Speaker 1: What's going on. Thank you so much for listening to
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your support. It's Tuesday at noon and that means we
do what we always do at Tuesday at noon. Here
we talked to Andrew Dunn. He's a contributing columnist at
the Charlotte Observer. He's also the publisher of long Leaf Politics.
You can read his work at longleafpol dot com. Andrew,
welcome to the show. How are you today, sir?
Speaker 2: I'm doing all right. Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1: On, of course, of course. So let me start with
your two pieces, one at the Observer and one at
your site, Longleaf Politics. One is about Arena Zerots and
the other is about Charlie Kirk's assassination. So let me
start with the piece at the Observer that you started
off by writing, National Attention can be clumsy even course,
it's also powerful, and in the case of justice for
Arena Zarutzka, it was necessary. So I simply ask why
was it necessary?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean it was necessary because the city seemed
perfectly content to just let the whole tragedy pass by
without much of a comment. We talked a few weeks ago.
You know, the first column I wrote basically pointed that
out that the response from the city had been very
underwhelming and not appropriate to the level of tragedy that
the city had experienced. You know, we really didn't see
the city start to take it seriously until, unfortunately, the videos.
You know, the videos were hard to watch, but they
were necessary in shocking the conscience and drawing the nation's attention.
And then and only then did we see leaders start
to actually take things seriously.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and and we, yeah, we did talk about this.
And the way that the story was initially described sanitizes
it in a way, because you're just reading people's words
about what the police report said. And you've read I'm
sure enough police reports over your career as a reporter
that you know, we call it cop talk, right, They
write their reports in a sanitized way, and I understand
why they do that. I'm not criticizing, but you're if
you're a reporter and you're trying to then tell a
story about this thing that happened, you got to rely
on the cop talk. It is a sanitized version of
what occurred. The video blew all of that up, and
it allowed people to see the before and the after,
and then of course we got a lot of Then
you mentioned some of this in your piece the Republicans Pouncing,
which I still do not understand why legacy media outlets
continue to frame stories with pouncing and seizing. They must
know by now that we mock them for this. I
don't understand why they continue to do it. But that's
exactly what they did that Republicans were seizing on this.
But here's the thing they should have everybody should have.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's exactly right. I mean, it is almost self
parody at this point. You know how often the narrative
becomes Republicans pounce or Republicans sees I honestly, I'm not
sure that they do realize it. I don't know how,
but there is a complete lack of self awareness there.
But my perspective here is, you know, if you can
in a situation like this, if the headline is Republicans Pounce,
you have to ask yourself, well, why is it only
Republicans pouncing? Why is everyone not pouncing on this? And
what does it say at the about your worldview?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't know if that's worse that you say
they they don't know. That's almost worse. I guess that
it just speaks to how how insulated they may be
in their echo chamber. And I look, I've worked in,
you know, a couple of newsrooms, and so I know
what that's like. Trying to tell people about a particular
story idea that you know, I have come across, and
the entire newsroom has no idea what I'm talking about,
because everybody else in the newsroom doesn't get story leads
and doesn't get informed by anything other than you know,
sort of the same news sources and leads. And I
guess probably with social media, that's where a lot of
these leads get generated. And if you're only following people
that agree with you, then you may never see the
mockery of the pouncing and seizing as one example. So,
but maybe I'm being too charitable. I don't know, I'm
just you know, I try to see all of the
angles there, so let me now, yeah, I mean.
Speaker 2: The charitable view would be say that you know, yes,
I mean the Observer and other media outlets did cover this,
and so now they're saying, well, now we need to
cover the reaction to it. But I feel like that
there is a middle ground there that that would be
a little more self aware.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and look, the reaction stories are the stories that
you turn when a story has quote unquote legs. You know,
if the story has legs and you can keep doing
follow ups to the story in the days that go by, sure,
but it but to frame everything, like we said, with
the pouncing and the seizing it there. You know, words
have weight, right, It's why when I was a reporter,
I always wrote said, I never used any other adjective
besides said or replied. I never said any other word
because those are neutral terms. And when you start using
different words, like you know, pouncing and seizing, you're you're
adding weight to this in a way that a lot
of times, you know, like if you say the word denied, well,
that carries an implication of guilt or that they're lying right,
or they're accused of something and so I always steered
clear of those words. But that was just me. Let
me get to the Charlie Kirk, the Charlie Charlie Kirk
piece that you wrote, and this is at Long Leave Politics,
the headline, why Charlie Kirk's murder feels so personal? You
have never you'd never met.
