A North Carolina state Senate candidate posted about his ammunition and what might happen if police discovered him hiding in the woods, as SWAT officers searched for the armed politician during a lengthy standoff that sent a nearby school into lockdown.
Jonathan D. Miller, the Libertarian Party candidate, was taken into custody Monday afternoon after officers spent much of the day trying to locate him near his Cary apartment.
Police apprehended Miller around 3 p.m., ending the confrontation without anyone being injured, WRAL reported.
As officers searched the woods, Miller advertised his advantage over anyone attempting to approach him.
“I’ve got six shots and the high ground,” he wrote. “I hope they don’t find me, but if they do, it’s going to be a hell of a show.”
Authorities subsequently accused him of three offenses, communicating threats, resisting officers and going armed to the terror of people.
A private school near the police operation also entered lockdown while officers worked to locate the candidate.
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Protecting Miller and anyone who might cross his path was the priority, Cary Police Chief Terry Sult explained at a news conference.
“Our ultimate goal here was to protect life – his life and those that he might encounter – not knowing what his mindset was,” Sult stated.
Miller escaped into the trees after refusing to follow instructions from an officer who encountered him carrying a revolver outside his apartment.
The candidate recounted to WRAL that he deliberately refused an officer’s order to keep his hands away from his holstered weapon.
With the officer’s gun drawn, Miller put enough distance between them to flee into the woods behind his apartment complex.
The confrontation followed an approximately 8:26 a.m. police response to online messages that Miller had published the night before.
“I have decided I no longer wish to live and will be killing myself tonight,” he wrote in one of the posts.
Other statements described his emotional suffering and his belief that he could no longer tolerate it.
Police deployed SWAT officers and negotiators to help locate Miller in the wooded area.
Even while avoiding the officers, Miller spoke repeatedly with WRAL, offering the station his account of the confrontation as it unfolded.
He continued communicating through social media as well, commenting on the police pursuit and the extraordinary attention his earlier posts were receiving.
“Actually, millions of people have seen it,” Miller told WRAL. “I usually get about 50 views on my post, but this one has gone super viral on me.”
The candidate also described spending the previous night overwhelmed by sadness and anger before awakening the following morning without having harmed himself.
Miller feared that surrendering would lead to confinement in a hospital where, he believed, his mental health concerns would receive inadequate attention.
He questioned how much time a physician would devote to his problems and doubted that medication would improve his circumstances.
Miller hoped he could remain undetected long enough to leave Cary permanently.
By the final stages of the search, the police had brought dogs to the wooded area and maneuvered officers around his position.
“They have dogs so I’m probably done for,” he posted.
Miller had already claimed that officers nearly trapped him at approximately 1:46 p.m., when a conversation with a police negotiator coincided with a SWAT attempt to surround his position.
He maintained that he escaped after spotting an approaching officer before the team could close in. Officers captured him later that afternoon.
Sult credited the candidate’s conversations with WRAL for providing information that helped police understand the situation and communicate with him. “He was in a dark place,” the chief observed.
The Cary Police Department subsequently used Nextdoor to notify the community that normal vehicle and pedestrian movement could resume. Following the arrest, Miller was held at the Wake County Detention Center.
A separate arrest involving a California political candidate followed a weekend traffic stop, although the candidate denied impairment and maintained that an independently obtained toxicology test was negative for drugs.
Naindeep Singh, 48, is seeking Fresno City Council’s District One seat in a runoff election and also holds a trustee position with Central Unified’s school board.
Police in Fresno accused Singh of driving while impaired by drugs Saturday night. He rejected that allegation, insisting that he received a citation and was released rather than being arrested.
Singh maintained that he completed the sobriety tests administered by officers without failing them and later arranged additional toxicology testing that he claimed detected no drugs.
On a radio program, he questioned the decision to investigate possible drug use after officers initially focused on whether he had been drinking.
“Once I underwent a Breathalyzer test and passed it, the officer’s behavior changed. Then the officer started talking about drugs. I was nervous,” Singh recalled.
The encounter occurred around 11 p.m., following a visit to his parents in Madera and a trip to Fresno’s Tower District for tacos, according to the candidate.
He attributed the original stop to expired registration stickers, explaining that he had already paid his renewal fees but had yet to receive the replacements.
Singh also accused the officer who stopped him of behaving aggressively.
Singh’s account of the negative results concerned a test he arranged independently at Community Regional Medical Center early Sunday morning. Official findings from the police investigation had not yet been released.
During the earlier encounter, officers had taken him to the same hospital for a toxicology evaluation. Singh maintained that he cooperated, although his vehicle was impounded and his wife ultimately picked him up.
He called for a public examination of the officers’ conduct, including footage captured by their body cameras.
“I wish that everything comes out in a public forum, including body camera footage,” Singh declared.
Singh acknowledged a previous speeding violation but maintained that the new allegations were intended to undermine his election campaign.
He feared that the official laboratory findings would take weeks to arrive, potentially leaving him unable to contest the impairment accusation before voters decided the runoff.
