‘RED FLAGS’

Sheriff Who Backed Rep. Madison Cawthorn Yanks Support Over Riots

The North Carolina Republican spoke at the rally that preceded the Capitol insurrection.

A North Carolina lawman who endorsed Rep. Madison Cawthorn has pulled his support because the freshman Republican spoke at the rally before a violent mob stormed the Capitol. “As a law-enforcement officer, I should have seen the red flags,” former Henderson County Sheriff George Erwin told The Charlotte Observer. Cawthorn, who was accused of sexual harassment before he became the youngest congressman, has insisted he bears no blame for what happened after he spoke to the crowd on Jan. 6. But Erwin isn’t having it. “Words mean things. You can inflame a group and you can calm a group by the words you used. To me, he inflamed,” Erwin said. “You rile people up and then afterwards, you’re going to say, ‘Well, this is appalling. This is appalling and I back the blue.’ No, you don’t. You fired these people up and the first line of defense was law enforcement. People are dead. You can’t take that back.”