North Carolina Protection Alliance Disbands, Accounts To Cease Across State

The North Carolina Protection Alliance, a statewide network of Instagram accounts that posted allegations of abuse sent in by followers in Raleigh, Charlotte, Wilmington, Asheville and other cities, abruptly disbanded on Sunday, posting a message that reads, “We are sad to say NCPA is dissolving.”

It’s unclear why the accounts are shutting down, and the announcement came less than a week after NCPA accounts announced a potential team expansion in Durham and Wilmington. As of Monday, Raleigh had deactivated its account entirely, while others remained up.

The NCPA Charlotte account was one of many offshoots of two original accounts, Greensboro and Raleigh, that launched last year almost simultaneously, as Queen City Nerve reported in October. After an alleged abuser threatened legal action against the organization, organizers joined forces and registered most of the branches as an LLC under the name North Carolina Protection Alliance so as to protect themselves from being held personally liable in court.

The Greensboro and Winston-Salem account organizers opted out of the LLC and remained independent entities. Greensboro’s account was deactivated in October 2020, and no one has posted on the Winston-Salem account since November. 

The account removed multiple allegation posts in November after facing backlash from some who claimed organizers were not doing their due diligence in vetting claims against local residents. A statement posted to the account on Nov. 24 stated that organizers had received “an unusually high number of emails and messages from the community questioning the validity of the stories, or providing direct evidence contradicting statements provided.” 

The account later posted a cease-and-desist letter that organizers had received from lawyers representing one of the alleged abusers, mocking it and refusing to remove allegations, before removing the letter from the account shortly thereafter. 

Following its post removals, Charlotte NCPA did continue posting specific allegations against people, while sharing more resource-based posts as well, including educational posts about grooming and cyber flashing as well as links to toy drives and crowd-sourced recommendations for safe tattoo shops. 

On Saturday, the Charlotte NCPA account posted that its organizers would be “out of the office until Tuesday to focus on our mental health and ways to serve the community.” Then on Sunday, they shared the post announcing the network’s dissolution. 

An organizer with NCPA’s Charlotte chapter told Queen City Nerve on Monday that they would be “releasing more information in the next few days.” We will update this story as more information becomes known. 

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