Speaker 1: What's going on? Thank you so much for listening to
this podcast. It is heard live every day from noon
to three on WBT Radio in Charlotte. And if you
want exclusive content like invitations to events, the weekly live stream,
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smartphone or tablet, And again, thank you so much for
your support. As we do on our Mondays, here at
two o'clock, we talk with ap Dylan. She is a
reporter for the North State Journal and you can read
her work over at the substack. More to the story
is the name of it. Ap. How are you today?
Speaker 2: I'm doing good.
Speaker 1: I'm doing well as well. Survive the fire drill, so
I got that going for me, all righty. So, was
there ever a doubt in your mind that Governor Josh
Stein would sign Arena's Law into law? To sign the bill,
did you think that he was going to do that? No,
you thought he'd let it run out, just run out the.
Speaker 2: Clock the last day, or he was going to let
it go in the law without a signature.
Speaker 1: So this was a surprise. I thought, yeah, I thought
he was going to veto it. That's what I thought
he was going to do. But then the longer it took,
then I started thinking, well, maybe he just like does
the pocket approval. I did not expect him to sign it,
but he did, right, and he did so with a
on a Friday. I believe it was like late in
the afternoon kind of where you like to put stories
that you don't want a lot of coverage of as
people are going into the weekend. I suspect and he
put out this video and you wrote about it at
North State Journal nsjonline dot com. So what did you
make of his rationale for signing it.
Speaker 2: He said he wanted to keep folks safe, but yeah,
he waited ten days to put it into place, so
that was sort of a red flag for me. Yeah,
he spent like exactly two sentences praising it for, you know,
helping to keep people safe, and then he pivoted and
talked about how the law fails because it says this
is exactly what we said. The law fails, however, to
focus appropriately on the threat that people pose instead of
their ability to post post fail. Okay, so the whole
point of the bill was to focus on people who
were posed a threat to society. And then he criticized
it for you know, not having enough you know, mental
health stuff in there, and how his reform package that
he had sent off earlier in the year did that.
And but the bill does have that kind of thing
in there. It has a whole starting committee looking at
how to how to alter you know, mental health evaluations.
It requires actually mental health evaluations for folks who have
you know, multiple repeat offenses in a given time period
or over a five year period. It makes them look
at their history, and it puts GPS monitoring or you know,
detention in place for them. So there's that. But then
he goes on to say, most alarmingly, the General Assembly
sprung a last minute amendment that aims to bring about
the execution by firing squad to North Carolina. It's barbaric.
There'll be no firing squads in North Carolina during my
time as governor. Well, okay, if you go and you
look at the bill, and nowhere in the builders would
say firing squad. It says other methods will be explored.
That could be one of them. And then the other
states have actually brought back firing squads, and it's up
to the inmates to choose their form of execution in
you know, twenty or thirty some states in the United States.
Speaker 1: Right now, right, And so I've got the bill now
law in front of me, and it says that the
Secretary of the Department of Adult Correction within one hundred
and twenty days of notice of a judgment blah blah blah,
if in other words, that the lethal injection is to
clared unconstitutional, and then so they can't use that. They
must select another method that has been adopted by another
state unless such method has been declared unconstitutional by the
Supreme Court US Supreme Credit. If the method of executions
selected then is declared unconstitutional, then they would have to
come up with another way to do it. And it's like,
so it doesn't ever say firing squad here.
Speaker 2: Right, right, Yeah, No, firing squad is nowhere on the bill.
And also it's actually nowhere in the amendment either, right.
Speaker 1: And to be fair, he's not going to allow any
death sentences to be carried out under his tenure, I
would suspect, So it's.
Speaker 2: Not like he's a part of the legislature that shut
that down, right, he was the legislature at the time.
When Democrats shut down you said, the death penalty mainly
over you know, legal battle and that sort of stuff.
They said, Okay, well, we're just going to pause it.
And then I think it was twenty thirteen when Republicans
were back in they repealed the act that put the
pause on it. But yet things still haven't gotten rolling
again due to you know, legal clime mark. So yeah,
and you've got part of the bill is speeding that up,
you know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and we've had Roy Cooper right exactly.
