Speaker 1: What's going on?
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your support. Quick reminder, Thursday, WBT takes over one oh
seven point nine FM one hundred thousand watt FM stick
will be simulcasting WBT. So uh, I'm anticipating a lot
of new voices you will be hearing on the call
in lines. I'm I'm just throwing that out there because
there's a good chunk of the population that doesn't even
know AM radio exists. So yeah, they're younger kids, but yeah,
so they're gonna now they'll now be exposed. Okay, they
will now hear WBT on one oh seven nine FM
starting on Thursday. Looking forward to it.
Speaker 1: Okay.
Speaker 2: So WSOCTV reporting that Oscar Solarzano accused of stabbing a
twenty four year old man in the chest on Friday
near North Brevard Street and East twenty second Street on
the light rail train. Investigators say he was drunk. He
was yelling at people, threatening behavior. The twenty four year
old victim told him to stop, shut up, sit down,
leave people alone. In other words, to do the thing
that you would want somebody to do. If some drunk,
homeless guy is screaming at you your teenage daughter riding
the train, you know you would want some guy to
step in and say, dude, back off, sit down, you're
annoying everybody. You're drunk, right, and so he then starts
threatening the twenty four year old victim. The victim pushes
uh Solarzano away from him because he said he he
was in according to the DA that he had fear
for his safety, so he pushes the guy off him.
Solarzano falls over a chair one of the seats. He
falls over it onto the ground, gets up, pulls out
a knife and stabs the guy in the chest. He
is reportedly in critical but stable condition according to Homeland Security.
This guy, Solarzano, from Honduras, was deported in twenty eighteen.
He was then arrested attempting to cross the border again
in twenty twenty one, and then he entered illegally a
for a third time, but we don't know when and
at what location. Bill Malugin from Fox News.
Speaker 1: He said.
Speaker 2: Do Oscar Gerardo Solarzano, Garcia's full name. He was deported
by the Biden administration and illegally re entered the US
after that in an unknown time and location as a
got away. He has prior convictions in the US for
robbery and illegal re entry. He has had prior arrests
in the US for aggravated battery with a deadly weapon,
resisting arrest, and false ID. He's now charged with attempted
murder for the stabbing and Demmigration Customs Enforcement has placed
a detainer on him with local law enforcement in Charlotte.
Katz Interim CEO Brent Cagel released a statement saying we
are disappointed that a verbal altercation escalated to the point
of a stabbing incident on the Blue Line train Friday evening.
Through close collaboration with Kat's private security team PSS, as
well as Charlotte Mclamurg Police, a suspect was apprehended swiftly
following the incident. Since August, KATS, together with our partners,
have taken a proactive and robust approach to keep employees
and passengers as safe as possible by deploying additional off
duty CMPD officers, private security personnel, new technology, and safety
reporting tools. By the way, this attacker illegal criminal alien,
repeat offender, repeat enterer into the country illegally twice deported,
also did not pay the fare, so a fair jumper.
Speaker 1: Once again.
Speaker 2: Violence has no place in our community, Cagle says, including
on public transit. Individuals who believe public transit can be
used as an area to settle grievances through violent altercations
are not welcome on our system. Oh oh, well, that
explains it. Why didn't we say this earlier? Now, this
makes sense. Wait, you're not supposed to use the trains
to settle our beefs oh man, We should have, man,
we should have publicized that a long time ago. That
would have that would have probably prevented all of the attacks. Right,
the bus attack that left a veteran paralyzed, the other
bus attack, the murder of Arena Zarutska, right, all of
the remember the guy that shot into the into the
bus against the bus driver. Maybe we need more advertising
for this cats. It's not for settling beefs something like that,
like a big marketing campaign painted on the side of
the buses and everything, have signs.
Speaker 1: Leave your beef at the door, something like that.
