JONES COUNTY, N.C. (WGHP) — The FBI has confirmed that a reported vandalism of an electrical substation that took place just two weeks before a major attack on infrastructure knocked out power to thousands in Moore County was a shooting.
On Friday, the FBI offered a $250,000 reward for information in the shooting of a Carteret-Craven Electrical Substation in November. According to the release, on Nov. 11, 2022, someone shot “multiple times” at the substation in Maysville.
At the time, CCEC reported it as “criminal vandalism,” stating that 12,000 people lost power for about two hours as a result of leaking coolant.
This was the first of what would become three separate shootings at substages in a three-month period. Roughly three weeks later, on Dec. 6, 2022, two Duke Energy substations in Moore County were shot into by high-powered rifles, taking out power for over 40,000 Duke Energy customers for days.
The next month, on Jan. 17, an EnergyUnited substation in Randolph County was shot into. No one lost power.
The FBI has offered thousands of dollars in rewards for all three of these cases, but no arrests have been made.
Multiple people, most with neo-Nazi ties, have been arrested for planning similar attacks around the country. Last month, the founder of the former Atomwaffen Division was arrested when he and a woman allegedly made plans to attack the power grid of Baltimore. Among details revealed in court documents, Russell allegedly shared a video about the Moore County attack when discussing tactics.
A group of alleged Neo-Nazis, several of whom were from North Carolina or were stationed at Camp Lejeune, were charged with plotting a similar attack and shipping guns across state lines, and are currently going through the courts.
Another group of neo-Nazis pleaded guilty in early 2022 to plotting attacks in their home states of Texas and Ohio. Unsealed court documents show that two of them had their bonds revoked and electronics seized the first week of December 2022.
No suspects, groups or particular ideology has been confirmed to have a connection to the three shootings in North Carolina, and law enforcement has said they don’t believe the three shootings are connected at this time.
This month, the North Carolina Senate passed a bill to steepen penalties for people found guilty of intentionally damaging infrastructure.
Anyone with any information about the substation shootings should contact the FBI or local law enforcement.