Speaker 2: They want speedy trials for these guys, and they want
swift educutions. They want these people lingering on their dime
after their appeals are over for you know, decades. So
that's sort of where that goes. But you know, he
he said he was troubled by the bills lack of
ambition or vision nor The governor also called for measures
that seemed like red flag law language, where he said,
we can respect people's Second Amendment rights while ensuring that
everyone who has vunt or dangerously mentally ill does not
have access to guns. Okay, everyone can agree that mentally
ill people or violent, dangerous people shouldn't have access to guns,
So why are we prosecuting the ones on the books
and keeping them in jail. It goes right back to
the original question. These folks are getting released over and
over again, and many of them are violent. And then
you know, he finally goes into saying, we must fully
fund medicaid.
Speaker 1: Well, that's always yes. Well, I mean that's he got
that from Roy Cooper, where every single problem in the state.
Roy Cooper's answer was expand medicaid. And now because it
got expanded, but now the you know, funds are frozen
with the illegal immigration issue out there and the shutdown
and all, and so now I guess he's going to
rely on the medicaid excuse for all of these problems too.
But like the red flag law stuff like for starters,
if you have ever been involuntarily committed, if you have
these mental health problems, you're not you're not an allowed
buyer of a gun. You're you're a prohibited purchaser. If
you've got violent history, criminal history, you're a prohibited purchaser.
You're not allowed to buy the guns. So I'm not
sure what it is that he's asking for.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a really good question. It just seems like
you were trying to justify his hemming and hanging of
actually putting this through, because I mean, what this actually
does say is that, yeah, we've got a problem. We've
got a problem with our system releasing violent offenders, and
by signing this law, he's actually stamping that is true.
It's sort of a refutation of everything that happened under
the last eight years under Governor Cooper, including the Racial
Justice Task Force that Stegned co led with sitting Justice
Anita Earls.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, the very things that were promoted after the
summer of fiery but mostly peaceful riots. Yeah, that was
then part of this whole reform movement that Democrats, you know,
drunk on power and the pr of it. They were like,
we're gonna, you know, do all of these things, cashless bail,
all this stuff. And one of the things that is
in here that would require, you know, magistrates and judges,
depending on the nature of the particular crime for which
somebody has been brought before them, is to then get
them a mental health evaluation and to potentially hold them
in order to get that event, which that would have
put to Carlos Brown Junior, the murderer of Arena Zarutzka.
That would have put him into that evail way earlier.
But he was just you know, he was released with
a notice to appear.
Speaker 2: And you know that's the thing with these casualst spell systems,
you know, it's it basically gives the criminal the freedom
to walk about and basically tells the average citizen out
there who might encounter them, Okay, good luck.
Speaker 1: Right, yeah, yeah, let me quickly, let me get to
the story. This popped in Charlotte on Friday. Miss Sharon
a dude. Ms Sharon, a bus driver, a dude that
thinks he's a woman and is also out there raping
children apparently, or I should say, well, statutory sex offense
with the children under the age of fifteen. And so
this story, this broke, but the person was suspendedletwain Darryl Tait,
forty eight years old, mugshot priceless, suspended by the school
during the investigation, and officially terminated September twenty ninth. He
was a bus driver for Sugar Creek Charter School in
the Charlotte mcklenberg School district. Now I know this is
one of these topics you have been reporting on this
stuff for years, for years about these sex offenders that
mysteriously end up employed in our public schools. This seems
to me to be yet another case of it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I ended my investigations into those as of January
first of this year. I just couldn't keep up with
her anymore. I've been doing it since twenty sixteen and
the number of cases I was able to log was
over four hundred and fifty in that time period. And
I'm in the process now of tracking them in their
court cases and where they end up so that i
can see, you know, who was convicted, who was released,
who was acquitted, who who you know is on the
sex offender register, that kind of thing. So I'll have
data probably near the end of the year and at least,
you know, majority of the years that got there. But
this case is this case is incredible because apparently this
person would bring these kids into her residence and there
were several boys that were involved in this, but there
were at least two girls according to the affidavit from
the arresting officer, because it talks about, you know, intercourse
with a female, so there were at least two incidents
of that. You know, they would he would pay them
to do some things, you know, and included a variety
of sex acts, including statutory rape. So apparently this person
has now got a million dollar secured bond on them,
which they're unable to post of course, so they're saying
put where they're supposed to be, which is, you know,
we're seeing the system actually work there, right. I got
a criminal history this guy already. He was convicted of
the class G selony of identity fraud and theft back
in two thousand and nine, and the data that offense
once two thousand and four, so it's not like it
was ancient history. He received a suspended sentence of par
and probation on that case. But if you go through
there are other numerous legals cases under his name in
Mecklenburg County, most of them dealing with rent money of
property disputes, one for giving false information to one officer,
and there was a couple of court cases in there
dealing with, you know, a miner who wasn't in or
two miners that were not in their car seats, and
at least three cases dealing with divorce and custody battles
over a child. Apparently, so this person has a child
out there or two that I think this will probably
put the end of their custody case.
