Speaker 1: What's going on.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much for listening to this podcast. It
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And again, thank you so much for your support. I
knew this was going to happen because I can't stop
commenting when I watch these things.
Speaker 1: It drives everybody nuts.
Speaker 2: That's why I can't watch any news programming with anybody,
like in the living room with me, because I just
I will pause it and just start.
Speaker 1: Yelling at the TV.
Speaker 2: I know it's something that like I think only comes
when you turn seventy or something, but I don't know.
I've been doing it for years and I've turned it
into a successful career, so it can't be all bad.
So the City of Charlotte holds a news conference to
show everybody the new bikes and UTVs that will be
patrolling along the light rail stations and the rail trail
and the transit center where the buses go. So they
got new vehicles and this is going to make everybody
feel much much safer. They look very expensive, but when
you're giving eighteen million dollars a year to the private contractor,
I guess they can afford this kind of equipment. They
do look kind of military e So I'm not sure
if that's going to engender some protests, some maybe fiery
but mostly peaceful riots or something like. I was just
out here walking over and then I saw this. Then
I saw this UTV and I had to burn it down,
you know, because that was what we were told during
the riot season. So just the mere sight of the
police presence wearing particular gear or driving particular vehicles, it
prompted people to get violent.
Speaker 1: So I don't know if that's the case here.
Speaker 2: So the mayor in the first hour we listened to
the mayor's opening statement, not very good. I have a
ton of messages. The text line is blown up here.
It's basically, let's just say it is being universally panned.
Her comments are being panned. Then the mayor of Davidson,
Rusty Knox, he spoke assuring everybody transit is safe and
I also saw.
Speaker 1: Who sent it to me?
Speaker 2: Was it a I've lost track of all the messages here.
This is from Cohen who said, Hey, Pete, did you
notice that it took the mayor about two full minutes
before asking the voters to vote for the additional penny
sales tax. Yeah, she did mention that very early on
in her comments. And that's why I think, like that's
the tell. Every time they talk about this, they're trying
to shoehorn the safety issue into the one sent sales tax.
They want people to think, if you vote for the tax,
then things are going to get safer.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 2: This from an anonymous seven oh four number. What angered
me the most about the city's response to the violence
on cats was the mayor of Davidson saying the murder
on the light rail probably could not have been prevented.
Speaker 1: Wrong, Mayor.
Speaker 2: If the judicial system really did their job, the legislature
stopped no cash bail, or stopped cash bail, cashless bail,
and the City of Charlotte was really serious about security
on the cat's system, this murder definitely could have been prevented.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 2: This has been a not so clever rhetorical trick that
they have been using since the murder, which is that
it happened so fast, it came out of nowhere, it
was completely unprovoked, that there wasn't any time to intervene. Right,
once the attacker stood up, it had opened the knife
and stood up. It happened in a second. So to
that extent, right, you probably could not have stopped him
from doing it because it happened so fast. However, that
ignores all the time prior. It ignores years of him
going in and out of the court system, right. It
ignores his mental health issues that his family tried to
get him help and they never could get it. It
ignores the lack of a security officer or an armed
security on that train at the time. It ignores the
fact that he was able to get on the train
without paying a fare and there was no fair enforcement.
Speaker 1: So it ignores all of that.
Speaker 2: So to say it was unpreventable, like I said, it's
a not so clever rhetorical trick. I don't fall for it.
You don't fall for it, but they keep saying it
for some reason, I don't know why. City manager then
gets up Marcus Jones and he's talking about, oh, we're
you know, getting more police trained up, and we're retaining them,
We've increased their pay and all of this. But he
has now broadened this press conference out into something other
than simply the cat's security, the transit security. Now he's
talking about pay for cops in general. And you know,
if you open that door, counselor I'm walking through it
as a reporter, I'm sitting there, I'm going to start
asking questions about the safety outside of cats too.
