Former Guilford County Sheriff’s Department Executive Administrative Assistant Catherine Netter, who drew a lot of attention earlier this summer with her theory that the game of Eight-ball is racist, is maintaining a relatively high-profile after stepping down from her former job at the Sheriff’s Department.

Netter has become the campaign manager for High Point Mayoral Candidate Bruce Davis and she also spoke from the floor to the Guilford County Board of Commissioners at the August meeting.

Netter worked on the campaign of Guilford County Sheriff Danny Rogers, who stunned many when he beat out long-time former Sheriff BJ Barnes for the job last November. Netter then went to work for Sheriff Rogers before resigning in mid July.

Netter told the Rhino Times that she was reluctant to get back into politics but said that Davis was very adamant about bringing her on board and she finally relented and took the position.

Netter became a center of attention in Guilford County in early July after she posted on her Facebook page that Eight-ball is a racist game because the game is won when the white ball successfully knocks all the balls of color off the table and because the colored balls all have numbers – reminiscent of numbers given to people who are incarcerated – while the white ball has no such number.

Davis is in a race with incumbent Jay Wagner and others for the High Point mayor’s seat. He and Netter share something in common: Both of them, for years, questioned the hiring and promotion policies of Barnes and his department. Davis spoke publicly about his concerns for years when he served as a Guilford County commissioner and Netter has done so for years as well – first as an employee under Barnes and, later, while working for the department under Rogers.

At the Guilford County commissioners August meeting, Netter continued to point out what she says were racially unfair practices under Barnes’ administration.

“From 1994 to 2018,” she said, “only 37 black officers were promoted to the rank of sergeant or above, with 33 of those in non-sworn detention positions behind bars, four of those in sworn positions as deputy sheriffs and only one of them assigned to supervise deputies in the street in 2016 – after my racial discrimination complaint and federal lawsuit.”

Netter filed a complaint against the department in 2014.

At the commissioners meeting, she added that there “was a demand by some for adverse action to be taken against me from my billiard game of pool spelled out on my personal Facebook page.”

She said that, to her knowledge, however, there was no demand for adverse action against Barnes and his department for years of unfair hiring and promotion practices.

She ended by saying that the Guilford County Sheriff’s Department has many excellent and dedicated officers of all colors who put their lives on the line every day, and she added that the county has greater issues to be concerned with than her personal perception of the game of pool.

“Let’s get to work,” Netter told the board.

 

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