Speaker 1: What's going on?
Speaker 2: 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, my daily
show prep with all of the links, become a patron,
go to vpekclendershow dot com. Make sure you hit the
subscribe button. Get every episode for free right to your
smartphone or tablet, and again, thank you so much for
your support. Alrighty, so I'm going to start with some
crime stories.
Speaker 1: I don't know.
Speaker 2: I don't know if there's been any updates on this
story yet. I went looking just before I opened the
mic up just to be you know, clear, if there
is any new developments. I don't see any new developments
in this story that began Friday evening. Here is the
WCNC report. A suspect was arrested following a stabbing on
a Charlotte LYNX light rail train late Friday evening that
left a person dead. So this occurred sometime around ten
or ten thirty, apparently on the train on the light
rail car. It was near the station along Camden Road,
which is where West Boulevard East Boulevard connect there in
South End, or Millennial Row as it's sometimes referred to
because there's so many millennials living down there in South End.
The woman who was killed is a twenty three year
old named Irina Zarutzska and according to and I just
found this, and I cannot confirm the veracity of this,
but this is from Charlotte Alert, Sorry, Charlotte alertsnews dot com,
and they have identified her as a Ukrainian. She fled
the country in twenty twenty two to escape the war
in Ukraine, and she had been living in Charlotte, according
to this report, with assistance from the US government. So
I'm assuming it's some sort of like a refugee program
of some kind. I found what appears to be her
LinkedIn page, and apparently she worked at Subway for a while.
She was murdered allegedly by a thirty four year old
named Dick Carlos Brown. Now you may want to sit
down before I give you this next piece of information,
because it's truly going to be shocking. The guy's got
a rap sheet a mile long. He's fourteen previous court
cases in Mecklenburg County. He was sentenced to six years
in prison after convictions for robbery with a dangerous weapon,
breaking and entering, and larceny in twenty fifteen. The convictions
were for two separate incidents in twenty thirteen and twenty fourteen,
but he was convicted in twenty fifteen. He was released
in September of twenty twenty. He was then arrested again
in September twenty twenty two for assault on a female,
but no court records are available for that case. According
to WCNC, it's a report by Matthew Ablon. Brown was
then arrested again in January twenty twenty five for misuse
of the nine to one to one system. I'll give
you details on that. This is from the Mechberbia by
Cedar Posts. He's a local blogger guy, and I've read
his blog for years. This is called mech Berbia. And
he puts up the you know, the CMPD announcement, their
statement in all of this, and he goes through he
tracks this guy's history. Brown has a nearly twenty year
history of arrests. Most were dismissed by the Mecklenburg County
District Attorney's office. He has prior convictions for felony B
and E, theft in excess of one thousand dollars, and
robbery with a dangerous weapon. He has spent nearly nine
years of his life behind bars, which is about a
quarter of his life. And now, unless the you know,
something terrible goes wrong with the prosecution here, he should
spend the rest of his life in jail. He was
most recently released from prison on September twentieth, twenty twenty,
with the follow on period of parole that ended September twentieth,
twenty twenty one, so he had one year of parole.
He was then arrested in twenty twenty two, and then
arrested two more times last year and one more time
in January. And from that January nineteenth report, he apparently
officers respond to Novente Presbyterian Hospital in reference to a
Czech welfare check check up on this guy. Once on
the scene, officer spoke with a defendant to Carlos Brown,
who advised that he believed somebody gave him a man
made material that controlled when he ate, walked, talked, etc.
Brown wanted the officers to investigate this man made material
that was inside of his body. Officers advised him that
the issue was medical and that there was nothing that
they could do because they are not doctors. Brown became
upset with the officers answers, and with them still on
the scene, he proceeds to call nine to one one
to speak with police, and that's what got him the
charge for misuse of nine to one one. Just last month,
the assistant public defender Brianna Buford filed a motion in
court questioning the defendant's capacity to proceed so he's crazy.
Judge Roy Wiggins signed the order for a forensic evaluation
on July twenty eighth, so a month ago. Buford was
clearly aware that her client was mentally incapacitated cedar Post's rights,
yet he was allowed to remain free and in the
public realm. This left him as a threat to others
as well as himself, and within the month he murdered
a twenty three year old woman, Ariana Zarutzka. There's also
some reports that others may have been in injured.
Speaker 1: Two.
Speaker 2: I've seen some conflicting reports that there was somebody else
nearby that had a medical emergency, but that was unrelated.
Then I saw a report that two or three other
people may have also been stabbed on this train car.
Speaker 1: The suspect was also.