Speaker 4: We'll come in the next week or two, but I
want you to know that we've focused on various areas
in our city. We're stalking with the uptown, but not
limited to the uptown. We have additional resources in our
central division. We have targeted patrols, and we have targeted
response for intervention and outreach. We're working more to make
sure that we can keep our community safe. Now, Brent
is going to talk about transit and some of the
safety measures there, but I want to assure you that
we're not limiting it just to trans it. How can
we make sure that our entire community feels safe and
we have the resources to make sure that we can
back that.
Speaker 1: Up, lock up the offenders.
Speaker 2: That's how you make people feel safer you lock them
up for long period.
Speaker 5: Warning everyone, I'm Brent Kagle, interim CEO of CATZ. Thank
you everyone for coming out today. I'll keep my comments
brief so that we can move over to questions. Good
than you I think today, this is what we're talking
about visual presence. We see PPS officers here. You also
see the equipment behind me that they are deploying. It
really is a visual way to show our commitment to
safety and security throughout transit. The partnership with PSS is
growing and evolving as we work together to ensure the
safety of our operators, our customers, and as we work
to reduce or eliminate fair EVA throughout the system. All
of these are top priorities and cats with PPS and
in partnership with CMPD, we're ready to implement and execute.
Speaker 6: On these plans.
Speaker 5: PSS PPS continues to increase staffing, with personnel now at
approximately two hundred staff hired and available.
Speaker 1: Who whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa.
Speaker 2: I thought you guys said you were you were at
full staff at two nineteen. Now I thought that. I
thought they said they were fully staffed up the other day.
Have they lost position. Maybe they have, I don't know.
Speaker 5: Including over forty armed personnel that are part of the
PPS contract. All of these personnel are backed up and
supported by twenty four fte or nine hundred and sixty
six hours per week of off duty Charlotte Mecklenberg.
Speaker 1: Police Department officers.
Speaker 5: I think it's also important to note that all of
the personnel receive extensive training, including unarmed personnel, before they
go out to serve the community and transit, and all
of the unarmed personnel are fully supported by armed personnel
with PPS and by CMPD. Adding the bike unit and
UTVs really makes PPS and CATS more mobile and capable
to protect our system going forward.
Speaker 1: See I've heard other things about the extensive training.
Speaker 7: We will open them up to questions if you could
tell us who you are, what outlet you're with, and
we'll try to get through as many of these as
we can before the pile driver turns back.
Speaker 8: On and we're directing the questions since.
Speaker 1: Audio is terrible.
Speaker 2: He's they're in a construction zone.
Speaker 1: Why would you do this in a construction zone?
Speaker 5: So the auditor dignotion is report one element of the
contract armed security. I think it's important to remember that
one element of the contract doesn't represent the position entirely
on how to provide proper security throughout the system. We
know visible presence is important, and so what we have
is a more than one increase in staffing across certified
law enforcement, armed security as well as unarmed security, all
serving working together to protect the system.
Speaker 1: No, that's not true.
Speaker 2: He just rolled all of those categories into one universal figure.
We've heard this is what the city is now doing.
They're saying, oh, we've had a one hundred percent increase
in the private contractor personnel count, right, but the number
of armed guards went down. The number of unarmed guards
went way up. So while there are now yes, two
hundred personnel, the number of armed went from sixty eight
or eighty eight under the old contract now down to forty.
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listening to the press conference that the City of Charlotte
held this morning at eleven am. I have not heard
this press conference just because of the timing of it
and me coming into the studio, so I have not
heard this, and I am I have the same reactions
that you guys have. Your just blowing up the text
line and there is a real sentiment here that we
are being told to approve move the one cent sales
tax in order to have security on the transit system.
That is the feeling that people are getting that you
are using the fears and concerns about safety in order
to promote the sales tax increase, and people aren't taken
to kindly to that. Okay, that's just a heads up.
There a piece of unsolicited feedback, as I am known
to provide frequently to the City of Charlotte. Right here
is Brent Kagel talking about the security plan and how
they've been making improvements, and he was asked a question.
I didn't hear the question because it was off Mike,
but he's responding to the state auditors report, the preliminary
report that came out on Monday. We talked to the
state auditor about that report that identified the staffing changes
that occurred in the last six years where there's now
a heavier reliance on unarmed personnel versus armed personnel, and
that they had split the contract in half and then
awarded the unarmed personnel contract to PSS and they said
that they would not entertain any bids from basically white
male owned businesses, and then the armed personnel contract they
gave to another company, and then within a year they
scrapped that said that they weren't fulfilling the terms of
the contract, and then they folded that into the PSS contract.
