NEWTON — Brookford Police Chief Willie Armstrong sued District Attorney Scott Reilly and several state officials on Friday, Oct. 2, asking a court to lift a prosecutor's decision that he cannot be called as a witness.
Catawba Valley News & Weather reported the filing Sunday and said it had reviewed the complaint and the exhibits. WBTV reported the same filing the same day. Catawba First News has not seen the complaint. The state's public superior civil calendar for the week of Oct. 2 was generated at 1:49 a.m. Friday, before a filing made later that day would appear, and the court portal would not return a name search without a human check. A lawsuit is one side's account. It has not been tested in court.
Both reports say Armstrong filed in Catawba County and named Reilly, Attorney General Jeff Jackson, Senate President Pro Tempore Phil Berger and House Speaker Destin Hall. Catawba Valley News & Weather also says the State of North Carolina is a defendant. Jackson has been attorney general since Jan. 1, 2025. Berger is Senate president pro tempore, and Hall is House speaker. Hall's House district is District 87, which takes in Caldwell and Watauga counties.
Both reports say Armstrong wants the court to declare a 2021 state law unconstitutional, to order Reilly to take back the notice, and to award more than $25,000 in damages. Catawba Valley News & Weather says the damages would come from Reilly and would be set by a jury, and it names Jeffrey Warren as Armstrong's attorney. WBTV quoted Warren in July on the same witness issue.
What the 2021 law actually does
The law is G.S. 17C-16, enacted in Session Laws 2021-137 and 2021-138. It does not use the word blacklist, and it does not create a list the public can read.
If a district attorney, a judge, a federal prosecutor or an agency head notifies a certified officer in writing that the officer may not be called to testify because of bias, interest or lack of credibility, the officer has 30 days to report that notice to the Criminal Justice Standards Division and to the agency head. The official who sent the notice has to report it too.
If the Division later moves that officer's certification to another agency, it must tell the new agency head, and the elected district attorney where that agency sits, that the officer was previously notified. The reports and notifications the Division receives under this section are not open to the public.
The only court review the statute itself spells out is narrow. An officer may ask a superior court judge whether a qualifying notice was actually received. That hearing does not decide whether the officer is credible.
A separate statute, G.S. 1-267.1, says a facial challenge to an act of the General Assembly is transferred to a three-judge panel in Wake County unless it is already filed there. No order finding a state law facially invalid can come from anywhere else. Catawba Valley News & Weather said that is how a challenge to the law as a whole would be handled, with the rest of Armstrong's case staying in Catawba County. Neither report says a panel has been appointed.
The witness decision, as Reilly described it in July
Armstrong is still Brookford's police chief, and Thomas Schronce is still mayor, the town's website says. The town lists a population of 441. Reilly is the elected district attorney for Prosecutorial District 36, which covers Burke, Caldwell and Catawba counties, the N.C. Conference of District Attorneys says.
The witness decision is older than Friday's suit. In a written statement WBTV published on July 20, Reilly said he did not handle the criminal case against Armstrong because he had a conflict, and that the N.C. Conference of District Attorneys made the charging decision. He said the witness decision was separate. "The dismissal of the criminal case does not automatically alter that analysis," he said. "At this time, Chief Armstrong remains subject to that determination, and our office does not intend to call him as a witness in criminal proceedings."
He also said a March 24, 2026, letter to the town was not an order to fire Armstrong. "The purpose of that letter was not to direct the town's employment decisions or to pressure the mayor or town council to terminate Chief Armstrong," Reilly said. He said the letter came six months after the witness decision, and after the sheriff's office and Hickory police had already ended mutual-aid agreements with Brookford.
Catawba Valley News & Weather says the suit includes an Oct. 9, 2025, letter in which Reilly told Armstrong the office would no longer use him as a witness in any criminal or traffic case. The October WBTV story does not quote that letter, so this story does not treat the wording as confirmed.
Both October reports say a judge dismissed the charges against Armstrong on June 11, 2026, for insufficient evidence. The charges grew out of his work on the unsolved 1992 killing of 13-year-old Isis "Dee Dee" Dawkins. WBTV has reported that prosecutors accused him of leaving a phone running during an interview and later deleting part of the audio. Reilly's July statement refers to the dismissal as Judge Long's ruling. The charging documents were not available for this draft.
Backup agreements
Both October reports say the suit accuses Reilly of working with the Catawba County Sheriff's Office and the Hickory Police Department to pull mutual aid from Brookford. Catawba Valley News & Weather says the suit claims that help has not been restored.
Those agencies described the break differently in July, in statements WBTV published.
Hickory Police Chief Bryan Adams said his department ended mutual aid and interlocal assistance agreements with Brookford on March 24, 2026, because of the district attorney's determination, "to protect the integrity of ongoing and future investigations." He said Hickory would keep evaluating the relationship.
Sheriff Don Brown said his office had voided mutual-aid agreements so Brookford officers are not authorized to take enforcement action outside their jurisdiction. He said that decision "was not made in connection with criminal charges Chief Armstrong faced," and that it came from times Brookford officers got involved outside town limits without being asked. He said deputies still provide backup, and that he had no plan then to revisit the decision.
The sheriff primary
Armstrong ran against Brown in the Republican primary for sheriff. The county's official canvass of the March 3, 2026, primary shows Brown with 12,982 votes and Armstrong with 1,676. J.D. Slape had 1,103 and William Propst had 407, out of 16,168 votes cast in that contest.
Neither the Sunday report nor WBTV's Sunday story includes a new comment from Reilly, Armstrong or the state officials named in the suit. Catawba Valley News & Weather said it would ask on Monday.
Source note
Catawba Valley News & Weather, Facebook post, Sunday, Oct. 4, 2026, 6:39 p.m. ET: https://www.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=1696934429107618&id=100063732303697
WBTV, Oct. 4, 2026: https://www.wbtv.com/2026/10/04/north-carolina-police-chief-says-he-was-blacklisted-after-cold-case-charges-dismissed-lawsuit-claims/
WBTV, July 20, 2026, with the statements it published from Reilly, Adams and Brown: https://www.wbtv.com/2026/07/20/dee-dee-dawkins-cold-case-brookford-police-chief-acquitted-fight-his-credibility-isnt-over/
G.S. 17C-16: https://www.ncleg.gov/EnactedLegislation/Statutes/HTML/BySection/Chapter_17C/GS_17C-16.html
G.S. 1-267.1: https://www.ncleg.gov/EnactedLegislation/Statutes/HTML/BySection/Chapter_1/GS_1-267.1.html
Town of Brookford: https://townofbrookford.com/
Prosecutorial District 36: https://www.ncdistrictattorney.org/district-attorney/prosecutorial-district-36/
Catawba County primary canvass, March 3, 2026: https://catawbacountync.gov/site/assets/files/11416/2026-03-03_primary-web.pdf
House leadership: https://www.ncleg.gov/Members/Leadership/H
Senate leadership: https://www.ncleg.gov/Members/Leadership/S
Hall's member page: https://www.ncleg.gov/Members/Biography/H/719
Attorney general: https://ncdoj.gov/