Speaker 2: We will continue to work with our partners at CMPD
as well as our private security team to ensure everyone
rides appropriately on public transit. We will not compromise on
the safety of our customers and employees. I got on
the text line here, which is seven oh four five
seven eleven ten text line driven by Liberty Buick GMC.
Speaker 1: Was Yeah, Stan.
Speaker 2: Pete, wouldn't it be interesting to discover that the illegal
immigrant who committed the recent stabbing was on the list
of criminals to be apprehended by border patrol when they
were here in Charlotte, but may have been able to
escape detection because of the anti ICE protesters who had
alerted him that federal agents were in the area. See
here's the thing when democrats and media, but I repeat myself,
when they were out there, you know, standing with immigrants,
opposing ICE, opposing customs and border patrol opposing Charlotte's Web
the operation, right, they think of what they were doing
only in terms of the peaceful you know, gardener or
or housekeeper or nanny. Right, and she's living in the shadows,
and she's an illegal immigrant, but she came here for
a better life than all of that. Right, That's who
they pictured themselves protecting. That's the only image that they
have in their minds. They don't realize, or they choose
to ignore, that they are also protecting some pretty nasty
people because they are under your umbrella of whatever protection
you're providing. When you're sending out alerts to the neighborhood saying, oh,
I see ice in the neighborhood. You know, bad guys
also see that, and now they can evade capture. The
Charlotte Observer editorial board another rail stabbing in Charlotte. Did
our leaders learn from the last?
Speaker 3: No?
Speaker 1: Okay, no, that's the answer to your headline question.
Speaker 3: No.
Speaker 2: But they start their editorial who's to blame for the
latest stabbing on a Charlotte light rail train. As you
might imagine, it's not difficult to find pointed fingers. So
here's the Observer asking who's to blame and then sort
of dismissing people's answer for who to blame? Okay, now,
the person to blame for the stabbing is the stabber, Okay,
it's it's the illegal immigrant, the illegal alien Salarzano. He's
to blame, but he was aided and debeted by a
whole lot of other people. Right they are, they may
share some blame, but I detect a sense of like,
we shouldn't be casting blame at these people, and then
kind of like denigrating anybody who is assigning any modicum
of blame to anybody other than the attacker. Which is
interesting because the question of who's to blame this was
the guiding question for the.
Speaker 1: Charlotte Observer for years.
Speaker 2: The Charlotte Observer news department ordered and all of their
coverage around this question of who's to blame, Who's to blame,
Who's to blame. I'd be surprised if they still aren't
doing that. Everything gets filtered through that lens Who's to
blame for this thing? US Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy wasted
little time assigning responsibility for the incident, and it was
into thirty three year old undocumented immigrant Oscar Solarzano of Honduras,
who was arrested and charged with attempted first degree murder
and other offenses. No, Duffy wrote on Twitter, what is
it going to take for Charlotte Mayer to remove violent
criminals off the streets and protect her constituents? The time
to act is now.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, are you.
Speaker 2: Saying that elected leadership bears no responsibility for policies that
allow criminals to constantly go through our catch and release
turnstile criminal justice system. Of course they do, of course
they do. Look, I know also that the mayor doesn't
have any direct authority over the court system.
Speaker 3: No.
Speaker 2: However, she has the bully pulpit. She has not utilized
that against this catch and release turnstile system. So yeah,
there's a little bit of blame to go around for her, absolutely,
But there are a lot of others too. I don't
want to restrict it just to the mayor. There's a
lot of other people that are to blame.
Speaker 3: You know.
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get Richard on the program. Hello Richard, welcome to the show.
Speaker 3: Hey, how you going?
Speaker 1: Hey good?
Speaker 3: This is so frustrating, I mean coming, I grew up
in the Bronx, was a cop in the Bronx, and.
Speaker 1: I would have never guessed you came from the Bronx.
Let me tell you no, my dad's from the Bronx.
I recognize that accent anywhere.
