enforcement agencies in his district have investigated reports of “similar activity,” but they have not made any arrests. He declined to comment further on the reports, citing confidentiality concerns.

During a visit Tuesday to a disaster recovery center in Asheville, North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper (D) excoriated those spreading conspiracies online.

“This misinformation needs to stop. It’s hurting the very people that we all want to help. It’s sowing seeds of confusion,” said Cooper, who was accompanied by FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell. “It makes some people intimidated to apply for assistance that they desperately need. It hurts the morale of responders, and people who have lost everything.”

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Brady Dennis in Asheville and Samuel Oakford in New York contributed to this report.