NC Democrat Charged For Spitting On Protester At Pride Event Co-Sponsored By Sex Offender
A pattern of violence, anger, denial at Union County Pride
Assault charges have been filed against Derek Warriner, an executive officer with the Union County, South Carolina Democratic Party, for spitting on a protester at a Pride event held in Crossing Paths Park.
Brian Talbert says that at about 2:30 in the afternoon of 11 October, Mr. Warriner exited the Pride event, walked straight toward him, and spit at him in the presence of law enforcement officers. “He didn’t even say a word after that.”
The spitter was a complete stranger. “I had never met him before,” Mr. Talbert tells The Distance. “The first time I saw him was when he spit on me.” Alert for threats, Mr. Talbert says he was already taking a step back and blocked the spit with his sign.
Mr. Talbert says that he complained immediately to a deputy. “The spit was still rolling down my sign” as “I pointed out who had done it”, he says. When the deputy was reluctant to act, “I said, ‘So if I go and spit on one of their signs, I’m not going to be arrested, correct?’ He never said a word.”
Mr. Talbert says he then confronted Mr. Warriner, who was completing a purchase at the food truck outside the venue, and followed him back to the entrance. “I got really loud, screaming, basically: ‘This is the coward that spit on me’” and complaining about the inaction of sheriff’s deputies.
When Mr. Warriner walked back inside the park, “I [still] had no idea who he was”, Mr. Talbert says. When he posted a photo of Warriner in a Facebook group, however, Talbert quickly learned that the spitter was a local Democratic Party official.
Still, Talbert wanted to be absolutely sure of the identification, “so I went to the Sheriff’s Department that Monday” 13 October to make a report. “It took a week for them to do the investigation”, Mr. Talbot tells The Distance.
He says the body cameras of deputies were used to confirm the identification. Based on the overwhelming evidence, Talbot filed a charge of simple assault seven days after making the report.
According to the Union County Democratic Party Executive Committee web page, Mr. Warriner (he/him pronouns) is the 2nd Vice Chair, “responsible for planning and organizing training and education for WCDP officers, leaders, precinct chairs, and volunteers.”
According to the Union County Sherrif’s Office website, Mr. Warriner was arrested on Tuesday afternoon at 1:45. The case number is 202508379. Warriner was of course immediately released on his own recognizance.
“I’m not looking for the guy to go to jail,” Mr. Talbert says. Rather, the assault charge “is to my advantage when he’s running for office. When he’s out at his campaign rallies or whatever, talking to voters and stuff, I’m going to be there. I’m going to be stuck on him like white on rice.” There will be long-term consequences, in other words.
Mr. Talbert, 56, made national news in Charlotte when he was the first gay person to be kicked out of a pride parade for supporting Donald Trump in 2016. He began protesting Pride for not allowing Republicans to take part and soon began working with Gays Against Groomers (GAG).
By the time Mr. Talbert stepped down as GAG’s North Carolina state director in 2024 after two and a half years in the job, counter-demonstrations at Pride events involving children had become his primary focus. “I’m not against Pride events,” Mr. Talbert tells The Distance. “I think it’s everyone’s own choice if they want to do that. When it involves children, that’s when I’m against it.”
On 11 October, Mr. Talbert was protesting a Pride event co-sponsored by the LGBT Chamber of Commerce. “The president of that organization is Chad Turner,” a convicted child molester listed on the North Carolina sex offender registry. Qnotes, a gay magazine, covered Turner’s initial resignation in 2016 when his status as a sex offender had been exposed.
Union County Pride “will ban Republicans from being part of it, but they’ll co-sponsor with a convicted child molester,” Mr. Talbert notes. He says the message on his sign, the one that evidently made Mr. Warriner spitting mad, directly referenced the co-sponsorship of Chad Turner. Presumably it was the message that offended Mr. Warriner.
Mr. Turner spoke at the 2023 Union County Pride conference, but he is no longer allowed to attend their events. Dexter Wilson, the Police Chief of Waxhaw, North Carolina, has reportedly told Mr. Turner he will be arrested if he comes to a Pride event in Union County.
Mr. Turner has been welcomed at other Pride events in the state however, most recently one in Charlotte during August. That’s because he still has good friends in the LGBT caucus of the state Democratic Party.
Cristal Robinson, a Union County attorney who uses they/them pronouns, has been working with Mr. Turner since 2020, when he was reinstated president and CEO of the North Carolina LGBT Chamber of Commerce. Cristal was working as the Director of Advocacy and Policy at the time.
Ms. Robinson lost her bid for a state house seat in 2024 by a wide margin. Throughout the campaign, Brian Talbert and Lisa Metzger dogged Robinson with questions and concerns about the pedophile at her 2023 conference in Union County.
The Union County Pride Festival responded to the attacks by denying that Chad Turner had ever been “a leader, staff member, or organizer” and had not been present for UCP events since 2023.
