Speaker 1: What's going on? Thank you so much for listening to
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to your smartphone or tablet, and again, thank you so
much for your support. So this may surprise you might
want to sit down for this, but the Charlotte Observer
has done a deep dive into the data, which is good.
I'm not bashing the Observer here for this. This is
actual journalism. They did a deep dive into data from
the Charlotte Area Transit System or CATS, and the headline reads,
violent riders flout passenger bands from CATS trains and buses.
I know, who would have thought that a system that
doesn't prevent people from getting on and off the trains
at the open platforms right, there's no turnstiles there. It's
just sort of an honor system. Who would have thought
that people who get banned from the train or buses
would ignore the band.
Speaker 2: It's beyond me.
Speaker 1: Why would people engaged in violence against other passengers or
the drivers of the buses. Right they're engaging in criminal activity.
They're ignoring the laws against engaging in violence against other
people that they would ignore a band like we told
you you're not allowed on this train, and they're back
on the train. Here's the story from Amber Godet or
Goadet g a U d e T. Gaudet Godeu. Anyway,
when Oscar Solarzano stabbed another passenger aboard the Charlotte Area
Transit System's Blue Rail the Links Blue Rail train back
in December. Again, this is a different stabbing on the
train than the Arena Zarutzka stabbing from the summer last year.
This was the second stabbing Oscar Solarzano. He was not
supposed to be on the train at all. He had
been banned from using cat's transportation a few months earlier,
but violent riders flouting bands is a common occurrence on CATS,
according to the transit system's own records from the last
two years. More than a dozen banned riders last year
were banned again for another offense. During the periods when
they were prohibited from using the system. So they get
banned and then they come back on the train and
do something else, or back on a bus and do
something else.
Speaker 2: And there were more than a dozen such people.
Speaker 1: So, in other words, rather than like I would not
have gone with this sort of Anondyne kind of framing
with the headline that they flout the bands. The bands
don't work. Okay, the bands don't work. The reason they
don't work is because there is no enforcement. The ability
to say no to somebody carries with it an implied
use of force. That is always the case, always the case,
if somebody wants you to do something and you don't
want to do it, and you say no, The implication
there is that if you're going to try to, like
if I say no, and you really want me to
do something, you're going to have to force me to
do it. And if I say no and you try
to force me to do it, then I'm going to
meet your force with force from myself. The ability to
say no has the implication of force behind it. So
when you're saying you are not allowed on this train
or bus any longer you are banned, can I come
on the bus? No? That carries with it the implied
use of force. But if there is no force ever
to be applied, then there is essentially no ban. It
does not work. The only way it works is if
you catch the person violating the first ban, and you
can catch them and then you can try to charge
them with a criminal offense, which is force. It's the
force of the government to detain you, to take your
liberty or your property by way of a fine or something.
Many of the people had been charged with serious crimes
like assaulting security officers or bus operators and train operators,
or weapons possession or threatening drivers. Cat's representative, Brett Baldeck,
declined to make the interim CEO Brent Cagele or Chief
Safety and Security Officer Eric O's niece Ostness Osnis.
Speaker 2: That's how he pronounces that.
Speaker 1: Did not make either of these men available for interview
or to directly answer questions from The Charlotte Observer about
the findings. Baldeck instead provided a copy of the cat's
exclusion policy, which was already public. That policy says low
level misdemeanors like loitering or disorderly conduct, rule violations, repeated
fair evasion these things can earn riders a six month
suspension riders who are cited for violent offenses like assault
or property damage, weapons possession, or sexual crimes, they can
be banned for one year. In a December tenth news release,
Cagle said that there are several challenges to enforcing the bands.
Speaker 2: You don't say yeah, well, the.
Speaker 1: Original design of the open platforms would be a major obstacle,
a challenge, if you will, because you can't keep people
from getting on the bus or sorry, getting on the train.
