Sporting events honor Wake Sheriff’s Deputy Ned Byrd a year after his slaying

The community he served laid Wake County Sheriff’s Deputy Ned Byrd to rest a year ago with the pomp and gravitas he deserved after being killed in the line of duty.

Saturday, the people he loved honored him again at an event more in keeping with the way they say Byrd lived his life: quietly, in the close company of friends, practicing a sport he loved.

More than 120 people met on foam mats spread across the floor of PNC Arena for four hours of jiu jitsu instruction and practice. The celebration of Byrd’s life will continue Sunday with a triathlon beginning at 9 a.m.

Any money raised or donated through the events will go the 200 Club of Wake County, which provides emergency financial aid to the families of first-responders who die in the line of duty.

Many of those at Saturday’s “Roll for Ned” had known Byrd, had sparred with him, or had called him late at night for help when they had locked themselves out of their car. Again.

Larry Carter of Raleigh, who met Byrd through jiu jitsu and was close friends with him for 17 years, was at the funeral in 2022, when people lined the street to watch the caisson carrying Byrd’s casket pass by.

At the funeral, Carter said, people who knew Byrd were in so much pain — shocked, grieving, angry that when he pulled over his patrol car to check out a suspicious truck on the side of a rural stretch of Battle Bridge Road Road Aug. 11, 2022, he was ambushed. An autopsy report later showed he had been shot four times.

The event Saturday was different. A pair of brothers have been charged in Byrd’s death. Though there has been no public explanation of what happened that night, there has been some time for healing.

“This is more gathering as a community,” Carter said, to think of how lucky his friends were to have known Byrd, and how “he would love that, seeing that people have continued living their lives.”

Byrd, 48, was a New York native and an Air Force veteran. He joined the Wake County Sheriff’s Office in 2009 as a detention officer transporting inmates, becoming a deputy in 2018. Byrd loved dogs and later become a K9 deputy, assigned to work with Sasha, who was still in the SUV at the time of his death. Byrd was passionate about fitness, cycling and the outdoors. He had been training for 15 years at the Royce Gracie Jiu Jitsu Academy in Raleigh.

Students from the academy and others across the area came Saturday to show their affection for Byrd and to learn under different instructors, who would stand in the middle of the mats with a partner and demonstrate a technique. In pairs, those on the floor would then take turns executing the technique for several minutes before the instructor would demonstrate another.

Brother-and-sister Aidan and Claire Weber of Wake Forest didn’t know Byrd, but both have practiced jiu jitsu for years and said they welcomed the opportunity to learn from new instructors but also to demonstrate their support for a member of the sport’s family.

“It’s a tight community,” Aidan Weber said. “We would do something like this for someone anytime there had been a tragedy in the community. You’re part of the family. You will be honored.”

As they practiced, photos of Byrd scrolled by on a continuous, silent loop on the screens of the giant scoreboard hanging in the center of the arena. At one end of the room, Byrd’s jiu jitsu gi lay folded on the hood of Wake Sheriff’s patrol car, along with a cross with his name on it. The car was shrouded in black.

Ryan Schmidt, another longtime friend of Byrd’s, said the challenge a year after the deputy’s death is to the find beauty amid tragedy, and to be inspired by the example Byrd set as a friend and coworker.

“He was a selfless person,” Schmidt said. “He was loyal and giving, just a true public servant. We’re here to honor our hero.”