So in essence, they had a split contract for purposes
of getting a minority owned business to win part of
that contract, and then they turned around and gave the
other contract.
Speaker 1: They folded them back together.
Speaker 5: We do believe that this is a solid strategy. The
other thing I'll say, and others have talked about this,
as we think about staffing, we also know we need
more staffing, and so we're committed to growing that contract
as we move forward. But when we entered into the agreement,
the partnership with PPS, it was about creating that right
mix to create better visible presence and a stronger security
position across the entire system.
Speaker 9: Mary Well, I are up the sign Zier with Channel nine.
Speaker 7: I have a question for you in.
Speaker 9: Regards to the Fraternal Order of Police have requested that
the National Guard now come to Charlotte after all of
this and recent file crime.
Speaker 6: Do you believe the National Guard should come to Charlotte?
Speaker 2: All right, So the question from Channel nine was do
you believe the National Guard should be called into Charlotte
because the Fraternal Order of Police is asking the federal,
state and city leaders to authorize the National Guard to
respond to violent crime in Charlotte. I have the letter
from the FOP, so here's the mayor's response to that.
Speaker 10: I believe in Charlotte first and foremost Hunter not really
that we have the ability in this community. The number
of people that are engaged now to make this a
safer city is from every part of our community. It's
from the business community, it's from our educational works and
all of that. So what I believe is that given
the time that we have to work with the White
House and the federal other federal offices, that we will
not need the Guard to come to Charlotte.
Speaker 6: Miss Artagel's David Hodges WSTV to the point of the.
Speaker 9: Auditor was making about the amount of armed security professionals
and training. We see an armed security officer on every
single pass light rail PAB moving forward.
Speaker 2: After this, all right, So that's David Hodges at WBTV
asking could we see an armed security guard on every
one of the forty eight cars on the light rail system.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 5: As I've said before, we don't believe that that is feasible.
We also don't believe it creates a force that can
stay mobile to respond throughout the system. If there are
significant numbers of security on every vehicle, if those trains
need to be stopped for some reason, that means those
security are stationary with that train. And so again, it's
not about are there personnel on every vehicle every day,
all day long. It's are there personnel visibly present throughout
the entire system always throughout the day.
Speaker 9: All that intersects with the bus system because this remind
everyone to Carlos Brown Junior jobs in the light rail
by riding the bus, he entered the stop floats us
to group above. There are assaults our viewers have seen
on buses frequently. How all this taskfort to address safety
issues on buses where some of.
Speaker 2: These people are often entering the Oh so that's interesting,
Carlos Brown, Carlos, Carlos Brown, whatever's name was.
Speaker 3: I don't care.
Speaker 2: The attacker rode the bus. I guess he did. I
guess he didn't pay there either. I don't know, but
he rode the bus. And the follow up here indicates
that it was from a roof above shelter right or
homeless services, and that there are fights out there, right,
there's criminal activity going on, assaults or whatever. So okay,
I just have this idea. Come, I just have the idea.
It just came to me. Like I said, I have
not heard this full press conference, so I'm just spitballing
here people, And there are no bad ideas under the
cone of creativity, as I always say. So I'm just
going to throw this out there. How about a bus
service or van service for the homeless and only the homeless,
Like we have separate lines, separate vehicles. One that is
fair free, So it's a free ride for the homeless
people to move all around wherever, you know, from one
shelter to the next whatever, and that's separate from the
cat system. Yeah, no, no, I think that that might
not be a great idea. Uh. I'm just I'm just
trying to come up with a solution, because you know me,
I am all about solutions.
Speaker 1: I don't know what Kagle has to say here.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 5: So, buses are the backbone of every transit system, and
just like light rail, buses need to be safe. Passengers
need to feel safe when they're riding buses, and so
these measures aren't just about the Blue line or the
rail it's about buses as well, and again I'll reiterate
everyone needs.
