Chase of an African-American Couple Ends at Police Station

By Staff Reports

Oxford, NC – Claims of a racially motivated crime in the Oxford community have some residents in shock. All parties, including the NAACP are speaking out in the Granville County ethnic intimidation case.

The incident stemmed from a long-running feud that came to an end on June 8. Dionne Hensley and her fiancée James Maye were circulating flyers around the Oxford area advising people not to shop at a certain business. That’s when they said Anthony Finch just snapped.

Police investigations
say the terrifying situation started when Anthony Dale Finch jumped
into his car and chased the vehicle occupied by Hensley and Mayes on
Route 158 and into Vance County while pointing a gun at them and
screaming racially-charged obscenities. The car chase didn’t end until
both vehicles returned back into Grandville County, where police
arrested 45-year old Finch in the parking lot of the Oxford Police
Department. “There was several slander words used here, even in the
presence of the officers,” according to Capt. Glen Boyd.

“I was hysterical by the time we got to the police department in
Oxford,” said Hensley. “My child could have been killed in the back
seat of that car, if the child was in there! He could have shot and
killed us all – This situation was just uncalled for, the entire
incident was terrifying – and there have been many sleepless nights,”
said Hensley.

Finch, the initiator of the chase accounts differs in contrast to
Hensley and Maye. “If I’d had any intent to hurt either one of these
people, I could have done it well before we reached Oxford,” said
Finch. “I went to the police department and went in a circle twice,
yelling out the window, ‘Stop that car!’ At no time did I make racial
slurs, or anything. If I had a thought for one minute this was about
race, I would have never chased them down,” Finch said.

Finch a former City of Henderson police officer is alleged to have ties
to the areas Ku Klux Klan. Police found a picture of Finch in a Ku Klux
Klan outfit. Finch said of the pictures – it was a Halloween gag. Finch
also wears Knights of the KKK tattoo on his arm, and had a Klan logo
license plate on the front of his truck.

Police charged Finch with ethnic intimidation and pointing a firearm at
the couple. In addition to the case of alleged ethnic intimidation,
Finch was charged with several misdemeanors for his actions and
released on $4,900 bond.

The Granville NAACP chapter president, Duane Coleman, said of this and
other incidences, “Oxford has some serious long-running racial issues.
If we don’t see more charges filed against Finch, we will ask for
federal investigators to step in, but we hope it doesn’t come to that.”

NC NAACP President William Barber
In a challenge issued to state legislator in Raleigh Reverend Doctor
William Barber said, “We’re here today to demand and challenge our
Lawmakers. They must take a stand against racial violence and racial
disparity. It’s time to do something about this most recent example of
racial violence, and the best antidote to this ugliness is to expose it
to the bright daylight.”

NAACP Attorney Al McSurley

NAACP state legal redress attorney Al McSurely who has been working
within the organization at local, state and national levels since 1967,
will advise and assist the local chapter with a variety of legal issues
it expects to encounter. He described a new day in the NAACP, where
members will no longer dress up and go to banquets, but once again
become a fighting civil-rights organization.