Speaker 2: Charlie Kirk, right, correct, I never met him.
Speaker 1: Do you ever watch any of his videos or anything before?
Speaker 2: Oh? Sure, I've watched tons of them, you know. To
be honest, I've watched more over this past week than
I had combined before. But I was certainly very familiar
with them. And you know the reason why I said
it feel so personal the short version, and I did
connect it back to Irena and Zaruska. You know, I
wrote in The Observer with IRENA's case, it was hard
for me not to see my wife in her place.
It was hard for me not to see my children
in that place. You know. With Charlie, it's hard not
to see myself. And I think for a lot of us,
you know, especially people who do have conservative views, and
even more so people who you know, write on conservative
topics and you know, appear at conservative events. I mean
it it you have to. Your mind immediately goes to, well,
this could be this could be any of us, and
that's what makes it so scary.
Speaker 1: You wrote, Just as close up videos of Charlie's assassination
were deluging social media, the newspaper I contribute to published
two columns from staff members cynically mocking Republicans for making
Arena's death of political issue. And my stomach turned again.
And so, like you said, you didn't think you could
be associated with The Observer anymore.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that was my initial reaction. And you know, I
called my editor over there and I said that, and
that was my gut level reaction. You know, I think
a lot of us the instinctual reaction is to retreat
and to and to retreat to your tribe, you know,
quote unquote tribe. And especially as I was starting to
see people react with glee, with joy over over Charlie's murder,
you know, my mind immediately went to, well, you know,
if this is how people on that side of the
aisle think of us, I don't want to be a
part of it. But you know, on reflection, you know,
as as kind of that initial reaction subsided, I realized
that that wasn't fair. So I am still contributing to
the Observer, and I think it's important. I think it's okay,
it's natural to have that gut reaction, but I do
think it's important, you know, as a society, for us
to be able to then take a breath, think more
calmly and rationally and move forward from there.
Speaker 1: Well, and I think that's wise and I support you
staying with it because you know, one of the pieces
of advice that Ben Shapiro, who was a mentor to
Charlie Kirk and who I uh, you know, I followed
him for years. One of the things he said is like,
once you decide to get into this political arena that
you you know, you walk towards the battles, you don't,
I mean, if you're getting in, then be in and
be prepared when you know, when you walk into the battle.
And so and that's what Charlie Kirk was about as well,
that you know, you when you stop talking, that's when
violence happens. And I long believe that as well. And
and this is why he had he had to be silenced,
because he's out there and he's debating people, and when
you have no argument then you just want the other
side to shut up, and you're providing that argument to
an audience I think over there that may not ever
encounter that kind of an argument. So I'm glad you're
gonna stick with it. I was I was like, oh no,
when I read that line, It's like, oh no, he
can't be. He can't be bailing on the fight. So
that's good. But you also, and I think this is
important to you, say we need a shared belief that
America is fundamentally good, not irredeemably evil. Patriotism is a virtue,
not a vice. Faith is vital to public life, not
something to be driven underground. We have a duty to
serve others, not just ourselves. And there is such a
thing as objective truth, and it's worth defending. And I
think that's those are wise words, And I think I
think that this has been a moment of clarity for
a lot of people. Do you like, what do you think?
What is your sense? I guess of the quote vibe
particularly among conservatives after this.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and thank you for those kind words. I really
think the root of a lot of the problems that
we're having in our country is we're drifting away from
that shared consensus. You know, instead of having the shared
goals and different ways to approach them, we're increasingly having
different worldviews that are completely divorced from each other. I
wrote a piece a number of months ago where you know,
in partisan battles, it's almost like the two sides are
operating in their own realities that are are bizarro versions
of each other. I think we talked about that, yeah,
And I think a lot of it has to do
with certain, you know, sections of society. And I think
this does happen on both the left and the right.