Speaker 3: I'm very acquainted with the Boogeyman. Now, people in the
military that've seen action, they've seen the Boogeyman too. These
people in power, they live in a goblin the gook
fantasy world of having a rail system that anybody, anybody
with a pulse, can get on, and the poor people
who are actually paying paying taxes become the collateral damage
of these people who have never seen the Boogeyman. They
don't understand the boogeyman is the guy with the knife.
They don't and he gets on, and there's nobody in
government to protect the innocent girl who's coming from work
or that guy who's coming from work, and they have
to They don't have a choice, and.
Speaker 2: They don't have any means to will, and they don't
have any means to defend themselves, right because they're not
allowed to carry, they're not allowed to conceal carry on
the train exactly.
Speaker 3: So if the government is not capable of protecting you
on this rail system, then you have no choice but
to save yourself. And that's the way we're going here.
So who do I blame. I blame everybody that keeps
voting for these people who live in the fantasy world
and make these crazy policies and build a rail system
that anybody can get onto.
Speaker 2: That's a fair point, Richard. I appreciate the call, sir,
good hear from you. Thank you also for your service too.
I got a message from Mark Garrison, the news director
here at WBT. He finally got a response from CATS.
He was asking Charlotte Area Transit whether security was on
the train or not, and the response from CATS is
quote that is part of the ongoing investigation between cat's
Security and CMPD, as we shared over the weekend. CMPD
and CAT security responded swiftly and the suspect was taken
into custody nearby.
Speaker 1: End quote.
Speaker 2: Okay, so the question is was there any security or
police on the train? And that's their response, which is
obviously no.
Speaker 1: No, there wasn't any security on the train. You know
how I know that.
Speaker 2: Because there wasn't any security that intervened in the behavior
of the suspect. The guy was drunk and walking all
around and accosting people, threatening people and all of this,
and nobody intervened, prompting this citizen to have to intervene
and get stabbed in the chest for his efforts. That's
how I know there's no security on there. Although actually,
now that I'm seeing this man, that would be even
worse if there was security on the train, wouldn't it.
That would be even worse, because then what's the point
if you've actually got a security guard on the train.
And this happened, as we are told it happened, this.
Speaker 1: Argument and.
Speaker 2: The physical nature of the argument as it escalates and
gets out of control and like, and if there was
a security guard on the train, then that would be
way worse, because that then makes you wonder, well, what's
the point of having security on the trains if they're
not even going to intervene in this stuff? See cats,
This is like, this should be a pretty easy thing
to decipher. Whether there was somebody on the train. Was
there a security guard on the train? Did anybody anybody
in your employment say, hey, I saw the whole thing,
let me give you a statement. No, probably not, or
else you probably would have already released that information, I
would assume. So I'm guessing there wasn't security on the train,
as indicated by the fact that they say they swiftly
responded and take and the guy was taken into custody nearby.
Why nearby? Because he got off the train, which once
again I would think a security officer would have prevented
that from occurring, or would have arrested him immediately as
he's running around drunk, yelling at people, and definitely after
stabbing somebody, unless, of course, we're paying for ineffectual security
on the trains, which that.
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Speaker 1: So I think, really.
Speaker 2: The scandal after the latest stabbing on a light rail
car in Charlotte, the Blue Line once again, just what
three and a half months after the murder of Arena Zarutzka,
I think the real scandal here is the Republicans who
are noticing that there's a problem. That's really who's to
blame for all of this attention? I think that's really
the story. Who's to blame the Charlotte Observer editorial board.
Who's to blame for the latest stab Well, the mayor,
the council, city manager, the county commissioners, county manager, Democrat voters,
the interim chief of cats PSS security firm, the courts,
all the judges and magistrates, the sheriff definitely, Gary not
my fault, McFadden. They all bear some responsibility here. People
who have been arguing against their policies. We do not
bear any blame here. We have been saying, you guys
are doing this wrong, your policies and your turnstile catch
and release system at the courthouse. It's not making anybody safer.