Speaker 1: So why do you make it seem like getting arrested
for not having your miners properly restrained in the vehicle.
Why would you suggest that that would have any impact
as to whether or not Ms Sharon would make a
good bus driver?
Speaker 2: Well, I mean child safety.
Speaker 1: Yeahs, yes, the transportation of a child in a motor
vehicle seems like something that would be relevant to getting
hired to transport children in motor vehicles that I don't know,
call me crazy, but that seems like something that should
have popped out on a background check, which I don't
even think they were doing these background checks for. They
do them now, right, but that wasn't always the case.
Speaker 2: That wasn't always the case, and they should have done
one on this person. For anyone who's involved in public
school or a public charter school is supposed to get
background checks before healing or being encountering the children. So
I don't know if they didn't go far enough back,
or if they just didn't do it or what, but
this person probably should have hit their radar for a
number of reasons, you know, But they didn't do their
due diligence clearly. So it's a very disturbing case and
the mugshot is one in a million.
Speaker 1: I'll tell you. Yes, well you can read. Yeah, you
can read all of these details over at AP Dylan
Substack it's called More to the Story or Apdylan dot
substack dot com. You can read her work also at
North State Journal nsjonline dot com. AP thanks so much
for your time. As always, I appreciate.
Speaker 2: It absolutely, Pete. Thanks.
Speaker 1: Thanks. You know. Stories are powerful. They help us make
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again to ap Dylan for joining us. I do have
the I do have the video. I have the How
long is this thing? It's like three and a half minutes, Yeah,
three and a half minutes of just pure distilled Josh
Stein in all of his enthusiasm and his dynamism. I mean,
it's just the perfect distillation of Josh Stein the governor.
Couple things I will say before I'm going to play
that after the newscast, because there's not enough time to
play it all, and I want to start it and
stop it. Okay, wouldn't say, because I will be starting
it and stopping it as I'm watching it, because he's
going to say stuff that I will want to respond to.
So okay, but I want to do that in one
full segment. But I will say this before you is
that number one. At least he did a video because
he could have just let this thing become law, Arena's law.
He could have let it become law without actually signing it.
That would have been the most cowardly way to go. However,
that would have been the most politically damaging way to
go short of a veto, okay, because if he vetos it,
then he's soft on crime. If he doesn't sign it,
they can also attack him for being soft on crime
because he did not sign it. So he kind of
really had to sign it, and that's why he waited
the ten days. He went till the very end of it,
the last day possible, and then he signs it, and
he doesn't do a big announcement, he doesn't celebrated, he
doesn't have people all around him as he signs it
or anything like that. He just does a straight to
the camera, you know video statement three and a half
minutes where he basically trashes the law that he signed. Okay,
and he did this on a Friday afternoon. Doing it
on a Friday afternoon means that you're trying to minimize
the reach of this story. Because most people check out
for the weekends. They're not reading the news on Saturdays
and Sundays, which is when this story would have kind
of kind of filtered out into the public psyche. So
so that's I understand politically why he did what he did.
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Prepare yourself Elves for the distilled dynamism of one Josh Stein,
the North Carolina governor who Friday announced in a video
three and a half minutes long that he had signed
IRENA's law into law. That was the final day of
action on the measure. He had ten days. The clock
runs from when the legislature approves a bill sends it
to the governor's desk. He's got ten days to sign
it or it just becomes law. It's a pocket approval,
not a pocket veto. So he kind of got jammed
up here. He had to Basically, he had to sign it, okay,
because I think the political costs of not doing so
would be too great If he wants to run away
from the soft on crime label. So he needed this
in the in the portfolio. He needs it on the
resume whenever anybody says to him, Oh, race Roy Cooper's
Racial Justice Equity task Force that you co chaired with
Anita Earls that did all of these left wing reforms
quote unquote. If he wants to run for higher office
in the future, let alone reelection as governor, he's got
to find a way to insulate himself from that attack,
and this was the way to do it. He can
now say, well, I signed Arena's law. So here's his
statement explaining why he signed Arena's law. Try to remember
what he says here for in the future, in whatever
it is, what five years, six years from now, when
he's going to be running for Senate or president or
vice president or whatever, that this is what he said
why he signed the law.