Have replaced religion and faith with politics and partisanship. And
I think if you do that, you know, you know,
in religion, we have the concept of good and evil,
of God and Satan. And if you're replacing religion with politics,
you're almost forced to then have you know, your side
is the good side and the other side is the
evil side. And I think that's pretty corrosive to our society.
Speaker 1: Well, and I think that you, I think you're correct
here in your piece when you say that the two
sides are civilization versus anarchy. Right, it's order versus chaos,
truth versus falsehood. As you right, good versus evil. I
think these are these are the things. And when I
look at one side that tries to silence another, the
only reason you do that is because you don't have
truth on your side. Otherwise you would just argue the
points and the truth will win out. And if you
can't win, then probably you don't have the truth on
your side. I suspect that's what sort of at a
societal level, at a spiritual level, that's what we're seeing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that's exactly right. And you know, it's
important not to go too far on that because I
do think, and I write this in my piece, that
the other kind of toxic tendency is to treat political
violence as a scoreboard and then everybody you know, feels
the need to come up with their own examples. And
I don't think that's good. So when I say that
there is a good versus evil, I'm not saying, you know,
Republicans are good and Democrats are evil. What I'm saying
is there are good people and there are evil people.
There is evil at work in this world, right.
Speaker 1: I don't know how you look at the murder of
Charlie Kirk and sell librate that to me, is evil.
You're celebrating evil. I'm watching today in New York where
they drop the terrorism charge against Luigi Mangioni, and the
crowd outside that's chanting. Free Luigi erupts in cheers and
applause and celebration because they drop the charge. He's still
looking at the at the federal death penalty, but they're
cheering that. They're cheering for this guy. That to me
is evil. That's a very bright line, like you don't
cheer for murderers of innocent people. That just me, Yeah, I.
Speaker 2: Mean, that is clearly evil at work in the world. Now,
I do want to point out I am not saying
those people who are doing that are evil, as I
believe that everyone is redeemable, everyone, you know, everyone needs
a savior. But that is clearly evil at work.
Speaker 1: Right, No, I got you, Andrew Dune. I appreciate your
time as always, keep up the good work. You can
read him at long Leave Politics. Also a contributing columnists
at The Charlotte Observer. Still Andrew Dunn, Thanks buddy, I
appreciate it, Thank you. Take care. That's Andrew Dunn. Longleafpol
dot com is that website, by the way, all right,
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One of the other parts from Andrew Dunn's piece at
the Charlotte Observer, he talks about public outcry producing action.
He says outrage is not an end in itself. It
is the spark that assigns responsibility and compels those with
authority to act. I think he's exactly right. He goes
on later in the piece, though, to say the outcry
narrowed the range of excuses. It forced plane speech to
put names and timelines on the table, and that is
a civic good. Anger can corrode judgment, and the Christian
tradition wisely counsels slowness to wrath. But it also teaches
something else. Some anger isn't just permitted, it's required. Righteous
anger is governed by reason and aimed at real evil.
It refuses cruelty, but it also refuses indifference in the
face of grave injustice. The absence of anger is its
own failure of judgment. And this is about the murder
of Arena Zerutzka. He wrote this piece. He says that
he wrote this before the murder of Charlie Kirk, but
he is exactly right. And I think that's what you're
seeing from people on the right quote unquote, But not
even just people on the right. There are people who
are in the middle. Even some liberals are repulsed by
what they have seen in response to the Kirk murder,
but also repulsed by the murder of Arena Zerutzka as well.