You can't keep people from getting on the train if
you can't keep people from getting on the platform, and
when the platforms are built at street level, and all
you have to do is walk up and punch in
some code on a kiosk in order to get a ticket,
or alternatively not do that and just jump on the
train when the door's open, right, if you don't have
anybody there to say no, with the implied use of
force behind that, no people are going to get on
the train. That press release from December tenth went on
to state tens of thousands of people ride cats vehicles
every day and monitoring everyone entering the system is not
feasible at this time, as there is no practical way
to identify an excluded individual as they bord there's just
no way to do it. So what's the point of
the bands. It's all retroactive. It's after you do something bit,
after you've sexually assaulted somebody, or after you've robbed them,
after you beat up the bus driver or something, then
then we'll ban you. But then if you get back
on the bus, different driver or something at a different location,
we're not going to know. And so yeah, you're gonna
be able to ride the bus then until you, you know,
commit some other kind of violation, and then we're gonna
we're gonna we're gonna ban you again. CATS is exploring
facial recognition technology to help identify band riders. That's a
good step, but that's going to cost money. Law enforcement
personnel with jurisdiction on CATS, as well as authorized transit
system staff and others, can enforce the bands. According to
the agency's written policy, band riders receive written notice at
the time the ban is issued. So after you're done
whipping up on the passenger, the driver comes over and says,
you're a band off this bus. Here's your band sheet,
here's your here's your notice. Take this piece of paper
with you.
Speaker 2: Don't hit me.
Speaker 1: Sullerzano, thirty three years old, was banned for a year
on October twenty eight, twenty twenty five, for having a
large knife on light rail property. The undocumented immigrant had
been twice deported to his home country of Honduras in
the years leading up to the stabbing. That would have
been during the Biden era. He had come back in
twice deported. Now he's a two time felon at a
federal level. But for some reason, even after having a
large knife on light rail property and being a felon
twice deported, for some reason, he was not handed over
to Ice.
Speaker 2: Wonder why Gary.
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Number on the text line says Charlotte just needs its
own modern version of the Guardian Angels like New York
had in the seventies and eighties.
Speaker 2: What color would the berets be? Would they be read?
Speaker 1: Um? Kevin says, Pete, your sarcasm is not helping on
those banned on the light rail. Beside the band, they
need to give them a tick that they will not
pay that will keep them from riding on the train again.
That or cutting off one finger every time they are
caught on the train again. Just one finger, though Kevin
says he's not a monster here, like that's that's fair.
But also you would know then how many times they
violated the policy.
Speaker 2: We'll take the thumb's last fine.
Speaker 1: Back to this story at the Charlotte Observer about this guy,
Oscar Solarzano, who was caught on the train with a
very large knife, banned for a year, but did not
adhere to the band, got back on the train and
then stabbed somebody with the very large knife. He had
gotten a six month ban for public intoxication at an
unnamed Cat's location the very next day after the first
ban went into effect, so he gets banned for the knife.
The next day he's drunk at one of the platforms
and he gets cited. He gets a six month ban,
but he already had a ban. Cat's security and Charlotte
Meckleberg police officers who responded did not have visibility into
the prior day's exclusion. In other words, when the cops
show up, they don't know he's been banned. They don't
know that he was banned the prior day, and Kat
says that was due to a data entry error. Solarzano
would have then received an indefinite band if they had known,
but they didn't because you know, data entry. Cat's records
obtained by the Charlotte Observer indicate that the data entry
error that the transit system said prevented officers from seeing
Solarzano's previous offense on October ninth may not have been
an isolated event. Although Solarzano was banned twice in twenty
twenty five, his name does not appear in Katz's internal
list of riders banned that year.
Speaker 2: Provided to the Observer.
Speaker 1: It's not clear how many other banned riders were also
left off the list. So when the Charlotte Observers said,
give us a list of everybody that was banned in
twenty twenty five, Oscar Solarzano's name is not on the list,
but supposedly he got two bands, So how many other
people are not on the list that got bands? Like?
Whatever this system is that they are running. It is
not working. It is not a system at all. Yesterday
we talked about the Federal Transit Administration audit of the
cat's system, which found that the rates of crimes against
passengers is three times higher than the national average. The
rate of assault on cat's transit workers is five times
the national average. The piece concludes that passengers who received
multiple bands often continue to pose problems. During twenty twenty
four and twenty twenty five, more than eighty percent of
those riders were banned again within six months of being
allowed back on the system. Does this sound familiar? Does
this phenomena sound familiar? It does to me. This is
the frequent flyer program. This is what we see at
the jailhouse. You have a small percentage, and by small,
I mean probably somewhere in the neighborhood of ten to
twenty percent of all the people that get arrested every
year are repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat offenders. A small
percentage account for a large majority of the arrests. And
it's the same on the transit system. You've asked us
to keep approving sales tax increases with the promises of
mass transit for all, and you can't keep people safe
and you're the ban system sucks. But again, why should
you change course?
