Three people were tragically killed in an oceanfront shooting in Southport, North Carolina, on Saturday, Sept. 27. The American Fish Company, a popular local pub, was hit with a spray of bullets from an AR rifle around 9:30 p.m., immediately ending the lives of three people and injuring at least eight. The suspect, 40-year-old retired Marine and Purple Heart recipient Nigel Max Edge, was apprehended a little ways down the coast from Southport, attempting to board a boat off of Oak Island.
Edge is being charged with three counts of first-degree murder, five counts of attempted first-degree murder and five counts of assault with a deadly weapon. Southport police department’s public information officer, ChyAnn Ketchum, communicated a statement from the District Attorney’s office, which said, “This was an individual, highly premeditated, targeted attack.”
A small seaside community in coastal North Carolina, Southport is a town truly representative of the spirit of Southern hospitality. Southport resident Carmen Tucker has lived in a quiet neighborhood in the shoreside town for over two years now, and stated, “Southport has virtually no history of violent crime. We don’t even feel the need to lock our doors. In my time living here, there have been no incidents even remotely close to this.” Ketchum recalled her own reaction to learning about the shooting. “You don’t think it’ll happen to your city until it does,” she stated, expressing her shock.
The American Fish Company is a popular local spot, with a patio and bar extending out over the Intracoastal Waterway, often featuring drinks and live music. “It overlooks the Cape Fear River with views of both Bald Head Island lighthouse and Oak Island lighthouse,” Tucker explained, also pointing out that the AFC is an attractive tourist location. Edge used this surfside design to his advantage, opening fire from the deck of a boat that was spotted sitting in the Southport Yacht Basin. Tucker and her husband are frequent patrons of the AFC. When detailing her reaction to learning of the events at AFC, she said, “When I heard about the shooting, my immediate reaction was tears, and fear that any of my friends or family may have been involved. I began checking in with people to confirm their safety. Had we not been out of town for our anniversary, we easily could have been there.”
As Southport and Oak Island’s police departments continue to search for a definitive motive, they are also working to uncover the past of the shooter. As Ketchum stated, “The two police departments are working very well together, in addition to the Brunswick County Sheriff’s Office and the NC State Bureau of Investigation.” Edge has self-identified as a combat veteran suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), but new information suggests that he changed his name in recent years from Sean DeBevoise.
DeBevoise was one of the many patriots who boosted military enlistment following the terrorist attacks of 9/11, and later served as a Marine in Iraq. He suffered multiple gunshot wounds in his military service, one of which was to the head, before being honorably discharged from service in 2009. On Sept. 11, 2020, Edge – as Sean DeBevoise – published a book, titled “Headshot: Betrayal of a Nation (Truth Hurts),” in which he details his experience as a Marine in Iraq and claims to tell stories that the United States Military, as he puts it, “doesn’t want you to know.”
The trend of former soldiers turned to gunmen is a disturbingly prevalent truth in modern American news. Only a day after Edge’s attack, a Mormon church in Grand Blanc Township, Michigan, was fired upon. The perpetrator, 40-year-old Thomas Sanford, was a veteran of the Iraqi Freedom Operation, a U.S. military initiative carried out during the on-and-off conflicts in the Middle East following the 9/11 attacks. Sanford hit the church with his pickup truck, opening fire upon the occupants and causing a fire in the church, quoting his hatred for the Mormon sect and his belief that they represent the antichrist as his motive for the terrible acts.
Notably, Edge served in the same operation as Sanford during his time as a Marine, at the time still known as DeBevoise. After taking a bullet to the head, doctors recommended that he was to be in a wheelchair for the remainder of his life. However, Edge did not comply.
Leading up to the shooting at AFC, a longtime friend of Edge who served with him in Iraq noted some concerning changes in Edge’s behavior. In a Facebook post following Edge’s arrest, a long-time acquaintance mentioned signs of mental instability and aggression, which urged him and his wife to create some distance from Edge. Insisting upon calling Edge by his original name of DeBevoise, as he knew him in their time together as Marines, the man later claimed that if the justice system could have taken his recommendations on Edge’s mental state seriously, the shooting could have been prevented.
Despite his honorable discharge from the Marine Corp, Edge is no stranger to encounters with law enforcement. In March of this year, he filed a suit against the American government and his parents, demanding damages for crimes against humanity, forging a birth certificate and violation of the Eighth Amendment to the United States Constitution (prevention of cruel and unusual punishment). Edge also repeatedly attempted to place blame on the LGBTQ community when referring to the motives of his parents and of certain Clarkstown, NC law enforcement officers, labeling them as “white supremacists” and accusing his own parents of poisoning him. In this case, he was denied the jury’s verdict because the “plaintiff’s complaint did not allege facts giving rise to a plausible inference of a constitutional violation by defendants,” as stated in the court’s discussion.
Tucker spoke about her opinion involving the connection between gun violence and the shock to her community. She said, “I believe it’s very clear that the system is broken regarding mental health issues in our country. In tons of cases of gun violence in past years, there were warnings indicating that a shooter was mentally ill, and this should have been taken more seriously by the judicial system. In the incident here in Southport, that was certainly the case, and death likely could have been prevented.”
As Southport works to bounce back from another tragic shooting that fell on an American community, its inhabitants will use their neighborly network to support each other in a sad time. According to Tucker, “Emotionally, it will take time to heal, but we have each other’s backs. Already, people have organized events to raise money for lost revenue as the AFC recovers. Many other businesses are collecting donations that will go directly to employees who are losing wages from the business being closed.” The American Fish Company, which was known as “a friendly place where people of all ages frequently enjoyed beautiful sunsets, gazed at dolphins, and watched ships and boaters go by,” has announced that it will be indefinitely closing following the attack.
As Southport Police Officer ChyAnn Ketchum said, “Southport is resilient, and we will lean on each other to be ‘Southport Strong’ as we navigate this tragedy.” Southport is a town that will no doubt recover quickly, but this weekend’s events represent a much larger problem in today’s world. In Tucker’s description of Southport, she said, “This is a very small, tight-knit community filled with friendly faces. Friends quickly become like family. Everyone knows everyone and looks out for one another. The community’s level of trust that we live in a very safe place has been shattered by this incident.”
Saturday’s attack on the American Fish Company is just one incident of death by firearm in recent years. The quaint community of Southport will work to move past its grief, as plenty of American cities affected by gun violence plan to do as well, in hopes of recovering from the shock that a shooting causes.