Speaker 3: It's Josh Stein, your governor. My top priority is to
keep people safe here in North Carolina. We've recently had
two tragic reminders of just how important it is that
we do everything in our power to protect people. Our
hearts ache for the families of Arena Zarutzka and the
three people who were killed in Southport, and we all
pray for those injured to heal. These random murders raised
real concerns for people all over the state. Everyone deserves
to be and to feel safe in their daily lives
on their way to or from work at school.
Speaker 1: Imagine if there was somebody run that was running the
Attorney General's office for yeah, I don't know, like eight
years or so, they probably could have made a real difference.
I know, we've got the baby Jesus now as Attorney
General Jeff Jackson. I wonder if he could make a
real difference as the top law enforcement officer in the
state and all or I guess Jeff Jackson's I think
he was running on a campaign of I'll be the
top prosecutor, but that's not really what the AG does.
But imagine if we had had just anybody that thought
like Josh Stein as the Attorney general for like the
last eight years, imagine what could wait what, Oh he
was the attorney general? Oh well that's weird. Huh. Oh
that's how he ended up getting appointed to be the
co chair of that task force that yeah, that recommended
all of the the lefty reforms. Okay, well that's interesting.
I don't think he's probably going to mention that here at.
Speaker 3: Their place of worship, in a restaurant, and in their
own home. We can and must do more to keep
people safe. When I review public safety legislation that comes
to my desk, I use one simple test.
Speaker 1: Well, okay, hang on a second that before I even
know what this test is. That does not sound like
a very good way to judge legislation. Okay, one test
be wead of anybody that says there's only one simple
test here there, because, as Thomas Soule says, there are
no solutions, there are only trade offs. Right, So what
is the all right, what's the test here? I don't know.
Let's find out.
Speaker 3: Does it make people safer? Hospital three oh seven or
Arena's Law alerts the judiciary to take a special look
at people who may pose unusual risks of violence before
determining their.
Speaker 1: Bail, right, which is kind of what we used to
do before you came along and said, hey, let's go
soft on the crime with the cashless bail stuff. By
the way, if that's your simple test, does it make
people safer? I don't think it's going to make death
row inmates safer, right, So that's why I say, like,
this is a pretty silly test. It doesn't make like
criminal defendants safer because they may end up going into
prison right more easily. And that's what the left has
been telling us they're trying to avoid with the whole
you know, decarceerrate movement that grip the Democrat Party for
the first half of this decade. So, yeah, I'm not
sure this bill actually passes your one simple test. That's
why I say, beware of the simple tests and the
people that employ them.
Speaker 3: That's a good thing, and why I have signed it
into law.
Speaker 1: Okay, let me stop there too, So and I know,
like it's okay. So he's saying that's the only reason
why he signed this into law was because of this
one provision that essentially says you can't just be turning
everybody loose with the casualst bail stuff anymore, which is
one of the recommendations that the left has been pushing
for and that we have seen in our court system
again for the last half decade. So was that a mistake? See?
I would love, I would love to be able to
ask the question of the governor, Well, was that a mistake?
Was the casualst bail quote unquote reforms. Was that all
a mistake that Democrats made and pushing for? Was the
defund the police? Was that a mistake? Were these policies
a mistake and we should shun them. We've tried them,
they don't work. We should reverse course. And anybody who
espoused these things, maybe we shouldn't take them seriously, particularly
when they talk about simple tests and such. Maybe these
are the things that I would ask. But he didn't
do a press conference, nor was I even invited to
any press conference ever. So when I was a kid,
my grandpa died with Alzheimer's, and before he died, my
mom and my dad took care of him as he
got worse. Forty years ago, there were no treatments and
not much support for caregivers and family. But things are
different today because of the work of so many people,
including the Alzheimer's Association of Western Carolina. It's a great
organization with awesome people with huge hearts. I've been a
supporter for twenty five years. This cause means a lot
to me. I participate in the annual Walk to End
Alzheimer's and I'm leading Charlotte team again this year and
it's called once again Pete's Pack. You can sign up
and you can join the team and walk with us.
It's on October eighteenth, that truest field. Sign up at
alz dot org slash walk and then you can search
for my team name Pete's Pack. There's also a link
at thepetepod dot com. There's also a link in the
description of this podcast. Also, I'll be m seeing the
Gastonia Walk on October eleventh, and so you can make
a team and join that one too, or make a
donation and help me hit my goal of five thousand dollars.
If you do, I really appreciate it.
Speaker 2: There are a.
