Wake County Sheriffs' Office participates in distribution of "Community Action IDs"
Wake County Sheriffs' Office participates in distribution of "Community Action IDs"
Wake County Sheriff Gerald Baker supports program; received an ID
On Friday, Mar. 18, Wake County Sheriff Gerald Baker took part in the distribution of “Community Action IDs” being processed at the offices of the left-leaning El Pueblo, Inc. in Raleigh, North Carolina.
Baker, a Democrat, is running for reelection in November of 2022. He is currently facing a packed candidate field of five other Democrats and three Republicans. One of the Republicans is Baker’s predecessor, former Wake County Sheriff Donnie Harrison, who had held the position from 2002 through 2018 when he lost to Baker.
The press release from Baker’s office says he “supports the program,” and “took time to observe the process and received his Community Action ID.”
“The Wake County Sheriff’s Office fully supports this important initiative,” Baker said in the press release. “In other communities where the IDs have been issued cardholders feel safer and are more likely to contact local law enforcement when they are in need or to report crimes in their communities. The Wake County Sheriff’s Office is here to serve every person that resides in this County.”
A Mar. 18 press release from the Wake County Sheriffs’ Office (WCSO) stated that around 150 of the IDs were processed as of the second day of processing.
“The FaithAction ID network partners provide card holders with a verifiable form of identification that can be used as a tool by law enforcement, health centers, schools, nonprofits, businesses, and cultural arts organizations to better identify, serve, and protect them,” the WCSO press statement says.
The WCSO statement acknowledges the IDs are “not state-issued forms of identification or a driver’s license,” but says that the ID cards provide “greater dignity and access to card holders, while building greater understanding, trust, and cooperation with community partners, including law enforcement.”
According to the FaithAction International House’s website, the “FaithAction and FaithAction ID network partners have provided over 30,000 ID cards” over the last eight years.
The cards given out by FaithAction went to “individuals who may not currently have access to government issued forms of ID, including new immigrants and refugees, homeless and elderly individuals, those recently returning from jail, and others who believe in a diverse and inclusive community.”
While FaithAction’s website claims over 30,000 cards have been given out, the WCSO press release claims “Over 15,000 residents have a FaithAction (or network partner) ID card throughout North and South Carolina, Florida, Iowa, Virginia, and Ohio.”
FaithAction International House was formed in 1997 in Greensboro, North Carolina as a 501(c)3. IRS 990 filings for the organization show its income almost doubling over a two-year period, going from $357,448 in 2018 to $622,374 in 2019.
According to Mapping The Left, a database of left-leaning organizations and individuals in North Carolina maintained by the conservative John Locke Foundation, El Pueblo is a “statewide radical liberal community organizing group, that has received over fifty-one percent of its grant money from Z Smith Reynolds – the biggest funder of liberal, left-wing causes in North Carolina.”
“It belongs to several of our state’s progressive left-wing networks, including Blueprint NC. El Pueblo was a founding member of Blueprint, the group that gained infamy with the strategy memo that directed their members to “eviscerate, mitigate, litigate, cogitate and agitate” the state’s leadership in 2013,” Mapping The Left’s profile of El Pueblo reads.
El Pueblo and FaithAction share a common donor, the Z. Smith Reynolds Foundation, which also has bankrolled Blueprint NC. El Pueblo has received over $675,000 from Z. Smith Reynolds since 2016. IRS filings for FaithAction filed in 2020 show the group received $25,000 from Z. Smith Reynolds.