Speaker 2: Stabbed at some point, maybe somebody got the knife from
him and stabbed him.
Speaker 1: I don't know. He had injuries, so they.
Speaker 2: Took him to the hospital, but he will be, you know,
placed under arrest after he heals. I have not seen
so far any kind of comment from any of the
elected officials here. You had a Ukrainian war refugee, twenty
three year old woman murdered on your train, your light
rail line. Meanwhile, you're you're ginning up a big campaign
to get us all to vote yes for your your
sales tax increase to fund more trains. You guys, are
you're taking your eye off the ball. You're losing sight
of your primary mission, which is the security of the city.
And there's the story about the Carolina Sporting Arms.
Speaker 1: B and E.
Speaker 2: All right, if you're listening to this show, you know
I try to keep up with all sorts of current events,
and I know you do too. And you've probably heard
me say get your news from multiple sources. Why well,
because it's how you detect media bias, which is why
I've been so impressed with Ground News. It's an app
and it's a website and it combines news from around
the world in one place so you can compare coverage
and verify information. You can check it out at check
dot ground, dot news slash pete. I put the link
in the podcast description too. I started using ground News
a few months ago and more recently chose to work
with them as an affiliate because it lets me see
clearly how stories get covered and by whom. The blind
spot feature shows you which stories get ignored by the
left and the right. See for yourself check dot ground,
dot news slash pete. Subscribe through that link and you'll
get fifteen percent off any subscription. I use the Vantage
plan to get unlimited access to every feature. Your subscription
then not only helps my podcast, but it also supports
ground News as they make the media landscape more transparent.
So a man who drove a stolen car into a
Charlotte gun shop before stealing twenty firearms is heading to
federal prison, but he won't be there for long and
the store owner is not happy about the sentence. The
piece over at WSOCTV by Evan Donovan. This is about
the smashing, or I guess it would be the ram
and grab at Carolina Sporting Arms on South Boulevard. Mike Simpson,
the owner, told WSOCTV, it's disappointing. It doesn't make sense.
They're a menace to society. I'm getting tired of it.
I don't know why people aren't held accountable for their actions.
You and me both, Mike, You and me both. Why
are we letting criminals back out on the street, he says.
The Department of Justice announced that Reginald Moses has been
sentenced to just over two years in federal prison after
pleading guilty to theft of a firearm from a licensed dealer,
as well as aiding and de betting. He only got
twenty seven months, Simpson said, federal time for stealing twenty guns.
Stole a car, broke in. That doesn't seem like a
very big repercussion. Twenty seven months. They stole eighteen handguns,
a shotgun, and a rifle grand total worth about fourteen
thousand dollars. About half of the firearms were laid recovered,
but the others are out on the street. Nice really
sending a message there. Another woman involved was federally charged
and she was sentenced to the time she had already served,
and so now she's on probation, so let's go back
to the scene of the crime. This is from wsoc's
report Back in February of twenty twenty four, two men
were arrested for breaking into a South Charlotte gunshop and
taking off with twenty firearms. They were once tied to
a homicide in twenty twenty three, Corey Meadows and Reginald Moses,
where two of five suspects arrested after officers say someone
drove a stolen car into the door of Carolina Sporting
Arms on South Boulevard. This occurred February twentieth. Court records
obtained by Channel nine confirm both Moses and Meadows were
once charged with the murder and attempted robbery of Savion Lockhart,
a seventeen year old who was murdered in twenty twenty three.
The Mecklimber County DA's office dismissed the charges against Moses
and Meadows, citing insufficient evidence. In the prosecutor's voluntary dismissal motion,
he gave a narrative of what allegedly took place, describing
a shootout in twenty twenty three in which Lockhart died. However,
with no overwhelming evidence. The prosecutor noted, quote, the available
evidence does not indicate which individuals were entitled to self
defense and which individuals were not, and the state cannot
disprove self defense beyond a reasonable doubt.
Speaker 1: And then a year later they steal eighteen.
Speaker 2: Handguns, two long guns and just put them out onto
the street. And for that, at least he's going to
prison for some period of time. It's only twenty seven months,
but at least they got him for something, I guess. Also,
in just a week, Charlotte Mecklenburg police officers drew warrens
for ninety eight people on criminal charges related to another
rash of Charlotte Street takeovers. Yeah, they titled their post
on social media Twitter, formerly known as x Street Takeovers
three the sequel nobody asked for.
Speaker 1: That's what they do.
Speaker 2: That's what the CMPD account called it. And they refer
to three recent series of charges in connection with clusters
of drivers blocking roads. They say, here we go again,
because apparently some folks still think turning intersections into racetracks
is a good idea.