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Associated Press by Gary Robertson North Carolina's top legislative leaders
are aiming to advance a package of proposed laws, in
part designed to titan pre trial release rules following the
fatal stabbing of a Ukrainian refugee on a Charlotte commuter
train that prompted national attention and calls for tougher on
crime policies, more oversight of and less discretion. Four local
magistrates who make decisions on criminal suspects is one of
the provisions likely to be introduced when the Republican controlled
General Assembly reconvenes on September twenty second. The package could
also include an effort to restart the death penalty and
prevent the governor and other executive branch officials from creating
commissions that the legislative leaders can tend to encourage local
policies favoring perpetrators. Twenty twenty three. I'll have more on that.
This was the governor's Governor Roy Cooper at the time,
the governor his Racial Equity task Force, and they had
this like fifteen pages of recommendations in the wake of
the you know, the summer of Saint George Floyd, of
fiery but mostly peaceful riots and all of this was done,
you know, to make the criminal justice more system more equitable.
Because I've gone over this before, the disparate outcomes when
you see the number of black people arrested or incarcerated,
and it is larger as a percentage of the population
or a proportion of the population than their total population
would otherwise be like if they're twenty percent of the
local population, but they make up forty percent of arrests.
The left points to that and says, well, that's proof
of systemic racism, and it is actually not proof of
systemic racism because there are a whole host of other
criteria that feed into that data. Anyway, So they put
out these recommendations, and you're going to hear in a
moment from Marshall Moray, who is a former judge, long
time now Democrat state lawmaker, who says, look, the Republican
legislature didn't even codify pass into law a lot of
these recommendations that came from the task Force, right, But
it doesn't need some of this stuff doesn't need to
be passed into law because you have individual judges who
are of the left who see this body comprised of
virtually all people of the left in the legal community
that says, this is what we want to see done
for reforms, and when they at their local level, at
their individual level, they can advance those types of reforms
by not giving people cash bail, by just letting them
go right, by taking these recommendations and implementing them on
their own right, the message gets sent and the messages received.
A twenty twenty three state law that was backed by
Charlotte area law enforcement officials require judges, not magistrates, to
set conditions for pre trial release for certain violent offenders,
taking it out of the hands of the magistrates. That
already happened two years ago because of these kinds of things,
and so maybe they now broad in the category of
crimes that take it out of the magistrate's hands. They
also suggest eliminating the option for county magistrates to grant
casualists bail for defendants with past violent felony convictions, and
that would result in more consistency in these magistrates' decisions.
Speaker of the House, Destined Hall, said, magistrates have a
lot of discretion in given cases, and in the past
in this state that has worked, but it's clearly not
working anymore. Right, So what happened. What broke it? If
it was working, but it's not working anymore, and it's
not working in Democrat run jurisdictions. Why did that happen
because the philosophy changed. Hall said that the way magistrates
are selected also will be examined. Currently, they are nominated
by the chief trial court clerk in each county and
then appointed by the senior chief trial judge. So they're
going to look at I don't know, maybe making some
qualifications for magistrates, making them appointed differently or something. Stein
spokesperson Morgan The governor spokesperson Morgan Hopkins said the governor
is advocating for more funding to recruit and retain law
enforcement officers. I've said this repeatedly. This was not a
cop problem. This is not a police funding problem. They
arrested the guy fourteen times. They did their job. This
is a judicial philosophy problem also, the governor says. The
spokesperson says, the governor has advocated training judges and magistrates
on best practices for setting release conditions for defendants with
mental illness. Right like, how about this if they are schizophrenic,
just by one example, and they have a history a
long history of violent crimes. How about you keep them
in custody until you do a psyche val. How about that?
Here's Marsha Moury writing at the Charlotte Observer, first of course, saying,
you know, Zarutzka's murder was inexplicable, act of brutal violence.
Crime was abhorrent, But so is the Republican response to
politicize her killing and blame soft on crime democrats. Right,
that's abhorrent too. That's as abhorrent as a twenty three
year old being slaughtered on a train car. That's the same.
It's the same level to you, Judge Moury, former Judge Morey,
who is she is as awful as awfuls get affluent
white female liberal. She is like poster child, she said.
Phil Berger, leader of the Senate, went so far as
to claim that free bus fairs in Charlotte were responsible
for this crime. Yes, judge, because had he not been
allowed to board the train without paying a fare, he
would not have been on the train. Very simple. This
is an honor system and it is. It is not working.