Speaker 6: To have a ticket.
Speaker 5: Fair evasion. We will be focusing on reducing or eliminating
fair evasion as we move forward, and that is across
the entire system, whether it's buses, rail, all of our modes.
Speaker 1: Martha, Okay, wait a minute.
Speaker 2: So nobody's talking about putting a guard on every bus, right,
because there's almost four hundred of them. I think, So,
how exactly do you get security on the bus? Because
what if a homeless person has a bus ticket? Because
there are organizations that give bus tickets out.
Speaker 1: So then what so many questions.
Speaker 2: 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 a
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 am 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. There are a 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. I did get a text here listening to
the government redirection of current events and facts. If the
public transportation system is so safe, then why do they
want tax money. I'm convinced more by the results we
have now than the promises they make.
Speaker 3: See.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so here, let me see if I can summarize this.
The safety plan, the security plan that they're rolling out
will improve security, which is good but could be better.
But if you vote for the ones in sales tax,
it'll improve security. But we're still good, but it could
be better. But the new plan is totally going to
make it better. Are we clear now?
Speaker 3: Okay?
Speaker 2: Good breaking. Brett Jensen from the WBT News Center is
now joining us. Brett was at this dog and Pony
show or I guess UTV and bike show.
Speaker 1: I guess it would be. So were you in a
construction zone? Did?
Speaker 2: They did?
Speaker 10: Like?
Speaker 1: Where were you? You're on a rooftop or something.
Speaker 11: So we held it on the top floor of the
Sugar Creek parking deck at the light rail station there
at Sugar Creek Road, and in the background they're building
all these brand new apartments and all these brand new apartments,
and so they actually had it set up that they
would stop all the construction noise at eleven o'clock so
they could hold the press conference, and then one hundred
and fifty yards behind them at eleven thirty or so
or eleven forty five, I guess around eleven forty five,
the construction and all the noise would amp back up.
Speaker 6: So we were on the top roof, yeah, of a
parking deck, right.
Speaker 1: I could tell that.
Speaker 2: I almost thought you were out back at our building here,
because we've got a similar kind of view. But so
that was a very helpful way for them to limit
the Q and A and to keep this thing to
just a half an hour.
Speaker 11: Yeah, well, Date, Well, I mean, Pete, I mean the
Q and A was fifteen minutes. They spoke for fifteen minutes,
and then the Q and A was only fifteen minutes,
and we had many more questions that we wanted to ask,
and they immediately cut it off.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: No, And then I mentioned this at the beginning of
the show, which was I caught the very end of
the press conference where they were shutting you down from
the Q and A. And then the mayor gets up
there to close it out and says, that's why we're
out here.
Speaker 1: You know, safety is important.
Speaker 2: We hear you, and that's why we're here to answer
all of your questions and I'm screaming at the live feed,
but you didn't answer all of their questions. They're still
asking you questions as you're trying to wrap the thing up.
Speaker 1: Just I don't know.
Speaker 2: I don't know if that was intentional or if they
were just working with it because they wanted to have
the vehicles out there, obviously they wanted Did anybody stick
around for the b roll shots?
Speaker 1: Did people actually do that? Well?
Speaker 11: Afterwards, like you know, there were a couple of city
council members there, Edwin Peacock and Malcolm Graham, so they
were doing interviews with everyone and.
Speaker 6: And then afterwards they got.
Speaker 11: In their little vehicles that almost look like a beach
doom buggy.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I don't know how that helps the light rail.
Speaker 11: But okay, they keep saying presents and presence, but okay,
m m.
Speaker 3: But they you know, they had.
Speaker 11: Their bikes and they had their little doom buggies and
they showed them and a couple of people got b
rolled and then they put on the sirens to make
it sound all official, and that lasted, I'm not even joking,
twenty seconds.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and everyone got their b roll and then.
Speaker 11: But again, I don't know what the purpose of all
that was for. But they wanted to show off their
brand new toys that they got for eighteen million dollars.
Speaker 2: Right, Well, they're also paying for a whole bunch of
unarmed security. So it's not it's not because did anybody
ask or did they divulge, like what the cost of
each of these vehicles were.
