RALEIGH — A $100,000 reward is being offered in the case of a Wake County sheriff’s deputy found fatally shot along a dark stretch of road in rural southeastern Wake County last week.
“Horrified” by a string of shootings that have injured and killed several deputies in the state in recent weeks, the North Carolina Sheriffs’ Association announced the reward Monday for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the person or people responsible for the killing of Wake County Sheriff’s Deputy Ned Byrd. The 48-year-old K-9 officer had been with the office for 13 years. Byrd joined the sheriff’s office as a detention officer in 2009 and was sworn in as a deputy in 2018, according to the sheriff’s office.
“A law enforcement officer’s primary duties are to safeguard lives and property and to serve the public. Doing so comes with risk. All law enforcement officers accept this risk when they first take their oath of office, and at the beginning of each subsequent shift. We extend our support to every law enforcement officer; we know these shootings make the burdens of your service heavier and the dangers of your work feel imminently more threatening,” the association said in a statement. “A safe, civil, and peaceful society requires a collective commitment to decency and to following public standards; it also requires a system of accountability in our communities for those who violate the law.”
Byrd was fatally shot late Thursday on a dark section of Battle Bridge Road, but it was not immediately clear why he stopped there, sheriff’s office spokesperson Eric Curry said last week. Byrd had responded to a domestic call less than a mile away earlier in the night, then entered his notes into the system, he said.
There was no radio traffic to indicate that Byrd was making a traffic stop, but it appears something caught his attention along the road, since his vehicle was positioned as if to illuminate something, Curry said. When Byrd did not respond to several attempts to contact him, another deputy found Byrd shot outside his vehicle with his K-9 still inside the vehicle, he said. Law enforcement officers from multiple agencies joined the “manhunt for the perpetrator or perpetrators,” Curry said.
There is still an active investigation, Curry said Monday. The North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation, FBI and Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives have joined in the investigation, Curry said.
Sheriff Gerald Baker updated the Wake County commissioners Monday, saying he was satisfied with the investigation’s progress, news outlets reported. Baker, who lost the Democratic primary runoff, vowed to spend his remaining time in office working to find whoever is responsible.
“I don’t have very long, but I’ll spend every single second left bringing this person to justice,” Baker said. “That I promise. That I vow.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