Speaker 1: We are here to.
Speaker 2: Remind you it's not still illegal, still dangerous, still getting
shut down street takeovers typically involve people blocking traffic at
an intersection while cars do the burnouts, and all the
kids yell and cheer, and everybody has their phone out
recording all of the all of the you know, the
burnouts where you just like peel your tires and create
all of the smoke, and people inhale the toxic fumes
and such. It's it's a really well thought out event
for the kids that engage in this behavior. And so,
I don't know if you've ever seen one of these things,
or the remnants of it.
Speaker 1: I've had.
Speaker 2: I've had the pleasure of witnessing about three or four
of them, and they are hooligan. It's hooligan behavior, right,
That's that's what it is. It's it's on par with
the whether they call them the wheelie boys or whatever,
the guys on the bikes all sorts of bikes, like bicycles,
but also like the motorized bikes and whatever unicycles probably,
and they weave through traffic and such around uptown Charlotte.
They ride at your car like play chicken with you
and swerve away and they kick your cars and stuff. Yeah, yeah,
this is now acceptable as a norm in Charlotte apparently.
Kudos to CMPD for cracking down on the and there.
I'm assuming they're using the new laws that the legislature
has armed them with to, you know, take the vehicles
from these people that are engaged in this kind of behavior.
It's criminal activity, so I say more of it. And
if you can pop them on some other like gun charges,
too fantastic. This is all a choice. We will continue
to see these kinds of problems in Charlotte as long
as we continue putting the same people in charge. Speaking
of which, the Charlotte Observer has its endorsements for the
City Council, you will be super surprised. Here's a great idea.
How about making an escape to a really special and
secluded getaway in western North Carolina. Just a quick drive
up the mountain and Cabins of Asheville is your connection.
Whether you're celebrating an anniversary, a honeymoon, maybe you want
to plan a memorable proposal, or get family and friends
together for a big old reunion. Cabins of Asheville has
the ideal spot for you where you can reconnect with
your loved ones and the things that truly matter nestled
within the breath taking fourteen thousand acres of the Pisga
National Forest. Their cabins offer a serene escape in the
heart of the Blue Ridge Mountains, centrally located between Ashville
and the entrance of the Great Smoky Mountain National Park.
It's the perfect balance of seclusion and proximity to all
the local attractions with hot tubs, fireplaces, air conditioning, smart TVs,
Wi Fi grills, outdoor tables and your own private covered porch.
Choose from thirteen cabins, six cottages, two villas, and a
great lodge with eleven king sized bedrooms. Cabins of Asheville
has the ideal spot for you for any occasion, and
they have pet friendly accommodations. Call her text eight two eight,
three six seven seventy sixty eight or check out all
there is to offer at Cabins Offashville dot com and
make memories that'll last a lifetime. From the text line,
Aaron says, what I was thinking this morning when I
heard about everything and multiplying everything that's been happening, Why
should Matthews even consider the one percent tax? If the
city is run by democrats and they don't care and
they tried to say everything is okay, and it's really not.
Speaker 1: Yeah, like this is.
Speaker 2: You've you've You've got a young girl twenty three years
old murdered on the train. I don't blame the train,
I don't blame the system, the mass transit system. I
blame the officials that are not prioritizing effective crime fighting.
They just do not. And this is a problem in
every city run by Democrats. They have a different philosophy
when it comes to fighting crime, namely that they don't.
Speaker 1: Choose to do so.
Speaker 2: They're much more tolerant of criminals praying on the vulnerable populations.
A tweet or a message rather h from Mamma Tudid
who says on Twitter heartbreaking to hear that this young
girl leaves the Ukraine to escape the war, to come
to America and then gets killed here in Charlotte.
Speaker 1: It's just awful.
Speaker 2: I wonder if the guy who stabbed her paid for
his light rail ticket. Gonna I'm gonna guess no, I'm
gonna guess he's a fair jumper, right, that would be
my bet. Back at the text line, the root cause
of this is from Kevin. The root cause of the
murder of the Ukraine woman and the street takeovers by
young ones, mostly boys, all have something in common. They
all have a d D all different daddies that have
little or nothing to do with their progeny. The root
cause of most crime is the breakdown of the traditional
family unit. Well that's what the data says, right, if
you have you come from a single mother home as
a male, you are more likely to end up, you know,
in prison than if you're coming from to parent household.
And that is that is something that people can change.
You don't need a government program, you don't need more
funding for something for this.
Speaker 1: This is just a cultural norm.
