Speaker 1: What's going on. Thank you so much for listening to
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smartphone or tablet, and again, thank you so much for
your support. A couple of remaining points on the payoff
of the police chief who is keeping his job as
far as I know. I mean, he threatens to sue
his employer and they're like, okay, here's your money, and
then that's it, and he keeps the job and no harm,
no foul, I guess. And are we going to overlook
the fact that he coordinated with the local NAACP chapter
to try to get the complaint against Tarkbacari like that,
like that's that's something else although Bookari was trying to
get he was calling on Chief Jennings to resign, right
he was like, if you're not going to buy these
bulletproof vests for the cops, and you're saying that your
reason is purely esthetic. You don't like the way they
look on the outside of the uniform, even though the
cops are like, yeah, you could store all sorts of
stuff because the vests are on the outside and they're
better protection or whatever. You need to resign. Can Bookary
fire the police chief? No he cannot. No, he cannot,
and he definitely can't now because he's not on council
any longer. But he could. He was one Republican vote
on an eleven member council, nine of whom are Democrats.
He was one of two Republicans versus nine Democrats, so
you can't. He could not get the chief housted. So
what exactly, what exactly did Bokary What kind of pressure
did he bring to bear on the chief in this
very blue city, in a blue county. My submission is
there was no reputational harm. The only harm that resulted
in this spat between Bokari and Jennings the chief was
of Jennings's own doing because he crossed his own people.
His own employees wanted the vests, and when Bokhari said,
I want this to be a budget item, he tried
to add the money into the budget and the Democrats
would not go along with it because that would cross
the chief. Bakari then pulls it from the budget proposal
and says, screw it, I'll raise the money myself and
then does so, gets the money, buys the vests, and
that's when the chief offers the vests to the rank
and file. So if any reputational damage occurred, it was
because of his position. But that's it. Now there's another
component has to do with the Fraternal Order of Police.
I did not get into this yesterday or in the
last hour, so I will get into it a little
bit deeper. Now. This is from WSOCTV and they go
through There are three controversies now regarding the CMPD Right,
one is the payoff to Chief Jennings. Next, you have
the ethics complaint that was filed against Councilman and former
Councilman Bokari for his actions. It was filed by the
NAACP president Korean Mack, but Charlotte City Council members were
not aware of the complaint nor of its dismissal. It
was dismissed. Council members were also unaware that two aids
to the police chief had advised Korean mack on what
to put into the complaint. The city says that the
aids did not violate any laws or policies because they
were doing it on their own email accounts, not on
the city email accounts. No indication that they had done
this on company time, right, and there is there is
no restriction of people, you know, work for the city government.
They are allowed to engage in political activity outside of
the office. And so that's why, that's why the aids
were not found to be you know, violating any city policy.
One of those aids is Sandy Vastola, the CMPD top spokesperson.
She is now suing the president of the Charlotte Mecklenberg
Fraternal Order of Police, Daniel Redford. She is suing him
for defamation. It goes back to comments she claims he
made about her because of her response to reporter. So
reporter says something, asks a question to her, whatever, she
responds and Redford, the FOP guy, Redford makes some comments
about her because of what she said to the reporter.
She files a complaint. A judge dismissed that claim, but
she is now appealing. As for the president of the FOP,
Daniel Redford, he was suspended and transferred, and the FOP
is claiming that that was retaliatory, which, yeah, kind of
seems like it was. Again, don't know any of the details,
but that does seem kind of fishy. This was from
a couple of days ago. Yeah, May fifth, pieced by
Jonathan Lowe, also WSOCTV. In addition to the ethics complaint
and potential litigation from Chief Jennings, Sandy Vestola sued the
FOP and its president. The lawsuit was filed October thirtieth.
The lawsuit centered around comments she claims Redford made about
her because of her response to a story that was
pursued by another Charlotte TV outlet. She alleged Redford's comments
were false and defamatory, but a judge dismissed that case.
Court record show she filed an appeal last week. The FOP,
citing the ongoing litigation, said that the use of personal
emails is concerning, and it called out Charlotte City Manager
Marcus Jones to hold everybody involved in the matter accountable. Yeah,
there needs to be an investigation. Guys. I'm sorry. I
know you probably tried to keep a lid on all
of this. All these shenanigans. But it's time for some sunlight.
