The Haywood County Sheriff’s Office is investigating an incident involving a deputy shown in a viral video that captured a clash between a truck driver and a group of men at a private dump near Clyde.
The incident was filmed and posted on TikTok on June 27 and shows a group of white men in construction-style clothing cursing, aggressively confronting, and threatening a Black truck driver, who goes by “BossedUpp Ent” on TikTok. It appears another man, who was at the site, filmed another point of view of the incident.
On Wednesday, the truck driver wrote that he took down the footage from social media, saying, “For my healing and peace of mind, I need to remove the videos. Thank you for standing with me.”
But hundreds of videos that were made in reaction to the incident or calling the incident racist remain on the app.
The company that manages the dump site said the videos only “present a partial and misleading account of an incident.”
During the confrontation, part-time deputy Michael Buckner – who also works as a safety manager for Wright Brothers Construction Company – is seen approaching the driver of the truck and instructing him to get in his truck.
In a statement posted to their Instagram, Wright Brothers stated that Buckner was not at the site on company business, but was instead acting as a sheriff’s deputy “while still on our clock.” The company is reviewing the situation, according to the statement.
The company is also leading repairs to sections of WNC roads, including in the Chimney Rock and Bat Cave areas.
“We are aware of a video circulating online that shows individuals engaging in behavior many have rightfully called out as racist and unacceptable. We want to be absolutely clear: the individuals depicted in the video do not work for Wright Brothers Construction, and the location shown is not a Wright Brothers jobsite,” the Wright Brothers wrote.
The Haywood County Sheriff’s Office is also investigating the incident, according to a spokeswoman. Buckner has been a part-time deputy since 2019.
The site is operated by Two Banks Development, which is owned by Eric Spirtas. Spirtas also owns Spirtas Worldwide, which purchased the Canton papermill last year.
In a statement, the company stated that the video did not tell the entire story of the confrontation.
“This incident - the only case of serious noncompliance involving a third-party truck driver out of more than 30,000 successful truckloads received to date - involved a contracted driver who violated site policies and engaged in aggressive behavior on site. The video being circulated omits critical elements of the incident,” the statement read.
Spirtas did not detail what those aggressive behaviors were but confirmed that the company was not pressing charges on the unnamed driver and that “law enforcement was called immediately, and we appreciate their quick intervention.”
Deputy in video
In the video, Buckner is filmed wearing a construction hat with a Wright Brothers logo and hi-vis vest like most of the other men.
Buckner is filmed telling the driver to “shut the door and shut your mouth” while pushing the truck’s door closed. The man filming asks if he is the sheriff, and Buckner responds that he is. Buckner then closes the door, which appears to clip the driver’s dog, who can be heard yelping in the background.
The driver opens the door again to confront Buckner, who then points at him and says, “I’m going to put you in jail,” while pushing the door closed again. The driver blocks him, and Buckner walks away.
BPR News has requested an incident report from the sheriff’s office and left phone messages with a number provided by the man who posted the videos on TikTok, requesting an interview.
Videos and captions offer narrative
The driver, whom BPR has not been able to contact despite phone calls and messages, wrote that he was delivering mulch to Two Banks Development landfill in Clyde. The company is also known as TBD.
He stated that he arrived at the dump site 45 minutes early “without knowing that I wasn’t supposed to be there that early.” An employee approached the driver and told him that he was not supposed to be there that early and that normally drivers park up the street and wait until opening time.
He replied that he wasn’t aware of the protocol and agreed to turn around. The employee told him “not to worry about it. We’re about to open up. I’m going to open the gate, just don’t come in until 6:30 [a.m.]”
The dump site has been receiving debris from private contractors since cleanup began after Hurricane Helene. Managing the traffic of these debris-hauling trucks involves a thorough system of logistics and recordkeeping of what is dumped for the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
At one point, the traffic became so congested that the N.C. Highway Patrol mandated trucks start a queue a mile away from the dump and issued a 6:30 a.m. start time, according to reporting from The Mountaineer.
Following another back-and-forth with a man he claimed was the owner’s son, the driver then agreed to line up behind other trucks that were waiting in a designated area.
Soon after, the driver wrote, the man returned with five other men – one who was armed – claiming to be missing his cell phone. The men argue for about 30 minutes and the driver agrees to let the men search his truck. They don’t find the phone inside the truck and, after checking security cameras, allow the driver up the site to dump his load of mulch, according to the video caption.
The men then approached the driver again, claiming he found his phone near the truck on the ground, the driver wrote. The men ran to the truck to confront the driver – one with a pistol in hand – while a pair of bulldozers tipped the trailer of the truck.
Throughout the video filmed by the driver, he pleads for the group of men approaching him to leave him alone while retreating to his truck. The men – one yelling to the point of spitting – corner him until he is inside the truck. The men tell him to stay in the truck until the police come “before something bad happens.”
The driver responds “yes, sir” throughout the rest of the video, including when Buckner arrives. The video ends with the driver in the cab of his truck rolling down the window and yelling at the men that they are “going to jail.”
“I was scared to move because they kept saying something bad was going to happen to me,” he wrote in the video's caption.