Speaker 2: So we keep getting these same people elected to the
same office, even when we've got all sorts of swirl
around them, even when we know that things they are
doing don't seem to be helping or working. And I note,
like when I first started at WBT as a reporter,
and I covered the city Council and the County Commission,
and back then they were actually majority Republican bodies. And
then they lost the Republican majority went Democrat, but it
was still kind of close. And then you know, I
went on time out eight years up in the mountains
and in Ashville, and I come back and now county
commissions completely controlled by Democrats, and the city council has
just two Republicans from districts, and they tried to draw
one of them out of the district when they did
their redistricting in twenty twenty.
Speaker 1: So there's not a.
Speaker 2: Lot of representation going on from Republicans to direct to
help direct the course of the city or the county here.
And I feel like that's a bad thing because it
seems like things are getting worse because you don't have
any kind of a corrective at the county or the
city level. So with that in mind, the Charlotte Observer
editorial board came out with their endorsements because we all
need to know who the Charlotte Observer editors would prefer
to govern us. So the past two years have been
challenging and troubling for Charlotte leaders. They say, there's the
six hundred and fifty million dollars in public dollars that
were spent on renovations for Bank of America Stadium, a
deal that one national group called the worst economic development
deal in the country in twenty twenty four.
Speaker 1: I was not aware of that. Give it up, good
job Charlotte. That's awesome. Yeah, Okay.
Speaker 2: Then there's the three hundred five thousand dollars in the
separation agreement with the soon to be retiring police chief
Johnny Jennings, who threatened a lawsuit, never actually filed a lawsuit,
but claimed he was maligned and defamed because nobody had
heard the text messages that he was getting from the
Charlotte City Councilman Tark Baccari, who's now working up at
the Trump Administration.
Speaker 1: But whatever.
Speaker 2: So just the mere threat of a lawsuit that gets
you the payout, So there was that. There's also the
massive transit plan and corresponding sales tax referendum. At the
heart of each of these issues lies the same problem,
the editorial Board says, a startling lack of transparency that
poisons the council's decision making and fractures the trust leaders
have with each other and the public. And what's become
increasingly clear is that something needs to change. Voters may
have been largely excluded from those discussions, but they have
an opportunity to make their voices heard now, and so
our recommendations in the race for mayor is to leave
the mayor there she should get yeah, she should keep
her job. And for the at large races, the four
at large city Council's seats, they also recommend we keep
all of the same incumbents.
Speaker 1: There too, So there you go. There's that's their endorsement that.
Speaker 2: But stuff needs to change, okay, and we hope that
now these five will change. They'll they'll do they'll do
better if we just send them back into their seats
that they're currently in right now that you say need
to change. So I am struggling to find the logic here.
Speaker 1: I don't know.
Speaker 2: It's like you wrote the intro to this editorial and
then you like completely forgot that you wrote this intro,
and then you made your endorsements. Maybe two different people
worked on it, and we all thought like, oh, we
thought we were gonna go with like an insurgent slate
or something.
Speaker 1: But no, no, no.
Speaker 2: They recommend Viylyles return to office, and they recommend them
Bela Jamia, and they recommend James Smudgie Mitchell and Lawana
Slack Mayfield and Victoria Watlington six other challengers out there.
But no, no, leave the four at large members. By
the way, they also did a story the other day
sorry today looking at council absences and yeah, the ones
that they are recommending, three of the four at large
and four of the five total that they just told
us to vote for. They have the worst attendance records.
Speaker 1: They don't show up to the meetings.
Speaker 2: Well, I mean they show up to like two thirds.
The worst offender is James Smudgie Mitchell and he he
has attended sixty seven percent of the meetings so far.
I don't know if I'm I don't know if I
like this because on the one hand, then not showing
up means maybe they're not breaking stuff, you know. But
then again, it's like we're paying you to do these jobs,
so I feel like you should probably show up, all right.
You hear me talk a lot about incentives, right, Well,
let's talk about incentive trips, the kind that companies offer
employees to fire them up and reward their teams. If
you own a business or you work somewhere that offers
these incentive trips, first off, good for you, but also
there is a custom app that's a game changer for
these trips. It's called Incentive trip Kit. Private group messaging,
shared photos, your itinerary, travel details, all built into a single,
easy to use app. There's even a traveler locator so
carl from accounting doesn't get left behind. The best part
about Incentive trip Kit it's totally private, no email captures,
no sign ups, no cringe ads. It's simple, clean and secure.
And when the trip is over, Incentive trip Kit turn
those highlights into a professional storytelling video. So think about it.