Everybody's going to have to open the books here, show
us what's been going on. What are these games you
guys have been playing? This lack of professionalism, you know,
hurt feelings, complaints, allegations of defamation and all of this
other stuff. Let's hear it all. Let's just get to
the bottom of it. Hey, you know what, Jeff Jackson
is our attorney general. Why don't you ask the City
of Charlotte should ask Jeff Jackson, the attorney General, to
come in here and figure out what the bleep has
been going on. I am always reminded there was an
officer I knew up in well, i'll just say in
western North Carolina, and we had a bunch of scandals
up there at the time. Retaliation, inter office politics and squabbles,
people getting suspended and all that sort of stuff. It
was pretty nasty. This was out of the Asheville Police Department.
And I had a law enforcement officer tell me, he said,
in a lot of ways, it's like high school, like
with all of the clicks and the groups and stuff
and the pettiness and the Yeah, it's like high school.
But we all have guns, he said, And when I
see stories like this, I always reminded of that comment
he made to me, because that does kind of seem
like that sometimes. The FOP says that the Charlotte Mecklenburg
Police Department suspended and transferred its president due to statements
the organization made against CMPD. Now, the Charlotte FOP has
more than two thousand members, a lot of them are CMPD,
and they put out a statement saying we will not
be threatened, intimidated, or coerced by any entity to uphold
our members' rights, wants, and needs, regardless of rank. Charlotte
City Manager Marcus Jones must hold everybody involved in this
matter accountable for their actions. Yeah, there is a lot
of smoke here people. I'm not saying there's fire. Maybe
somebody is just smoking, but there's a lot of smoke.
All right. If you're listening to this show, you know
I try to keep up with all sorts of current events,
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Let me get to some emails. We got a bunch
wanting to talk about this quote settlement with the chief
of police because he threatened to sue because he claimed
that he had reputational harm from a public fight over
police vests. DG says, maybe start a go fundme page
to pay tark Bookari's legal fees as he sues the
city Council and Chief of Police for damaging his reputation
might be the only way to figure out what game
is being played here. Well, yeah, see, that's the thing.
You settle when you don't want there to be discovery, right,
when you don't want this stuff coming out, that's why
you settle. And so that has to be part of
our analysis. There was obviously six council members, well five voted,
one left early, and they're vote counted as a yes
for the settlement. So five of the eleven council members
agreed to pay this for some reason, and some reason
might be the discovery phase. You go to court when
you file a complaint, then yeah, you have to list
the stuff and you got to show evidence to support
your allegations. And so maybe they didn't want this stuff
coming out in litigation. What stuff? I don't know, John says.
The city council and mayor would be good to remember
when they go begging for more transportation dollars hat in
hand in Washington, d C. That they'll be bowing before
tark Bocari. Yeah, because he took a gig with the
transportation department up there, like deputy secretary, is something up there?
Lance says, howdy beat, Howdy Lance. It looks like Chief
Jennings took a page from Reverend Jesse Jackson's shake down playbook. Well,
I don't know this. This is a formula that we
have seen other people and organizations run right, make a
big deal about something threatened, litigation, promise to make things
difficult or embarrassing, and then the organization that has the
deep pockets just pays them to go away. Is that
what happened here? Again, we don't know because the elected
officials that agreed to this dumb assery have not told
us what the rationale for it is. They've not told
us what reputational harm was suffered. Bob says, I am
a proverbial taxpayer, and I am outraged. If Chief Jennings
has three hundred thousand dollars worth of dirt on council,
terminate him now. It's not healthy for one city employee
to hold such a blackmail card. But this isn't about morals.
It's politics, that's yeah, so right? Is that part of
it too? Are council members somehow compromised into just going
along with this even if they don't want to? But
they're like I have to go along with it because
the chief is going to in discoveries, you know, prove
stuff about me. I don't know, Jabrill. First of all,
he says, I like the Chief and I think he's
a respectable and stand up guy. With that said, I
would not have voted to give him that money. They're
calling a settlement without even a lawsuit. How did Corin
Mack of the NAACP get involved and why, Gabrill I
can tell you that according to our news department, which
reported this yesterday, that Jennings apparently asked Mac to file
the complaint against and then two of his you know,
chief staffers gave her the language to put into the complaint,
which was dismissed, and she is appealing. His email continues,
if there's any issue between the Chief and Bokari, that
should be between them and not the counsel or the taxpayers.