In an attempt to flip the script, UCP also claimed that Mr. Talbot, Ms. Metzger, Libs of TikTok, “and even the Mayor of Monroe, NC, Robert Burns, has fueled harassment of our leadership. These false statements have gone so far as to accuse members of our board, including our President, Cristal Robinson, of being sex offenders.” This statement is itself false.
UCP is still accepting co-sponsorships and other arrangements with the LGBT Chamber. Under ordinary circumstances, it would be considered poor character and fitness for a member of the North Carolina state bar to let a sex offender fund, or co-fund, their event, or to falsely accuse her own accusers.
But Ms. Robinson is no ordinary lawyer. She has been on the SOGI (Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity) committee of the North Carolina Bar Association since 2021. Policy capture through special committees has historically been the primary mode by which larger organizations — the AMA, the APA, the Endocrine Society, etc. — are captured by genderwoo.
Chad Turner is not the only problematic character associated with Ms. Robinson and UCP. Brian ‘Kara’ Murphy, a man who identifies as a transgender woman, is the secretary of UCP. According to the UCP web page, Mr. Murphy “plays a significant role in organizing events for Union County Pride, advocating for visibility and acceptance of transgender individuals.”
A defender of drag queen story hour, Mr. Murphy “spoke out against protests related to drag shows in Monroe, emphasizing that such events can provide positive and neutral representations of LGBTQ+ lives, which can be beneficial for children.” Mr. Murphy is very keen on grooming children.
Mr. Murphy physically intimidated Lisa Metzger and two other women protesting a 2024 UCP event that was aimed at kids. Using a flagpole, Murphy repeatedly tried to initiate physical contact with them. The incident was partially captured on video.
“Mr. Murphy’s attorney threatened to sue me, and Gays Against Groomers North Carolina, if we did not take down the video”, Mr. Talbert tells The Distance. “Our attorney informed him that the video would be staying up.”
While Murphy was never charged for the incident, Monroe Mayor Robert Burns — identified by Ms. Robinson as “fuel[ing] harassment of our leadership” — recently pressed charges against Mr. Murphy for cyberstalking.
“Since I got into office, this person posts about me — and I’m not exaggerating — maybe about eight times a day,” Burns said. “And so, it’s been going on for a year over a year now.”
Burns described the situation as “escalating,” with Murphy calling him a “neo-Nazi. “He also spoke of similar harassment of friends, family and local businesses. For those reasons, Burns said he was moving forward with legal remedies because “somebody’s got to be held accountable.”
Sources tell The Distance that as a result of the new criminal charge, Mr. Murphy was also fired from his nursing job at Atrium Health, which provided the venue for UCP’s 2025 conference in June.
Then there is the strange case of James Gallmeier. The Distance first reported on Gallmeier, an autogynephile, in 2023 when he was made a board member of the local chapter of the National Organization for Women. Mr. Gallmeier was quietly removed from the board one year later.
At the time, Gallmeier was lobbying against legislation that would give parents more input in classroom curricula and ensure notification of any ‘gender’ changes in their children at school. Mr. Gallmeier has received a business grant from the Carolina LGBTQ+ Chamber of Commerce.
Finally, UCP events have been co-sponsored by the Pauli Murray LGBTQ Bar Association. Cristal Robinson has been president of the organization in the past. In 2024, organization president Candelario Saldana wore a cape emblazoned with the word “PEDOPHILE” at a fundraiser.
Brian Talbert has protested the involvement of these people in Pride events aimed at children for years. Ironically, like most TERFs, he began on the political left.
As a young man, Mr. Talbert would be at local gay bars and clubs when “around 11 o’clock, 12 o’clock midnight, the Democratic Party would literally come into the bar and sign people up to vote, and that’s how I became a Democrat”, Mr. Talbert tells The Distance. “They told me how much the Republicans hated me.”
It was 1988. He became a Republican in 1994, he says, because none of the terrible things those Democrats had warned him that the GOP would do to gay people turned out to be true.
When he began to learn more about conservatism, Mr. Talbert found himself agreeing with it. Conservatives embraced him as an openly gay man. “I’ve been more accepted by the Republican Party than I was by the Democrat Party,” he says.
After all, the Democrats literally spit on him for pointing out that they have sex offenders hanging around their Pride events.
Reduxx has also covered Mr. Turner. He was convicted of fondling three unconscious teenage boys while working as a Music Minister at New Harvest Church of God in Gaffney, South Carolina. Still, in 2023 he received a Harvey Milk Award from Charlotte Pride, because they are so very proud of him.
Turner has been mentioned by other news publications such as The Daily Mail, The Post Millennial, and most recently the Daily Wire during the 2024 state Attorney General race. The newly elected AG Jeff Jackson won his race despite having his embrace with Mr. Turner shared across X.
Most people would refuse to touch Chad Turner, but North Carolina Democrats embrace him. Most people would be concerned by what Brian Talbert told them about Chad Turner and want to know more. Instead, North Carolina Democrats spit on Mr. Talbert for the crime of reminding them who Chad Turner is.
We have attempted to contact Mr Warriner for comment and will update if he replies.
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