A U.S. Army soldier has been cleared in the fatal shooting of a foreign national on his property.
The killing happened on the evening of May 3 near Carthage, North Carolina, and it’s now clear that the circumstances are more suspicious than anyone realized.
The new revelations were announced in a news release by the Moore County Sheriff’s Office.
The Aug. 12 post declared the conclusion of the MCSO’s investigation into the shooting of Ramzan Daraev, and included a lengthy list of details that hint this shooting was more than a random confrontation that turned violent.
The incident began as Daraev was seen by the homeowner’s wife, appearing to take pictures of the house. She informed her husband, a member of the Army’s Special Operations Command, who confronted Daraev.
“According to the homeowner,” MCSO wrote, “Daraev became aggressive and refused to leave the property, at one point asserting that he was a Chechen national who had served in the Russian military and fought in Ukraine.”
His status as a Russian veteran has not yet been confirmed.
After the confrontation became more heated, the homeowner returned to his house and retrieved a firearm.
Is there something more than utility work going on here?
“The confrontation escalated when Daraev reportedly became agitated and lunged at the homeowner after repeatedly refusing to leave the property,” MCSO continued. “The homeowner reported firing several shots in response to Daraev’s advance.”
Under North Carolina’s castle doctrine, the homeowner’s response is considered legal force for defending himself and his family, according to the sheriff’s department report.
Daraev’s defenders claimed he was in the area for his employment as a utility worker.
Suspiciously, Daraev was not found to have anything identifying him as someone on the job. Authorities said he wore only a burgundy shirt, shorts and flip-flops. No high-visibility vest or utility credentials were found on him or in his vehicle.
Additionally, the shooting took place around 8:15 p.m., when daylight is fading and non-emergency utility work typically grinds to a halt.
Did a stateside kill of a Russian asset just slide by under the radar?
The headlines say that a Spec Ops soldier is under investigation for shooting and killing a utility worker “from Chicago, Illinois”
Except that “utility worker” was 35-year-old Ramzan Daraev, a Chechen… pic.twitter.com/A31kd6kA7v
— Arynne Wexler (@ArynneWexler) May 23, 2024
A photograph of a utility pole, provided by the Cable Warriors, Daraev’s employer and a subcontractor of Utilities One, was provided as proof the foreign national was conducting legitimate business.
Daraev was said to be conducting utility surveys as part of Brightspeed’s fiber optic expansion into the area when the confrontation happened.
After his shooting, more calls from the area alerted authorities to more suspicious individuals seen prowling around local properties. The Moore County Sheriff’s Office believes these people were associated with Daraev’s group.
An ongoing probe is still assessing Utilities One and Cable Warriors after infrastructure maps provided to employees were found to have originated on a Russian cloud server.
Daraev crossed into the United States over the southern border in December 2022, and has since lived in Chicago, according to the report.