That is correct. This is another case of Charlotte gov
Co dishing out taxpayer money like it's candy. We saw
this not too long ago with the school board and
the former superintendent. This is show, This is so Charlotte. Yeah,
I remember that they did this with jim Phwsley several
years back. You know twenty years ago where the school
board just threw a whole bunch of money at him
because they were like, he should be the highest paid
official because I think Harry Jones, the or Pam Seifert,
the city and county managers, they had gotten pay raises,
and so Charlot Meckelberg school board was like, well, education
is the most important and so therefore he should be
the highest paid. They just threw a bunch of money
at him. They held a closed session one time to
yell at Larry Gavreau, but they went into closed session
under the premise that it was a personnel matter, and
the way they argued it was that if we didn't
go into closed session, or if we don't yell at Larry,
then the superintendent may quit because Larry's been dragging him
and fighting him in public all the time, and so
he's feeling really bad about it and he wants to quit.
So we got to go in there to make sure
he doesn't quit. And so they just like bashed Larry
Gavreau in closed session for like an hour. That is
not an appropriate use of a closed session. You don't
get to do that and disguise it under the premise
of personnel. It wasn't personnel. See why. This is why
actual journalism and getting sources is so imperative. And kudos
to the local reporters that have developed sources that we
can now find stuff out that occurred in closed session,
because when they go into closed sessions sometimes they go
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com and make memories that'll last a lifetime. When asked
by a reporter from the Charlotte Observer after the Monday
night closed session about the city council approving a settlement
before a lawsuit is even filed, the Mayor Vy Lyles
said she's not the right person to ask. Quote, I'm
not a biologist. I'm sorry, I'm sorry, She says, I'm
not a lawyer. Yeah, you are the right person to ask, mayor.
Mayor Lyles, you are the right person to ask, why
would y'all entertain settlement when there isn't even a lawsuit?
This is so dumb at best, corrupt at worst. And
there was a time when I would think, surely, there's
no way they would do such a thing. But that
was before our mayor went to federal prison. And as
somebody called in to remind me, that was before we
had a county commissioner who was bedridden with Alzheimer's and
had family members voting for her via zoom, and everybody
covered it up in order to keep her collecting health insurance.
So yeah, no, I no longer believe that our local
government would be above doing something like this. I'm sorry,
you guys got to come with some receipts. You got
to show me something otherwise like this is. This is
on all of y'all, and I'm just going to assume
default position. Y'all are corrupt. Mar says, you are exactly right.
He was either worried about optics rather than the safety
of his men. Right the vests, Yeah, the fight over
the vests. See I said this, I think last hour,
whatever reputational harm police Chief Jennings suffered, and I would submit,
there wasn't any at least among the public. I've never
heard anybody say anything negative about our chief of police
in Charlotte The only negative reputational damage that could have
occurred in my mind that I can think of, that's
like logical, that's reasonable, is among his officers. But that
was because of his position, not because of what tark
Bocari did. It was because he said no to his
rank and file officers who were asking for better vests
and when they were presented with an ability to get
the vests with a budget request and Jennings refused. Now,
maybe Jennings also refused because here's it, just thinking this through,
like literally just thinking this right now. But here's here's
the possibility. Maybe Jennings was open to the idea, but
then council members said, no, we're not going to spend
that money. Don't ask us for that money. You have
to oppose this ask, you have to say no. And
that's why Jennings comes out against them. And so he
was doing the bidding of the council, not doing what
was right by the officers and making the request and
letting the request get shot down by the council because
that would jam up the council. See, the council can
fire Jennings. So maybe maybe Jennings didn't care one way
or the other. And maybe council members didn't want to
give the cops what they wanted, didn't want to spend
five hundred thousand dollars out of their two billion dollar
budget or whatever it's up to now. I think it
is probably somewhere around there. And so he does what
the council did demands of him. He starts getting attacked
for it. And so now he's going back to council saying, hey,
where are you guys giving me cover on this? And
they just let him twist in the wind. And maybe
that's what his lawsuit does because he couldn't get he
couldn't get them to stand by, stand with him or whatever.