Speaker 11: No, nobody even cared about the vehicles, Like that wasn't
even a center of topic.
Speaker 3: Well I see everything. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2: When I saw that, I was like, they're calling this
press conference and they're they're labeling it like bike and
UTV rollout or something, and I'm like, the media is
not there to see the bikes and the and the UTVs.
You if if Arena Zarotska was not murdered four weeks ago,
this thing would get maybe a line in a newscast,
a local newscast, like maybe a photog would come out
and spray the scene, just get a couple of shots
and move on, Like this is not a newsworthy And
people were there. You guys were there to ask questions.
So what did you learn that you didn't know before
the press conference?
Speaker 11: Well, the one thing, and it's encouraging to hear. Let's
just say from a citizen standpoint, it was encouraging to
hear that Brent Kagele, the CEO of CATS, finally recognizes
the need for fair enforcement because afterwards, after all the
Arena Zaruska stuff and with you know, just not being
able to read the room and understanding the situation, he said,
we will never check.
Speaker 3: Every single fare.
Speaker 11: You know, him and the the PPS Security group said,
we will never check every single fare. And the the
overwhelming theme today was we're doing better. We're going to
do better. The one sent sales tax has to pass
right and all by the way, we're going to try
and figure out how a way to.
Speaker 6: Check all the fairs right.
Speaker 11: And that's when I asked my question because you know,
the thoughts of that it just might be you know,
people that they hire, could be women, it could be
older men, it could be whomever. And that's why I
asked the questions, like, how are they going to be
able to protect themselves against someone like you know, uh,
you know, de Carlos Brown who insists that he's not
paying and he's going to get on the train. I said,
how are they I said, I said, how are they
going to be able to protect themselves.
Speaker 3: I said, are you, I said, or.
Speaker 11: Because if you don't, if they can't protect themselves, then
we're going to be And I said, we're going to
be right back here next year or in two years
about how a ticket checker was assaulted or killed, right.
Speaker 1: Because we'll be right back here.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: If you get a if you get a group of
of mis Koreans that get on and refuse to pay,
and then that fair enforcer is going to be calling,
I guess to the dune Buggy Brigade and they'll be
you know, riding up to meet her at the next stop.
But in the meantime, she's still now trapped on a
train with you know, like six seven of these miscreants
that are going to you know, beat her or something
if she if she pushes them too hard.
Speaker 6: That's exactly right, And that's exactly right.
Speaker 11: And they said, you know, we cannot have people on
all the trains and the cars of the light rail station.
And just so the listeners, I've been saying this a
lot of my show, just for the listeners to understand.
With the numbers that we're talking about, there are ten
trains and each train has two cars, so that's a
total of twenty cars. So all you need at any
one time is twenty one per car if you want
to have because you cannot walk from one car to
the next, so you eat like the New York subway,
you can't go in between cars, and so you would
need twenty And you would think for eighteen million dollars
a year they would be able to have twenty people
on the light rail, you would think.
Speaker 2: So I'm thinking another idea. I'm just spitballing here, but
how about an air marshal model right where you don't
know who the security, the armed security is and word
spreads that we've implemented an air marshal kind of a program.
So there's somebody on the train and you don't know
who it is, and that person's going to be armed
in an officer, and they will they will take you
down if you cause any problems.
Speaker 11: Well, I mean, I don't have I actually kind of
like that, you know, but you know, unfortunately with air marshals,
obviously they're not on every single correct and every single place.
Speaker 1: We're not getting that anyway.
Speaker 2: Well, if we're not going to get it anyway, I'm thinking, well,
why not just put them all under cover.
Speaker 3: You know, I don't mind the undercover. I actually kind
of like that. But then they'll say, but the argument is,
we have two.
Speaker 11: Hundred and we're hiring more people because it's all about
having a presence. It's about a presence. If we have
a presence, and it'll be a deterrent. So an unarmed presence, gotcha.
Speaker 2: Okay, right, somebody to call CMPD to meet them at
the next stop, which is fine after the fact, but
it really did, like, and that's really what kind of
chat mee was I heard, you know, Rusty Knox, the
mayor of Davidson, you know, and he's saying this was unpreventable.