Speaker 2: Really?
Speaker 1: When people keep voting these referenda into place and people
keep saying, take more of my money. Sure, Sometimes repeat
bands happen quickly. For example, one rider, Christopher Alexander, was
banned for a year on May fourteenth, twenty twenty five,
for assaulting a security officer. He was banned again two
days later for assaulting a cat's contractor on the Blue
Line platform. Another writer received a one year ban on
April twentieth for assaulting a cat's employee second degree trespass,
as well as disorderly conduct. Five days later, that rider
got another one year ban for simple assault. Although CATS
records do not specify who was assaulted. I don't know
what the answer is, short of closing up all of
the platforms, putting turnstiles in them, staffing security at the
entrances to all of the platforms, yeah, I don't know. Actually,
you know, holding people accountable if you're going to be
if you're going to be you know, attacking people on
these trains and buses, drivers or passengers. I don't care
if you're engaging in this kind of anti social criminal behavior.
There has to be some punishment for it. And I'm
not talking about a piece of paper that says you're
not allowed on the train again for six months.
Speaker 2: You should never attacked the driver.
Speaker 1: Six months, right, There has to be some other form
of punishment. Without punishment, there is absolutely no deterrent effect.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 1: I know there are people that are gonna say, well, actually,
this doesn't act as any kind of a deterrent.
Speaker 2: You know what.
Speaker 1: First off, I don't agree with that. But secondly, let's
assume that's the case. But if you're in jail, guess
what you're not doing. You're not on the bus attacking
the driver. You're not on the train attacking passengers because
you're in jail. So even if it's not a deterrent
to change your behavior, to change your antisocial mental disorder,
whatever it is, well, at least it is a deterrent
to other victims getting victimized because now you're just not present.
Speaking of assault, did North Carolina leaders mislead the public
about salt supplies?
Speaker 2: It's assault, it's salt. It's like a play on where's okay? Anyway?
Speaker 1: Yeah, apparently North Carolina officials say that the local governments
that they were talking to before the snowstorm and ice storm.
They were talking to the supplies that the state had
ready to go to clear the roads, and they may
have said something or things that may have been misunderstood
by the local officials.
Speaker 2: And what they what the locals seemed.
Speaker 1: To misunderstand, was that that they didn't have enough salt
for everybody to do the roads. But that's that's that
was not true. They just misunderstood what they were saying.
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Did you ever get them transferred? And then the room
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create avideo dot com. Another piece from the Charlotte Observer,
this from Nora O'Neill. North Carolina officials say local governments
may have misunderstood discussions about the state's road salt availability
ahead of this weekend snowstorm may misunderstood now. The mayor
of Munroe, Robert Burns, took aim at Governor Josh Stein
in a widely scene post on Twitter formerly known as
x saying municipalities were warned before the storm the North
Carolina faced a shortage of road salt and needed to
be selective in treating the roads. By the way, Charlotte
Mecklemburg emergency officials say they also received that same warning.
State officials however, told the Charlotte Observer, No, no, no,
they had enough salt on hand to treat major roadways.
Any limits that were discussed ahead of the storm were
about how the supplies would be shared, not whether the
state was prepared. See, so we don't have a shortage
here at the state. I don't know what you're talking about.
We don't have a shortage. We're just saying we don't
have enough to share. That's what this is what they're
going with. This is the line. Okay, I mean that
is one way to play this, Burns told. This is
Mayor of Monroe, Robert Burns. He told the Charlotte Observer
he received information about salt availability during a Union County
emergency management briefing that was held before the storm hit.
He said officials in that briefing were told that there
was a state wide shortage of salt and brine, so
no martinis people, and that the North Carolina Department of
Transportation would prioritize major roads.
Speaker 2: First. I don't know.
Speaker 1: I like, I'm not an expert on the salting and
the brining. Yes on the martinis, but no, not really
on the salting and the brining. But it does sound
to me like they're basically saying the same thing, right, Like,
the locals are saying that the state told them there's
not enough salt for them to share the supplies with
the locals, so we're going to concentrate on the major
roads first.
Speaker 2: And the state is saying, no, no, no, we never
said that.
Speaker 1: They must have misunderstood while we were saying was that
there's not enough supplies to share with them, So we're
going to focus on the major roads first.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: Doesn't that sound It kind of sounds like the same thing.
Burn said, They told us there was a statewide shortage.
They said they were going to have to be selective. Yeah,
they'd have to prioritize what to do with their resources.