I don't know, stand by, stand down to quote Donald Trump,
maybe that's what happened.
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 1: I don't know. I wish I could tell you, But
like I'm just like I said, I'm trying to just
game out the different theories, trying to see the different angles,
trying to make it make sense. Jonathan says, you may
have already touched on this. I only just started listening.
How dare you, Jonathan? You should listen get the get
the podcast at the peapod dot com. Okay, he says,
do we know which five council members voted yes for
this please pipe down package? We do not. We do
not know what the vote totals were. But I will
say this, and this was in a piece over at
the Charlotte Observer by Mary Ramsey. State law allows for
closed session votes on settlements, but the terms must be
made public quote as soon as possible with a reasonable
with a reasonable time after the settlement is concluded. That's
according to attorney Mike Taddich that the Observer spoke with
about the matter. The Charlotte Observer has filed a public
records request for the settlement, reportedly approved Monday, So we
should know the terms of this settlement. Let me see
here this is from Seth What exactly does Jennings have
on city council members for them to fold like that
one hundred percent shakedown? Yeah? I don't know, and again
it could be anything, it could be nothing. We don't know.
There was also a component here where the Bookari and
the FOP were of a like mind on this vest issue.
And I think it was the FOP that originally said
it and then Bokari amplified it, retweeted it or whatever.
Facebook posts or something. But somebody made a reference to
jennings lake house. Does he have like and they made
a comment about how he has CMPD officers providing additional
security for him at his lakehouse, and that's what they
call doxing him. They're like, oh, totally where he lives.
I'm not so sure that's the same thing as doxing.
I don't believe they said where he lives. They were
pointing out that he's bringing officers over to standguard for him,
but when presented the opportunity to give them additional protection,
he said, no, this is Jim. I agree. Chief Jennings
seemed more professional than Sheriff Gary. Not my fault McFadden did,
but like others before them in that position, he finally
showed his true colors. Ken. I'm not sure if this
has been touched on yet. I try to listen to everything,
but I am supposed to be working. Come on, Ken,
where are your priorities? Maybe the chief has a lot
of undisclosed information dirt that would be spelled out in
any actual lawsuit filing. Granted, there's no way the city
leaders should have personal concerns, but maybe they are simply
trying to protect otherwise innocent city administrators from unsubstantiated claims
that would have to be addressed. Yeah again, like we're
all just spitballing. We're all trying to think of like,
why would you do this as the police chief? Why
would you do this?
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Let's jump over onto the phones and talk with Snake. Hello, Snake,
how are you?
Speaker 3: I am good. I've been in like a doghouse I
put myself in after I accidentally referred to fertilizer last
time I talked to you, and yeah, I apologize.
Speaker 1: I see I forgot all about that. Uh yeah, I
totally I did not remember that you had done that.
So let's try to keep it clean here, Snake.
Speaker 3: We're going to try to remember we're on the radio.
Speaker 1: Yes, thank you.
Speaker 3: It's going to say like the uh the you know,
law enforcement, as you know, often knows what kind of
nonsense the politicians are up to, and so when push
comes to shove, it's easy for a lawyer to work
all that into a complaint and make it public and
so you kind of get what you want, right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, in discovery and that, and if you're trying to
avoid the discovery phase where that stuff would then be
put to paper, you're absolutely correct.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So that's you know, that's my best guess. Or
we could have actually just been entitled to damages. Who knows.
But the only other thing I wanted to add is,
I don't know if you talked about today, but if you,
if you didn't read George Will, that's worth reading. I
know it's in the failing Washington Post, but that was
that was worth reading.
Speaker 1: What was it about Trump and Ukraine? Oh?
Speaker 3: The Master Negotiator? Yeah, that's pretty good.