And this is I called it, this not so clever
rhetorical device that they keep saying, because, yes, when the
guy stood up and stabbed her, it would be very
difficult for somebody to recognize what's happening and to react
within that one or two second window. Yes, However, there
were all these steps ahead of time that were not
taken that could have prevented that guy from being on
the train in the first place, right right, And if
there was yeah, if there was somebody present, uh, you know,
a security personnel present, maybe Brown would not have stood
up and stabbed her at all.
Speaker 11: Well, no, if there was a security presence, And maybe
he doesn't even get on the train because he didn't
have a ticket, right, and he rode the bus free
to get to the light rail station.
Speaker 2: This was another idea I just tossed out. I'm gonna
throw it at you. Let's see what you think. How
about a separate bus system for homeless people.
Speaker 11: Oh, well, we can't afford that, we would need a
two cent sales tax.
Speaker 2: Oh you should run for office. That is the other
thing that I'm seeing on the text line. People are
bristling at the appearance at best, but the intent at
worst to use the crime concerns as a way to
get people to approve the one sent sales text. That's
the way people are feeling. They're feeling this pressure campaign
that's being waged. I can't say I disagree.
Speaker 11: Well, I will say this real quick because I know
you're up against it, But I will say this real
quick about the ones sent sales text.
Speaker 6: Well, people need to understand there wasn't.
Speaker 11: A lot of the first proposals and everything before it
was reworked and reworked.
Speaker 6: The first proposals did not include anyone for security.
Speaker 1: Right, yeah, it's like none zero.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So this was just after the murder of Arena Zarutzka,
and they're scrambling because they're in a panic. I think
there are a lot of people panicking that this is
going to tank their vote and the referendum, and I
think they're trying to now they're doing damage control.
Speaker 1: You know, that's what That's exactly what it is. Yes,
all right, Bret Jensen. You've got a show tonight or
are you off tonight?
Speaker 11: I have a show tonight and I have interviews with
Malcolm Graham, Edwin Peacock and a lot as well as
the Fraternal Order of Police president that put out the
letter this morning that I broke.
Speaker 3: And so he's coming on air and.
Speaker 11: We'll play highlights or low lights, whatever you want to
call it from today's press conference.
Speaker 2: All right, breaking with Brett Jensen. Thanks, Bred, appreciate you,
Thank you, sir. All right, man, that's Brett Jensen. Here's
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memories that'll last a lifetime. Alan says, why haven't the
City of Charlotte not mentioned working with the sheriff?
Speaker 6: Stop?
Speaker 1: Stop, no, no, let's not give them any ideas.
Speaker 2: Why isn't the city working with the sheriff and partnering
with the sheriff to provide additional law enforcement officers for
the trains and buses.
Speaker 1: I think we know why. No, I don't know.
Speaker 2: A city manager needs to understand the main way to
attract and retain people is to go make them feel
appreciated and valued. Pretty sure he's trying to discuss what
they have done to try and attract officers, which is
obviously not working. That says so, says Tom on the
text line. The second most liberal mayor in Mecklimburg County
is Rusty Knox. He and Anti VII are two ps
in a pod. That's from Bubba, anonymous seven oh four number.
The mayor can talk all she wants. Nothing is going
to change until we all wake up and vote. We
need a new city council and sheriff. For too long,
Charlotte has allowed a small number of voters to decide
our future. We have arrived at that future, and it
is not good Mead says, if the mayor of Charlotte,
or sorry, if the mayor of Davidson calling all the
people that felt unsafe riding trand sorry, let me start
this again. Is the mayor of Davidson calling all the
people that felt unsafe riding transit liars? Just because he
says it's safe doesn't mean it is seven oh four number.
Doesn't Mayor of Viles have armed security wherever she goes?
Where's my security? Charlotte needs to hire two people, Harry
Callahan and Paul Cercy. If they are short three hundred police.
Who's going to ride the bikes? Says Doug.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a fair question.
Speaker 2: Hey Pete, what's the over under number of days before
one of these new fancy bikes or UTVs are stolen?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 1: Uh, it says here.