When you launched next year's incentive trip campaign, that video
becomes your greatest motivator. Talk about a return on investment, right,
you got to check out incentive trip Kit for your business.
Visit incentive tripkit dot com because great trips deserve even
better returns. So the Charlotte Observer went through and crunched
the numbers. They went through what was it, seventy nine
business meetings, zoning meetings, special meetings, strategy and budget meetings
during the current term which began for the Charlotte City
Council in December of twenty twenty three. They ran through
the meeting minutes, they ran through the video recordings, and
what they found was that there have been only three
meetings this term, three out of the seventy nine, when
all eleven council members and the mayor were present and
on time three at a seventy nine. Now that does
not does not. These the numbers I'm gonna give you
here do not reflect late arrivals or early departures, okay,
because some of the council members show up late habitually
and some leave early on the regular.
Speaker 1: But this is just attendance, okay. The most attending.
Speaker 2: The one who attends the most meetings is Marjorie Molina
District five, rep. At ninety seven percent. Good for her.
Ed Driggs one of the only Republicans District seven, he's
at ninety four point ninety four percent, So I'll give
you the ninety five.
Speaker 1: I'm just going to.
Speaker 2: Round these numbers to the nearest whole number. So he's
at ninety five percent. Lawana Mayfield at ninety four percent,
so she does show up. Tarc Bacari, but he's now
no longer there. He was at ninety percent. Dante Anderson
she's at ninety eighty percent. Malcolm Graham, he's at eighty
nine percent. Renee Johnson at eighty seven percent. Tiyawana Brown
when she's not being federally indicted, she's at eighty six percent.
And then you get down to the mayor at eighty
two percent of the time she's there, dimple Ajmira eighty
one percent, Victoria Watlington seventy eight percent, and James Smudgie
Mitchell at sixty seven percent, So basically one out of
three meetings he's not there. Attendance habits are no secret
among council members, the Observer reports. In a July twenty
ninth email addressed to the Mayor and sent to the
full council, Councilman Malcolm Graham voiced concern over frequent delays
that pushed meetings pasted their scheduled start times because not
enough members were present. Meetings cannot begin without a majority.
I was wondering this. I did not realize that this
is what was going on because I will on Monday nights,
I usually turn off the gov Code channel and I
watch the meetings because that you know, it's I like
to do. No, I don't, but I watch it so
you don't have to, because I'm a giver. Okay, So
I watched the meetings so you don't have to, and
if anything happens then I can tell you what occurred.
And like they're supposed to start at like five o'clock
and they never start on time. This now explains it.
They everybody's showing up late. The council members are showing
up late to the point where they don't have even
a majority to start the meetings. Members also leave early,
which Graham said can have can leave less than half
of council present by the time that the meetings adjourn.
Even when topics that members personally advance, like the vote
for an outside attorney, they don't show up.
Speaker 1: He said.
Speaker 2: Members of the public, the media and staff consistently arrive
on time and it reflects poorly on the council.
Speaker 1: When we do not.
Speaker 2: That is true, It does reflect poorly on you, Council members. Yeah,
Mitchell has maintained Smudge has maintained the worst attendance record,
dating all the way back to twenty fifteen. He resigned
part way through his term in twenty twenty one, but
then he was back to campaigning by the next year.
Mitchell attributes his uptick in absences to doctors' orders. He
had procedures in March and April that kept him away
for an extended period of time. If those two months
are omitted from the calculations, he would still be absent
about thirty percent of the time though, so it's I
don't know if that's that's really the reason. Mitchell said
his attendance has never been an issue with his constituents,
who have consistently re elected him. He says the results
outweigh the meetings, see he gets stuff done. Graham highlighted
the mayor's participation has been limited and her absence felt
during zoning meetings. She has attended less than half of
the zoning meetings, and what Lyles says is that she's
delegating the zoning stuff to Dante Anderson, the Mayor pro temp,
so she can gain experience facilitating the meetings. So she
I was wondering why this occurs too.
Speaker 1: This explains it. I did not know this either.
Speaker 2: Apparently the mayor's checked out on the zoning meetings, which
I don't know. I kind of feel like rezoning's are
a pretty big deal, like the development of the city
of Charlotte feels like it's a big deal. Mayor probably
should have some role in that.
Speaker 1: I don't. Yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 2: All right, that'll do it for this episode.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for listening.
Speaker 2: I could not do the show without your support and
the support of the businesses that advertise on the podcast,
so if you'd like, please support them too and tell
them you heard it here. You can also become a
patron at my Patreon page or go to thepetecallershow dot com. Again,
thank you so much for listening, and don't break anything
while I'm gone.