Speaker 1: Okay, No, I haven't seen it, but I generally don't
have access because they pay well everything at the WAPO,
so I don't generally get to see it. So but
I'll see if I can find it. Thanks Nake, I
appreciate it. Sure, How are you too? Let me go
now talk to Kirk. Hello, Kirk? How are you?
Speaker 2: I am good, Pete, how are you?
Speaker 1: I'm doing okay, I appreciate you.
Speaker 2: Taking my call.
Speaker 1: Sure.
Speaker 2: Do you remember a while back I was I was
talking to your other gentleman there in the studio that
somebody either donated or raised money for the police department
to purchase a number of vests.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's how we Yeah, because the city council would
not Apparently there were not enough votes to put the
five hundred thousand dollars into the budget to pay for
the vests, and so Bakari himself pulled that out of
the budget proposal and then said I will raise the
money privately, and then proceeded to do so and bought
the vests. And at that point the Chief said, fine,
if anybody wants these vests, they'll be allowed to wear them.
Speaker 2: Do you suppose that maybe the chief could have taken
that as a slap in the face.
Speaker 1: Well that, I mean, that's what I think. He is
claiming that all of the that that entire fight over
the vests did him some reputational damage or, as the
FOP called it, hurt his feelings.
Speaker 2: Have you have you ever heard the one about sticks
and stones and may break my bones, but names will
never hurt me.
Speaker 1: I have that actually heard that? Although I think that
is of an older generation because nowadays words are violence.
I'm not sure you're aware. The kids, Yeah, the kids
change that whole thing.
Speaker 2: I've heard that, Kirk.
Speaker 1: I appreciate the call.
Speaker 3: Man.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's the thing when you walk into the political arena,
and I tell people this all the time. When I
speak in front of groups, which I do, I give
them this. You know, if I'm giving some advice and
for some reason people ask me to come and speak
to them and ask for advice on stuff. I don't
know why, but I try to figure out some you know,
things that I think might help them. And one of
the things that I tell people was or is that?
And see now I'm giving it away. Not that I
charge for speeches, but whatever. Like, if you're going to
make the decision to engage in the political arena, if
this is what you want to actually do, okay, then
you have to walk towards the fight. You have to
be the happy warrior. You have to have your information.
You have to know the topics. You have to understand
your opponents and what they think and why they think
it right. If you decide to enter the political arena,
you don't get to pretend that you're not in the arena.
This is one of the beefs I have with a
lot of reporters is that they pretend that they're there,
just as like you know observers. That's not as I
was saying it. I'm not attacking the Charlotte observer. I swear,
not really I swear, but a lot of these reporters
will pretend that, oh, I'm just here off to the
sidelines and I'm just like documenting what's actually happening. Yeah,
but when I read your finished product, I can tell
that that's not simply what you're doing. You're telling a
story about what you saw and what you think people
need to know. And in that process, subjectivity is involved.
Nobody is completely objective, and reporters who engage in political
news coverage are in the political arena, and so you
have to be aware of that. Reporters have to be
aware of that. When reporters develop sources inside politics, you're
using them, but they're using you. Never forget that. I
never forgot that. You can't forget it. I use you,
you use me. That's why. Like when anonymous sources give
fake information, false information to reporters who then run with it,
and then the story turns out to be, you know,
fake news. I'd burn my source. You do that to me,
you're burned. You give me a bunch of fake information
and there's no way for me to confirm it because
it's anonymous source. You're the only one in the room
that saw this, you know, top secret thing or whatever,
and that turns out to be a lie. You told
me a lie, then you're torched. So I mean that
like you people think that there aren't you know, there's
no code in journalism. There is. Everybody's got a different
one though. So Jennings is in the he's in the
public limelight. He is a political actor. You do not
get to engage in the political arena and then pretend
that you're not in the arena. And that's what I
feel like he's doing on this Like, oh, look at me.
I was just you know, I'm just a you know,
a beat cop here and I'm being savaged by the
by you know, Bookari with his you know, power of
one vote on the council. Like please, but again, I
cannot confirm any of this because I don't have any
information because nobody is talking. You guys need to say something,
and you need to say something soon. 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
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So if you'd like, please support them too and tell
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thank you so much for listening, and don't you anything
while I'm gone.