After the storm hit, Burn said he became well, he
says he became frustrated, But I wonder if he was
actually frustrated, But he says he became frustrated when state
leaders publicly pushed back on claims of a shortage. Burn said,
somebody's not telling them the truth. If there was a mistake,
just own it and fix it. Days before the snow arrived,
Governor Josh Stein expressed confidence in the state supply levels
during a visit on January twenty ninth to an nc
DOT facility in Raleigh. He said the DOT employees felt
confident that they had enough salt and sand to help
handle another storm following the ice storm the prior weekend.
Charlotte Mecklenburg Emergency Management spokesperson Page Grande said the agency
also received a briefing related to limited salt availability. In
an email to the Observer, she said the agency was
informed early last week by Emergency Management about a nation
wide shortage of road salt and brine. The agency said
that it worked with state and local partners to ensure
adequate supplies were available across Mecklenburg County across the country. Meanwhile,
cities and towns have reported a shortage of road salt,
including in Vermont, Ohio, and New York. Have you, by
the way, have you seen any videos out of New
York City?
Speaker 2: Not all?
Speaker 1: I mean, first off, not only did they allow like
more than a dozen homeless people to freeze to death,
because that's the that's the warmth of collectivism Under Zoron Mamdani,
he refused to go and round up the homeless before
the big storm hit, just leaving them out on the
streets and like more than a dozen of them froze
to death. And now there's video because like the streets
haven't been plowed, so like for all of the for
all the Yankees and the Midwesterners who have you know,
relocated to the Charlotte area and they're all complaining about
the streets not being plowed. Like okay, like we have
like one plow. Okay, we've got we have. We have
not seen this kind of a storm in more than
twenty years. Okay, we should not be prepared like Minnesota
or Vermont or New York City. We should not have
a fleet of plows ready to roll because we only
get this kind of a snow very infrequently. But New
York they do have plows and they have not been
able to plow the streets for like it's it's been
like a week. And the videos coming out of New
York City. So because the streets aren't getting plowed, you
know what else doesn't happen trash pick up. And this
would if you've never been up to New York City,
this would blow your mind. Like they still use guys
on the backs of the trucks. They don't have the
arm that comes out and picks up the can and
dumps it. So all the shops, all the businesses and
residents they take their trash and they put it on
the sidewalk at the curb, and then the trucks pull
up and guys jump off the back, pick up the bags,
throw it in the back of the truck, and of course,
you know, you get some leakage and bags break, and
that's why New York City smells.
Speaker 2: But well one of the reasons. But they haven't been
able to pick up trash.
Speaker 1: So now you have the the piles of snow and
you have the piles of trash, and it's all mixed
together because they're not picking up the trash. And I
saw one video from some guys last night. They've got
some equipment out there the city does. They've got some
equipment rolling down the street where apparently they had been
able to plow like one lane or something on the street,
and then they came back through and started spreading the
snow across the whole street. Rather than have like a
lane open, they spread the snow that had been plowed
to the side. They spread that and they spread it
around or something, which is totally something a Kami would do.
Speaker 2: Right, They're going to redistribute the snow.
Speaker 1: Equally across the street, so everybody has to drive on
the street. This is like, this is a colossal failure
of competence and governance, right, your first test as the
new mayor, and it's a snowstorm and he has failed miserably. Well,
I shouldn't say that, because out in front of his
residence at Gracie Mansion, that street was plapted. So just
like any good communist area, right, any commedy jurisdiction got
to take care of the party officials. 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.
Speaker 2: Why.
Speaker 1: 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.
Speaker 2: See for yourself.
Speaker 1: 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. From the Charlotte Observer story on the uh
salt shortage that wasn't or maybe was, I'm really sure
state officials say that. Look, there's a perfectly reasonable explanation
as to why the local officials thought that the state
had told them that there was a shortage of salt
supplies ahead of the snowstorm. They say the difference in
accounts reflects how resources were managed, not a lack of preparation,
which I'm not really clear if that's like, are you
actually addressing it? Seems to me to be a pretty
straightforward question. Did you say that there was a statewide
shortage or did you not say that because you've got
Charlotte Emergency Management and you have the mayor of Monroe
at a Union County Emergency Management meeting, and they're both
saying that you guys told them that there was a
statewide shortage of salt supplies and there's a nationwide shortage
of salt ahead of the snowstorm. Which makes sense because
like we just went through two rounds of these snowstorms
across the country, so it would make sense to me
if there was a shortage. And I'm not blaming and
see DOT for the shortage. I mean, you can only
make so much salt, you know, at the salt factories
wherever they are located.
