GATES COUNTY, N.C. (WAVY) — A man who was taken into custody following a barricade situation in Gates County earlier this week was found to be on a terrorist watch list and had been in the area for six months.
Gates County Sheriff’s deputies were sent to U.S. 13 South and Barfield Road for reports of gunshots, and they got to the scene and found a man, later identified as Awet Hagos, standing outside of a business discharging a firearm.
Hagos became combative and tried to disarm a deputy of their rifle as he fled into his residence, the sheriff’s office said, but was later taken into custody after a four-hour standoff. Gates County Sheriff Ray Campbell said he responded aggressively to the deputies, and they had to Tase him several times during the scuffle.
Hagos was charged with three counts of assault on a government official, three counts of resisting a public officer and one count of carrying a concealed weapon.
Campbell said U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement got in touch and said that, after running his fingerprints, it determined that Hagos was on the terrorist watch list and had been in the area for about six months.
Campbell said Hagos, who had previously lived in Haiti and is from an area of Africa near the Yemen border, had been brought into the area by the owner of the Carolina Quick Stop store, where the incident took place, according to the sheriff’s office.
Hagos, who has to be adjudicated on state charges before being picked up by ICE, is in the Albemarle District Jail under $100,00 bond, Campbell said.