In fact, it's doing the opposite. But the real problem here,
according to the Observer Editorial Board, is that Republicans have
noticed that Democrat runs cities don't do a particularly good
job of keeping their citizens safe. They prioritize different things
if they're not outright defunding the police departments and such,
they point out. Donald Trump quickly joined in a Saturday
statement issued by the White House included this from the
President quote another stabbing by an illegal migrant in Charlotte.
What's going on in Charlotte. Democrats are destroying it like
everything else. Peace by peace. A US Department of Homeland
Security statement Saturday confirmed that the attacker on the train
had prior arrests for aggravated battery with a deadly weapon,
destroying evidence, resisting arrest, and using a false ID. He
had been convicted of robbery and illegal re entry as well.
He's been deported twice. Don't know when he came in
the third time. Don't know if he's if he was
ever arrested after that third re entry. Mayor Lyles, for
her part, did a bit of redirecting after reminding Charlotte
tians that the city recently has quote invested heavily in
increasing security on our transit system and CMPD has been
proactive in increasing its presence across our city. She noted
that there are several aspects of public policy that are
outside of the city's jurisdiction, including immigration policy and enforcement,
and technically.
Speaker 1: That is true.
Speaker 2: However, the mayor has the bully pulpit. The mayor can
call out judges. They would be of her own political party,
so that might explain why she has refused to do so.
But that's one way that she could help is to
publicly name and shame judges the sheriff right for doing
things that undermine public safety. The editorial Board says, had
Lyles wanted to lean in on that. She also could
have noted that Trump's reckless Operation Charlotte's Web might have
snagged more criminals like this attacker, but only had Border
Patrol and ICE agents not spent their time haphazardly grabbing
non criminals off our city streets. Okay, let's run this through.
Let's game this one out, shall we.
Speaker 1: Okay? All right?
Speaker 2: Where would you have found this guy? He did not
have a house. His address is listed as a roof
above a homeless center. So what would your coverage have
looked like? What would your social media feeds have looked like?
Had Customs and Border Patrol agents raided a homeless shelter?
Am I to believe that you would have no problem
with them doing that if they even were permitted to
actually go on to the premises in the first place,
which I don't believe they.
Speaker 1: Are allowed to do that.
Speaker 2: So you want me to believe that after witnessing the coverage,
the tone of the coverage, the story selection that I
saw during Operation Charlotte's Web, you expect me to believe
that this kind of an operation where they would have
like gone into a homeless center or hung around outside
of a homeless center waiting for this guy to come
out so they could pick him up. You want me
to believe that you would have treated that as a
completely appropriate op. I don't believe you. I do not
believe you, observer, Sorry, I don't You guys would have lamented,
Oh my gosh, these are most vulnerable people in the community.
They're unhoused, they're experiencing unhousedness or whatever phrase you want
to use, instead of saying homeless. Now, that's the way
you guys would have covered this. You would have had
protesters out at the homeless center, you know, creating a
human wall around the doors or something to prevent anybody
from getting deported. Ultimately, the editorial board says, Ultimately, the
finger pointing avoids a larger truth about Friday's stabbing. The
finger pointing avoids a larger truth. What's the larger truth?
Let's see, it was a crime committed on a transit
system with persistent safety problems, in a city with continuing
crime issues, in a country that faces complicated challenges involving
illegal immigration. Yes, that is what Republicans have been saying
for darn near three decades. Yes, this is what we
have been saying you sound you guys are sounding kind
of trumpion right there. That's the larger issue. This is
the larger truth that the transit system has persistent safety problems,
the city has crime issues, the country faces complicated challenges
involving illegal immigration.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yes, and the way you guys have the way you
guys have been handling these challenges has been lacking, shall
we say, they say? What we can best hope for
moving forward is that there will be lessons learned. I'm
not really sure what those lessons are, but they are
actually more troubled by the response from the Cat's interim CEO,
Brent Kagel. 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 1: Why.
