One Shove In North Beach: How A Misdemeanor Became A Social Media Storm

NORTH BEACH, Md. — First Friday is a popular event in North Beach that draws people in from all over the county. The event is essentially a street fair, showcasing food, fun and local businesses along the town’s storied boardwalk. But many people heard about the May 2 event for a different reason: A woman had allegedly shoved an elderly volunteer to the ground at the Republican Central Committee tent and fled the scene.

What followed was a storm of social media posts, heated conversations, threats and calls to find common ground. In a highly partisan political environment, people took to their online communities to express their disbelief, their rage and, sometimes, their pleasure, that political violence had come to North Beach.

The accused, Devane (DEV-uh-nay) Marie Wright, 42, of Chesapeake Beach, maintains that she was not at the First Friday event on May 2, did not shove the volunteer and that the social media pile-on has created unnecessary stress.

Wright, a public servant, volunteer, veteran and military spouse, has expressed belief in our justice system’s power. Her bench trial is scheduled for Friday, Aug. 22, at 1 p.m.

The Incident

On May 2 at approximately 7:15 p.m., a man and woman approached the Republican County Central Committee’s tent. According to witnesses and the victim, the suspect began calling individuals in the tent “Nazis” and “Hitler.” They argued about immigration and then the suspect pushed the victim to the ground.

The victim described the suspect as a white female in her 40s, wearing a light-colored sleeveless dress. She had long, brown, frizzy hair and was accompanied by a male. The victim described the male as “husky,” with tattoos on his arms, a stubble beard and wearing a baseball hat.

There were witnesses present at the scene. Deputies from the Calvert County Sheriff’s Office (CCSO) responded to the call, and the victim declined EMS services several times, as per the charging documents filed in the District Court of Maryland for Calvert County.

The Investigation

According to Wright’s statements and the charging documents, Deputy Baxter, who responded to the initial incident, followed up with the victim for another interview based on photos the victim had sent of a potential suspect. The victim received these photos from someone on Facebook, who received them from someone else on Facebook.

Deputy Baxter showed the victim an MVA photo of Wright, and the victim positively identified her. In Maryland, a photo array used for eyewitness identification must include a minimum of six similarly sized photos: one of the suspect and five photos of people who are not the suspect but bear similar physical characteristics.

Based on the information provided in the charging documents, Baxter appears to have shown only the photos of Wright to the victim and witnesses, who positively identified her. Two of the witnesses were “not 100% certain.”

On May 8, nearly a week after the incident took place, Deputy Baxter and Sgt. Norton read Wright her Miranda rights and interviewed her in her home. They observed that Wright “appeared nervous due to her hand movements” and said she claimed she was not at the event at all on May 2.

Deputy Baxter charged Wright with second-degree assault and issued her a summons. Social media posts wrongly claimed Wright “went to jail” the night of May 8.

There were no cameras at the event that captured the assault. While rumors circulated online about a video of the assault itself, The BayNet was unable to obtain this video or confirm its existence.

The BayNet confirmed that on May 20, Wright was charged on an application for second-degree assault.

The Posts

On May 7, five days after the incident, the Calvert County Republican Party Facebook page, which is run by the Calvert County Republican Central Committee, posted an update. Their post stated that CCSO had identified persons of interest in the case, though CCSO had not posted anything about the case on their own Facebook page. The Republican page shared the physical descriptions of the suspects and added “heavyset” to describe the female, which is not present in the victim’s description in the charging documents.

The Republican Party page also claimed a $500 reward was being offered for “information leading to a positive identification,” which led to confusion, as many residents mistakenly thought CCSO was offering the reward.

Republican Central Committee Chair Josh Johnson later confirmed that the reward was being offered by a private sponsor but did not specify whether it had been paid to anyone.

On May 13, the Calvert County Republican Party page posted another update announcing that Wright had been charged with second-degree assault for the incident on May 2. Again, there was no post by CCSO corroborating this information. The post was shared widely in community Facebook groups and by residents; at the time of publication, the Republican Party post is still up. It has 370 comments and 296 shares, leading many in the community to express their concern over the post’s veracity and its effects in adding to the emotional climate following the assault.

Comments on the post range from gratitude for CCSO, grief over political violence, to a discussion about Wright’s child and her involvement with LGBTQ causes. Some commenters focused on Wright’s physical appearance and drew negative assumptions about her political leanings.

Wright created her own post that day, recounting her personal evidence and claiming that she’d been falsely accused.

