A man was arrested Thursday for allegedly carrying a pocket knife into the Orange County Courthouse ahead of his trial related to charges associate with the toppling of the Confederate monument on the UNC campus known as Silent Sam last August.
Authorities said Shawn Thomas Birchfield-Finn entered the courthouse Thursday morning and removed items from his pockets and placed them in a bowl before walking through a metal detector.
“As he passed through the machine, the metal detector went off,” according to a release from the Orange County Sheriff’s Office. “Deputies conducted a search and found a 3 ½ inch Buck pocket knife that Birchfield-Finn had not removed from his pocket when he removed other items.”
He was charged with possession of a weapon on state property or courthouse grounds, according to law enforcement.
Several trials were scheduled for Thursday and are expected to go into Friday related to cases stemming from charges against those accused of toppling the Confederate monument.
Authorities said Birchfield-Finn was also served with an outstanding criminal summons from Durham County on simple assault charges.
His trial on the charges from last August was scheduled to continue Thursday, according to the release, and he was assigned an early-May court date for the new charge.
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