Speaker 2: 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 pod cast 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
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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. Got a message on the WBT text line
from Robert who says a church I used to work
for told us that if ICE came looking for undocumented employees,
to take the illegal aliens, to take them to the
tunnel under the church and hide them.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: See, this is what I mean the observed now making
these calls for you know you need to only be
going after the criminal illegal aliens. Those are the targeted
ones that we totally support you doing something about now right.
These are the same people that you know vilified the
two eighty seven g program, which simply identified people that
came to the jail, so you already had to have
done something to get yourself arrested. Then you get into
the jail and the two eighty seven G program allows
the jail to identify who you actually are, and then
if you are in the country illegally, then they could
turn you over to ICE for deportation. But you guys
didn't want to do that. Gary McFadden ran a campaign
in twenty eighteen, as did other sheriffs around the state.
They ran a campaign saying they don't want to cooperate
with ICE on this stuff. They scrapped their two eighty
seven G participation. They said they don't have to tell
ICE who who's in their jail. They're not going to
notify ICE to come get somebody who bails out. They're
not going to help. And everybody seemed to think that
was a perfectly acceptable way to govern. But the editorial
board at The Observer says we are more troubled by
the response from the Charlotte Area Transit Authority. While kat's
interim CEO Brent Kagel noted that KATZ has taken substantial
measures on safety since August, including deploying additional CMPD officers
and Private Security spokesperson Bret Baldick did not directly answer
observer questions Saturday about how many security staff were on
board the Blue Line at the time of the stabbing,
nor about system wide staffing levels. A similar lack of
transparency dogged Cats and the city after Arena Zurutzka's murder
in August. It is quite simply not how you restore
public trust. Well, well, that's because we already voted for
their sales tax you see. It doesn't now it's not
They don't feel quite the same amount of pressure, you know,
because in August they were looking at this referendum that
they needed to pass to raise everybody's sales taxes. And
now they won the tax increase. So now they'll just
keep behaving in ways that you know, shut you out
and are not transparent and all of that. It's almost like,
maybe we shouldn't have rewarded them for their past performance
with more revenue. But whatever, I lost that fight. They
then conclude their peace because they've got to I mean,
because it's got to be about Trump.
Speaker 1: This is the problem.
Speaker 2: See, when when you allow Donald Trump to be the
lens through which you view all things, right, You make
this story about something other than what it is. This
is local failure, Okay, these are local policies, and you
want to bring Trump into it because he tweeted something,
because that's how you view all of the stories is
through Trump. And you know your audience in the observer,
you know, subscriber base, what's left of it. You know
they want the anti Trump stuff. That's the only explanation
I can figure out for why you would pull Trump
into this issue just because he sent out a tweet saying,
what the hell is happening in Charlotte? Another light rail stabbing?
They say, as for the Trump administration, we're under no
illusion that the stabbing will be a reminder of illegal
immigration's complexities, or that Solarzano, the suspect, will be a
reminder of whom his administration should actually be targeting. They
are actually targeting criminal illegal aliens. But here's the thing.
There are a lot of illegal aliens. There's like millions
of them, literally millions of them. Okay, so yes, they
are targeting criminal illegal aliens, and if they find others,
then they're gonna get scooped up to That's what they're
gonna do. That's what they're doing, and you guys are
complaining about that too. Trump wants to deliver blame and
he will do so at every opportunity in blue cities
like Charlotte. But Charlotte Teans don't want or need blame
in the wake of this latest transit incident. We want
accountability from all. Okay, how about y'all start with yourselves?
Speaker 1: How about that? Why not start with yourselves?
Speaker 2: How about y'all look in the mirror and think about
what role you may have played in creating the environment
that we are now in. Right, surely the paper of record, right,
the voice of the Charlotte community. Surely you guys have
exerted influence in public debate about transit and about policing safety. Right,
do y'all bear any responsibility? Do you have any accountability
for any roles you may have played? All right, that'll
do it for this episode. Thank you so much for listening.
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