It's not working. And for you not to understand that
and then attack Senator Phil Berger for suggesting it when
he's correct. He is correct, and you attacking him over
this shows your ignorance of this issue. Judge your honor.
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 was reminded that Judge Marsha Maury, former judge,
longtime state representative, and awful affluent white female liberal. She
always gets up and argues and makes the worst arguments,
which really is an indictment on the on the bench.
But she took to the op ed pages and I
was reminded that she is She was an Olympic swimmer too,
which means we cannot criticize her because she participated in
sports at some point. Now I don't know if she
would have actually won anything had she competed against a
biological male, which she now wants all female athletes to do.
But that's a that's a fair point. She was a swimmer,
she was an she was an Olympic swimmer. So we
need to keep that in mind too, because she always
mentions it. By the way, anyway, she writes in this
piece that the magistrate that that let de Carlos Brown
Junior free on his latest arrest seven or eight months
prior to him murdering Arena Zarutska on the light railcar.
The magistrate followed the law as written. She did nothing
outside of what the statute requires. North Carolina's laws allow
for orders to appear in court for nonviolent misdemeanors and
to cash bond for more serious offenses. The assigned magistrate
had every right to order him to appear in court
without posting a bond, as he was charged with a
nonviolent defense and had no convictions in the prior five years.
He had no convictions. See now over at WBTV, Naomi
Coles did what we call journalism and went through his
rap sheet and detailed all of the arrests and what
became of them going back to two thousand and seven.
He was charged three times for misdemeanors between seven and nine,
including simple assault, disorderly conduct, resisting a public officer. All
of those cases were dismissed, no details were available pending
two or sorry. Between twenty eleven and twenty thirteen, Brown
was charged again with several misdemeanors for which he failed
to show up in court, which to me, that would
that would be evidence for the magistrate back in what
July to have looked at that record and said, this
guy does have a history of skipping court, so getting
him with a promise to appear. He's homeless, he's schizophrenic,
he's already skipped court in the past, so maybe he
may not show up, Just throwing that out there. In
September twenty eleven, a criminal summons was issued for him
for communicating threats, but he was not arrested. Two months later,
he was cited for speeding in Guildford County and arrest
order was issued. A few months later in that case,
he failed to appear in court. Court records indicate that
the Mecklinburg County Sheriff's Office arrested him in that case
June of twenty thirteen, a couple months prior to his
arrest in June twenty thirteen, in April twenty thirteen, he
was cited for shoplifting. A few months later, in August
of twenty thirteen, he was arrested on an older warrant
for failing to show up to court in the case
for communicating threats, as well as two new charges of
injury to property. He was then released on unsecured bond.
The same day, November twenty thirteen, CMPD officer arrests Brown
in a new case that led to new felony charges
for larceny and breaking and entering. The arrest included three
outstanding warrants for the three other pending misdemeanors, where he
would ultimately plead guilty to shoplifting, while the threats charge
and the property injury charge were both dismissed. He was
then convicted of the felony breaking and entering, assigned to
thirty days in jail twenty four months supervised probation. August
twenty fourteen, he assaulted a Honduran man and stole a
Samsung Galaxy and about seven hundred and fifty dollars in
US and Honduran currency. They found the stuff at Brown's apartment.
He was arrested charged with robbery, and a dangerous weapon
possession of a firearm by a felon A judge That
two secured bonds totaling one hundred and ten thousand dollars.
In that case, he was not released. He was convicted,
went to prison for just over five years. He was
released in twenty twenty in September twenty twenty so covid
Era police then have three interactions between twenty twenty two
and twenty four. None of those arrests appear to have
led to charges, or the cases were dismissed in a
way that no longer appears in court records. Twenty twenty two,
he was arrested for assault on a female and property
injury April and May of twenty four, repeatedly dying nine
to one one while not having an actual emergency. And
that was before the nine one one call that got
him arrested most recently in twenty twenty five. So yeah,
the record and his mental condition should have been the
red flags. All right, 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
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