While violent crime has declined statewide in North Carolina, it has soared by 16.5% in Vance County, which elected its first black sheriff in 2006

In Henderson, a city of 16,100 residents in Vance County, North Carolina, the population is 59% African-American. There was a drive-by shooting in December 2011, an African-American murder victim was found in a field in September 2011, an African-American was charged with 84 counts of burglary in June 2011, and nine African-Americans were arrested in May 2011 and were charged with 350 felonies in connection with 27 home invasions in Henderson. In 2009, the New York Times interactive map showed that 40% of African-Americans in Vance County were on food stamps. In other words, Vance County is just one more place where you get the trinity of blacks, poverty and crime.