Speaker 2: How does Okay see when you text me lots of
texts and short little bursts, It's hard for me to
see where the bursts start. How does yer Mayor Lyles
keep getting elected? Please don't feed the homeless. He is
just running out the clock. They are letting us know
how competent they are in every way except law enforcement.
My nephew was a cop for three years in Charlotte.
He left the force because it was impossible to do
the job unless one of the people sitting next to
him saw him open the knife and they jumped up
to stop and see this. So you're kind of all
over the place there, Pete. It also ignores the enforcement
would be a deterrent. Yes, so, and that's the thing too,
is right, you know, lock up the repeat offenders.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 2: So when when the mayor of Davidson's is that this
was unpreventable, it was not if we had a local
court system that was not doing cashless bail for misdemeanor
classes two and three, and we were just letting people
out with a promise to appear for some charges that
are sometimes pretty serious charges. I mentioned this the other
day because I went and I looked up the bail
schedule and in Mecklimber County, and that is set by
the local judges Democrats, right, the Democrat controlled court system
in Mecklinber County. They set their bail guidelines. And our
bail guidelines are pretty weak. Like you can walk if
you're if you get charged with stalking, you can just
sign a written notice to appear or promise to appear.
You can walk on a cashless bail for stalking and assault.
You can walk for an assault.
Speaker 1: I don't know.
Speaker 2: I mean, call me crazy, but I think that when
you beat up on somebody, I'm thinking, maybe no, you don't.
You should at least spend a day, maybe two in jail.
You should have to post a bond. Something like that
seems pretty serious if you're going to injure somebody. Right,
it's not like the broken windows policy. We'll just call
it the broken faces policy. How about that?
Speaker 3: Right?
Speaker 1: Not once have I heard them talk about the judicial system.
Speaker 2: Ridiculous. How do these people keep their job? Total failure
of our city. Another Texter, Yeah, there was not a
single mention of the court system. And I could guess why.
I understand, like the the cover story would be right
officially for the record, it would be that, like, we're
the city. We can focus on this stuff because this
is our jurisdiction, this is under our purview.
Speaker 1: We're doing these things and all.
Speaker 2: But it doesn't work if you are then scooping people
up for violating the laws, putting them into a courthouse
controlled by your fellow Democrats, who are then allowing all
of the people that just got scooped up to be released. Like,
that's the breakdown in the system. I've been saying this
for years. This is the breakdown in the system. The
cops are doing their jobs. You can have all the
pss pps, whatever private contractor you want, phoning in and
calling people, calling cops in to arrest people. But if
there is nothing on the other end of that stick,
it's not really a stick.
Speaker 3: It's not.
Speaker 2: Let me get ray on before the news. Hello, Ray,
Welcome to the show. Ray already right, good talk back
to the text line. The guy speaking has given me
no confidence in the city of Charlotte. I believe that
would have been Brent Cagel, the interim CEO of Cats.
Why not bring back the old fashioned police baton. A
nice whack to the kneecap would work. It's going to
go old school New York Irish cop on him. It
couldn't have been stopped, and it could not have been
stopped unless he never got on the train because he
didn't pay for a ticket, have to pass through armed
security on the platform or the entry to the platform,
or lest we forget, if he was in jail serving
time for all the previous crimes. Well, and it's not
like the attacker in the Zarutzka murder to Carlos Brown Junior.
That guy, he did go to prison, he served his time,
he was released. But then remember he also got picked
up again for the misuse of the nine to one
to one system where he was obviously insane, and when
he called nine one one again in the presence of
the cops who had arrived for the first call for service,
then they were like, that's a misuse of the system.
So the cops then take him to the courthouse, where
the nature of the case, the details of the arrest
should have set off every single red flag for the magistrate,
for the court personnel, anybody looking at that should have said,
this guy is exhibiting signs of mental illness. What's his
rap sheet? Look at his rap sheet? Holy cow, he's
got assaults. We're gonna order a mental evail right now.
We're gonna hold him for an evail that did not happen.
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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for listening, and don't break anything while I'm gone.