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 1: Now, sand, on the other hand, seems like we could,
you know, just get a whole bunch of sand from
the coast. I mean, you got a bunch of houses
that are already falling into the ocean, so like just
take the sand that they were sitting on. I'm just
kidding people, just I'm not saying to knock people's homes down.
Aaron Moody, nc DOT Assistant communications director said in a
written statement to the Observer that the department communicated to
some local officials ahead of the storm that it would
not be able to share salt supplies.
Speaker 2: It couldn't.
Speaker 1: It wouldn't share the supplies with municipalities. Why, Well, it
had to preserve its resources for the state maintained roads
like interstates and highways. Okay, I'm just going to run
a quick thought experiment here. Why would you not share
your supplies with the municipalities if you thought you had
enough salt for the storm.
Speaker 2: To share with municipalities.
Speaker 1: Right, the fact that you're telling them we're not going
to be able to share our supplies with you would
indicate that you don't have enough supplies to share with you,
which might lead somebody to believe that you don't have
enough supplies of salt to share with the municipalities because
you told them that. So you're on your own, municipalities, like,
we're going to do our roads. We got to focus
on our roads first. Again, totally understand, and again back
to back storms means you are limited in the amount
of time you have to be doing the clearing from
the first storm.
Speaker 2: You know you got impassable roads.
Speaker 1: If you're trying to get new salt deliveries in like
that's a difficult thing to do because you've got icy
roads and you're still applying the salt and the brining
and all of that. So it makes sense to me,
it makes sense that you would tell municipalities like, guys like,
we're up against it here. We're running all of these crews,
we're dumping all of this salt. We just did it
this weekend, we got to do it next weekend. And
so we're not going to have enough for you. That
means that there's not enough for you. So it is
completely understandable why the people that are being told there's
not enough for them would think that there is a
quote shortage because you are short, right, Because theoretically, again
I'm just just running this thought experiment out, like wouldn't
if you had, say, three weeks between the storms, you
probably would have purchased more salt and then you could
have shared in those supplies.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: The confusion, says Moody, I think there's some confusion over
the amount of salt NCDOT had on hand versus the
availability of resources to share with local agencies. Well, yes,
mister Moody, because like you know what your supplies are,
and so when you said you don't have enough supplies
for them. They heard, you don't have enough supplies for them.
Speaker 2: He says.
Speaker 1: The department advised local governments, public works departments, and emergency
management agencies to coordinate directly with private suppliers or contracted
local vendors for their salt or treatment needs.
Speaker 2: Right, because you have a shortage, you don't have enough.
That's what that means.
Speaker 1: Why can't you just say that, Well, apparently they did
say it, according to all these people that heard them
say it. Then said, hey, there's a shortage, and you're like, oh,
we don't have a shortage, We just don't have enough supplies.
Speaker 2: They had one.
Speaker 1: Hundred thousand tons of salt on one hand going into
this week's storm and pre treated roads with three and
a half million gallons of brine. The agency said it
followed standard procedures that prioritize interstates, highways, and other major
connectors and worked with suppliers to restock salt during the storm.
Stein told reporters the state expects to have fifty thousand
tons of salt on hand within the next few days.
This was on Tuesday before the storm, and entered the
recent winter weather stretch with enough supply to handle three
major storms. He said, the state has sent requests to
states with surplus salt to help replenish its salt bank,
so they have wait, wait, hang on a second, they
have surpluses, So you're asking the states that have surpluses
if you can have some of their salt because you
have a not surplus, which would also be called a shortage.
Speaker 2: That's what that means.
Speaker 1: So much time is spent with just trying before you
can even have a debate about the thing. Like, so
much time is wasted playing these stupid word games because
nobody wants the boss in this case, Josh Stein to
look like he wasn't like Johnny on top of everything,
like he handled this perfectly. Everybody's so worried about the
perception of failure. Just admit, yeah, two storms back to
back weekends. We ran out assault.
Speaker 2: Just say that. All right.
Speaker 1: That'll do it for this episode. Thank you so much
for listening. I could not do the show without your
support and the support of the businesses that advertise on
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vpetecallanershow dot com again, thank you so much for listening,
and don't break anything while I'm gone.