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Wrightsville Beach
Tuesday, March 19, 2024

Bloody late-night incident shows challenges facing Wrightsville Beach police on holiday weekend

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It’s after 2 a.m. and the bars in the central business district have closed early Sunday morning on July 3 as officers from the Wrightsville Beach Police Department help guide the crowd of mostly college-aged revelers safely out of the area. They hurry along stopped cars, usher the teeming crowds back towards the sidewalk and help keep the peace.

Reports of a fight sent a platoon of a few officers towards South Lumina Avenue by The Trolly Stop, where there’s some jawing between two small groups of people, but any physical confrontation is over for now.

The same wasn’t true around the corner at Wynn Plaza. A few minutes later, at least five officers respond to the plaza where a man is wounded, bleeding and in a daze. The injured man’s jaw was noticeably swollen and possibly broken.

According to one man claiming to be his friend, the injured man — bleeding a red pool onto his white jeans — was sucker punched. But officers like Wrightsville Beach Police Sgt. G. Gowin and Cpl. S. Appler aren’t so sure that’s how it went down and they’ve got evidence to fuel their suspicions. There’s blood around the driver’s side door of the white Dodge Challenger by where they found the injured man.

The man has the key to the car but won’t let officers in. The man argues, “He’s my boy, he’s like a brother to me!”

Gowin counters: “If he’s your boy, if he’s your brother, how come you won’t help us find out what happened to him?”

Wrightsville Beach police officers on July 3 examine the traces of blood where they believe an injured man received his wounds. Staff photo by Terry Lane.
Wrightsville Beach police officers on July 3 examine the traces of blood where they believe an injured man received his wounds. Staff photo by Terry Lane.

They shine their flashlights through the windshield, where Appler sees drops of freshly-shed blood on the mini-umbrella wedged into the crevice by the driver’s seat. The man yells at the officers: “You need a warrant!”

To look into the car, they don’t. But gaining entry into the car is another question. Meanwhile, the injured man, head bandaged, is led to the back of the ambulance, bound for New Hanover Regional Medical Center.

While the other officers on scene sort it out, Appler leaves to continue his patrol. There’s a lot for officers to keep an eye on during the Independence Day weekend, when Wrightsville Beach’s population can grow by ten times or more with the influx of visitors.

“The number of people here make the season more of a challenge,” Appler said. “There are thousands of people out, but there’s only six of us to deal with it. You have to pick your battles.” 

The New Hanover County Sheriff’s Office also deployed two deputies to the business district, but investigating crimes is left mostly to the Wrightsville Beach Police Department, who are tasked with handling everything from citizen complaints to serious injury.

Most of Appler’s calls were somewhat ordinary. A handful were noise complaints, including one at a rental house on house in the 600 block of Waynick Avenue, where a caller said a beer bottle was thrown into the street. There’s glass on the street and the impact show that the bottle could have come from the porch. The men claim they’re drinking from cans.  With little evidence to process, Appler gives them a noise warning and they take their conversations back into the house.

To deal with the volume, officers like Appler are sometimes able to multitask. When two cars heading west simultaneously ran the red light at Causeway and North Channel drives, Appler demonstrated how to pull them both over at once. He swings a quick u-turn from the eastbound right lane, activates his sirens and pulls up behind the first car, a black sedan. He then accelerates past the sedan to show the driver of the white SUV that he too is pulled over. Appler maneuvers his police SUV to the center of the lane, to keep the black sedan from passing, lest the driver think he was off the hook.

One driver received a written warning. But since the other had a revoked license, he and his passengers had to call for a ride from Uber while police issued him a citation and moved the SUV to the Seapath Towers.

A 16-year veteran of the Wrightsville Beach Police Department, Appler is also one of the few officer that lives in the town. During his patrol, he stops to chat with friends who have ridden by on bicycle. They give him an update on what’s happening downtown before trading stories about their kids and making plans for the weekend. It’s this community connection that Appler said inspires him to be a police officer in Wrightsville Beach.

“The police are part of this community. And working in the community where I know the people so well, it gives you a different perspective of who you serve,” Appler said. “That’s why I’m here. It’s about establishing trust and building relationships. The better you get to know people here, the more support you feel.”

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