The popular Facebook group, Lovin’ Life in the Twin Beaches, took down their posts regarding the incident. The admin of the page later posted an explanation for removing their original post on May 14, expressing regret for adding to the pile-on and disdain over the comments on her post and others, saying the post was “bombarded with inappropriate, rude and mean comments that were not necessary, as well as people demanding more substantial documentation, like a police report.” She added that though she’d posted in good faith, she “certainly underestimated the incredible mean and nastiness of people. I could not keep up with deleting of comments.”

Johnson said that he doesn’t personally run the Republican Facebook page, nor is it under his direct supervision. He didn’t name the person in charge of the page, either, saying that they were experiencing “some transitions.”

He also said he was not aware of all the comments on the post about Wright. He maintains that the post was meant to share information with the community and that it was normal for people to get emotional given the situation.

“I’m disheartened to hear that we had anything like that,” he said. “I think that, really on whatever political spectrum, that violence isn’t right, and there were some individuals that were heated on both sides of the conversation. We wouldn’t condone that, clearly.”

Johnson is certainly right in saying that social media is a “new dimension” for political debate. Facebook is over two decades old, but its technology is still evolving. And so is the way we conduct ourselves over disagreements.

The truth will be determined in court. The social media storm in a small community like the Beaches speaks volumes about the way we consume information and how it adds fuel to fires that we may not otherwise choose to light.

The Accused

In conversations, Wright is careful to straddle the line between disbelief and anger over her accusation and her respect for the justice system.

“I took an oath to defend our Constitution,” she said. “I spent twenty years supporting a spouse as he fought for our country. I believe that everyone has the right to stand up for what they think and value. Even if I don’t agree with it, everyone has that right.”

She hopes that the evidence will show in court that she was not in attendance at First Friday (she claims to have video evidence of this fact, though The BayNet could not confirm this) and that the judge will see that the witness’s photo identifications are not compelling enough evidence.

As for how her name was first brought into the conversation, Wright has ideas. She calls the incident “bizarre” and references her community work, as well as campaign work outside of the county. Still, she says she prefers working behind the scenes. She runs the Facebook page Calvert County Parents for Practical Solutions, but insists she’s “not a known person” and hasn’t attended a school board meeting since January.

“I’ve never been interested in being the face of a cause,” she said. Instead, she feels like she got swept up in a social media storm as people frantically looked for a way to point a finger — and for someone to point it at.

Wright fretted often over the well-being of the victim — first, over her physical recovery, and in later conversations, about her mental health. Wright has volunteered in the community for most of her life and said she was on the verge of quitting in light of this event.

“I think about that volunteer,” she said. “If I feel this way, how must she feel? I can’t imagine a world where people are afraid to volunteer for a cause because they worry about being physically assaulted. We just can’t live in a world like that. I’m just glad she’s okay but, you know, the person who did this to her is still out there.”

She emphasized that she and her husband simply do not hold values that would lead to them being involved in this incident.

“This is not who we are,” she said. “I have plenty of Republicans in my family and while we don’t agree, it’s never come to violence. That’s never even been a thought in my mind.”

Perhaps that’s where common ground can come in — Johnson also expressed disdain for political violence and full and robust support for the justice system.

Johnson shared his hope that “everyone could find common ground and common values, and come together on the things that matter,” like good schools and maintaining a rural, family-friendly lifestyle in Calvert County. He said the media was partly responsible for the heightened partisan climate due to “sensationalizing” and that he didn’t remember having these issues growing up. “If cooler heads prevailed,” he said, “we’d be less inclined to fight these battles against each other.”

“If we just respect everybody, then we don’t have any challenges whatsoever,” he said, citing the Calvert County Board of Education’s recent actions on the code of conduct. “I think that’s what the board is trying to do right now, is to just get back to just being able to respect everybody.”

As for ways to conduct ourselves online? Nobody seems to have an adequate answer for enforcing respect or how to stop social media from influencing real-world behavior. But in a small community like the Beaches, online activity has real, immediate and clear effects. Most residents of Calvert have seen firsthand how fast social media can raise money for sick kids, spread the word on an incredible event or connect people to new friends. On one hand, social media can show us the value of stepping into someone else’s world. But when it comes to respecting our deeply held differences, it doesn’t seem any closer to being the bridge it once promised — and might even be our most flammable substance of all.

Contact our news desk at news@thebaynet.com