Weekly publisher in North Carolina is detained and handcuffed while seeking access to a court proceeding

Tom Boney Jr. on Tuesday. (News &
Record photo by Woody Marshall)

The publisher of a North Carolina weekly newspaper was handcuffed and forcibly removed from an Alamance County courtroom Tuesday after protesting that a hearing should be open to the press, The Alamance News reports. Tom Boney Jr., a long-time crusader for open government, publishes the News from the county seat of Graham, pop. 14,153. (Burlington, pop. 54,000, is the largest town.)

The event was a plea hearing for a white woman accused of driving her truck at two 12-year-old African American girls, a case that has been one of interest to Black Lives Matter activists and the press, The Associated Press reports.

Boney was delivering a document requesting a hearing on whether it’s appropriate to close the court to the news media, the Raleigh News & Observer reports.

UPDATE, Dec. 10: The N&O's Carli Brosseau reports, "When Boney tried to explain why the courtroom should not be closed to reporters, Wilkins threatened to hold him in contempt." The Alamance News, the N&O and Triad City Beat, an alternative weekly, asked the North Carolina Court of Appeals to "open judicial proceedings to the public, or at least a representative of the news media," citing a series of cases in which judges in the county have refused to do so, citing the pandemic.