Speaker 1: Bunch of other walks all over the Carolinas. You can
go to alz dot org slash walk for all the
dates and locations. We're closer than ever to stopping Alzheimer's.
Can you help us get there? Will you walk with me?
For a different future, for families, for more time for treatments.
This is why we walk. Got a message on the
WBT text line driven by Liberty Buick GMC from Bob
who referenday Governor Josh Stein the closure of barn doors
once horses have departed. We're going to call him the
tardy barn door closer. That's Josh Stein. Yes, So does
this Arena's law make people safer? That's his one simple test.
By the way, he's kind of cutting the legs out
from under the Democrats in the legislature on this. I mean,
they got up there and they were like, oh, you
can't pass this, this is terrible woe unto our democracy.
And now here's their fellow Democrat, the governor, signing it,
which is, eh, I guess you're I guess you're in
disagreement with your own governor. See. I would love to
hear journalists go and ask all of those state lawmakers,
the Democrats who were accusing Republicans of all sorts of
nefarious news for running this bill as they did, what
they think of their own governor now signing it into law.
So anyway, back to Josh Stein's video statement, we have
about two minutes left.
Speaker 3: The law fails, however, to focus appropriately on the threat
that people pose instead of their ability to post bail.
Speaker 1: All right, So this is the line that is kind
of misleading. I would I'm really understanding it. He's saying
that the law it fails to focus appropriately on the
threat that people pose instead of their ability to post bail.
But that is the threat. That's exactly the threat is
that when you don't have to post bail, then you
get out, and that's the threat to the public. I'm
not sure who wrote this speech of is fail and.
Speaker 3: Most alarming, the General Assembly sprung a last minute amendment
that aims to bring about execution by firing squad to
North Carolina. It's bar Barrick. There will be no firing
squads in North Carolina during my time.
Speaker 1: As governor again, and we went over this with ap Dylan,
not actually in the law.
Speaker 3: Beyond those specific concerns with the legislation, I'm troubled by
its lack of ambition or vision.
Speaker 1: Wait, isn't that your job, Like you're the governor. If
you sign this into law, shouldn't you have helped to
advance the ambition or vision or so. It didn't do enough,
it didn't go far enough. In fact, that's what he says.
It simply does not do enough.
Speaker 3: It simply does not do enough to keep you safe.
That's why I'm calling on the legislature to come back
and pass my comprehensive public safety package.
Speaker 1: No, yeah, no, no, that's not happening. We're not going
to pass your package, sorry, a.
Speaker 3: Package that includes more cops on the beat, well trained
and public spirited, building trust in the community, and keeping
people safe.
Speaker 1: Yet you guys ran a campaign for half a decade
of defunding the police. So forgive me if I don't
believe you that you actually want to expand the police
forces in these cities that are controlled by Democrats who
also do not want to expand the police forces in
their cities. So no, I'm again not buying us.
Speaker 3: Violence prevention measures like keeping kids out of gangs and
getting people off drugs.
Speaker 1: More violence interrupters, I say, more violence interrupters.
Speaker 3: And if we're serious about making people safer, we have
to acknowledge the role that guns and mental health play
and violence that we're seeing all across the country. We
can respect people's Second Amendment rights while also ensuring that
anyone who is violent or dangerously mentally ill does not
have access to guns.
Speaker 1: Already the law.
Speaker 3: Let's use comprehensive background checks keep guns out of the
hands of violent criminals and dangerous people.
Speaker 1: We already have that. It's called Nick's National System. That
you go to buy a gun legally, you go and
buy a gun and they run you through Nicks. So
it's already the law.
Speaker 3: And let's give family members and law enforcement the power
to seek to temporarily remove a gun from someone who
is a danger to others or themselves. Finally, we must
have a well functioning mental health care system that gets
people the treatment that they need. In recent years, on
a bipartisan basis, we've made some real progress, but we
all know that it's not not enough.
Speaker 1: Yeah, maybe if Roy Cooper hadn't shut down Drothy Dix
the mental institution, Like maybe if he hadn't done that,
think they turned it into like a park or something. Now,
so that would have been something that you, as a
member of the Council of State at the time or
a member of the legislature, like maybe you could have
opposed something like that. But hey, look at least Democrats
now are talking about the possibility of institutionalizing violent, insane people.
So let's take the win here. Let's take the win.
All right, that'll do it for this episode. Thank you
so much for listening. I could not do the show
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them too and tell them you heard it here. You
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for listening, and don't break anything while I'm gone.