Speaker 1: What's going on.
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Speaker 1: So they made the big announcement Friday.
Speaker 2: I was right at the end of my program where
the City of Charlotte announced that after a month's long search,
a national search, they have arrived at their preferred candidate
for the chief of the Charlotte Mecklenburg Police Department, and
it is Estella Patterson. I will refrain from making any
Stella references during her tenure. That's my commitment. Okay, it's
such low hanging fruit that I will forego it.
Speaker 1: Okay.
Speaker 2: I wish her the best of luck. I want her
to be successful in her stated aims that she just
laid out in a press conference where they actually allowed
the press to ask questions. That's kind of crazy for
the city of Charlotte. Usually they like to just make
their statements and then peel everybody off. So this way
all the reporters can't like all gang up on one person.
They can't feed off each other for questions and follow
ups and stuff. They have you go and you know,
pull one or two candidates or council members or city
officials aside for a quick one on one maybe ask
one or two questions, and then and then they shuffle
everybody out.
Speaker 1: They actually allowed I think it.
Speaker 2: Was a about five questions, so it's look, hey, it's
progress here people. They did call a lid. They only
had the room for half an hour. I mean, they're
not using the room for anything else, but they only
had the room for half an hour, and so they
had to you know, first we had to hear from
the city manager, Marcus Jones, where he said, we need
to address security in this city, the perception and the reality.
By the way, this is the preferred narrative that the
City of Charlotte is going with that the crime is
down by the stats if you believe the stats. And
I don't say that because I'm accusing anybody of juicing
the stats or juking the stats. Whatever, the term is.
I'm not accusing people of lying about the stats. I
have no evidence to support that. However, there are factors
when it comes to the collection of crime data. There
are factors that influence the collection of said data. For example,
if if I am victimized and then I call police
and it takes, you know, an hour and a half
for an officer to show up, and then nothing ever
comes of it.
Speaker 1: They make no arrests, and that's it. Well, the next.
Speaker 2: Time I am victimized, like somebody you know, broke into
my truck and they stole my tools, I file a
police report, nothing happens. Somebody then breaks into my truck.
A year later, I call the police, I file a report,
nothing ever happens. At some point, I'm gonna stop calling police.
And this occurs on all sorts of fronts. Right, people
walking around uptown are not calling police, you know, reporting
every negative interaction that they're having with vagrants and satch.
It's just not happening, right, So that is a factor.
There are other cities where we know that there have
been efforts by command staff, and again I have no
evidence of this in Charlotte, but this has occurred in
other jurisdictions where they have been classifying crimes to a
lower level. So they'll say, you know something that would
have classified or should classify as a violent crime, and
they'll classify it as a lower nonviolent offense or some
other charge, and this way it takes it off of
the violent crime data. Point Again, I'm not saying that's
happening in Charlotte. I want to be clear about that.
People hear things that I don't say, and so I
am not saying that there's any evidence that that's been
occurring at Charlotte. I've not heard any reports of anything
like that. So they keep the City of Charlotte keeps
talking though about the crime being down. I think the
number was eight percent. Overall crime is down like eight percent,
violent crime down like twenty percent. I did hear Brett
Jensen from WBT. He was at the press conference, and
I think he got the last question in and he
pointed out that in Uptown the homicide rate is up
twenty percent. And she said the new police chief of
Stella Patterson, she said, well, yeah, there are you know,
pockets and you know areas and zones where crime is spiking,
and so you have to you know, address those zones,
which is what you know I would expect her to say.
Marcus Jones said that, Oh, but the whole point to
that is that you heard this line about perception of
crime perception of safety. And I have said from the
beginning when people in city government and police departments, when
when they use this phrase, it is a form of
gas lighting. They're telling us that our person perception is erroneous.
They're not telling us that we're wrong, because how could
they tell us that we're wrong. It's sort of like
the people who say, well, you know it's colder outside
than you think, Well, how would you know how cold
I think it is? Or hey, you're lining up that putt,
it looks longer or it's longer than you think it is.
How do you know how long I think that putt is?
Speaker 1: Right?
Speaker 2: It's the same thing with this line about the perception.
It's a way of saying your perception of crime is incorrect,
that you think crime is here and it's actually way
down here, and so you're wrong. And it's the only way,
it's the only way they can address these concerns without,
you know, accepting responsibility that they have for the impact
of in Mechlimer County Democrat policies predominantly Demoic policies. Now
there are policies at the state level. I went over
last week to raise the age law and the ruin
that has been left in its wake, not just in
North Carolina but all around the country. And you've now
sentenced these I mean not in courts, because we don't
do that to juveniles, but like you basically set these
youths on a lifelong path of criminality by not cracking
down on them early, not getting them off of that
career path, You've now increased the likelihood that they will
stay on that career path. So that's the Republican legislature
did that to raise the age law. I mean, it
was bipartisan, everybody voted for it, and it was part
of the quote reforms that swept the country over the
last six years.
Speaker 1: So there's that.
Speaker 2: Marcus Jones, the city manager, also highlighted Chief Patterson's ability
to communicate that was clear when and I've got her statement,
I'll play it for you here. They just did a
press conference. It started at eleven thirty and it just
wrapped up before I got on the air. So I
just pulled a couple of Oh, I pulled her opening statement.
I will not subject you to the mayor's ugh, just
read the script, VIY, just stay on the script anyway,
she said. The chief said, she's very happy to be
home because she worked for Charlotte Meckleburg Police for twenty
five years. She worked her way up through the ranks.
She then went to Raleigh and was their police chief
at a time when homicides increased. She was there for
three and a half years, and now she's back during
the break here. I will check, but I don't believe
anybody asked anybody at that podium about her husband. Her
husband is a longtime fire department official, fire official, and
he sued the city and they just settled it. Yeah,
because that's what Charlotte needs right now. Is another one
of these settlements. Now, this one was in the court system,
so it wasn't a city council thing in closed session,
so we got that going for us. But I have
those details as well, but I'm not sure that came
up in the press conference. Like I said, I'll go
back and double check here, but I listened to all
but about two minutes of it, and I don't think.
Speaker 1: That was raised.
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We have a new police chief hired where the announcement
was made on Friday Estella Patterson named the new chief
of the Charlotte Mecklenburg Police Department. And there was a
question during the press conference about what does it mean
to be the first woman? So she's the first woman
police chief, so it's historic. Okay, great, now we've got
that out of the way. Now we can actually just
like talk about, you know, the job here. Her bio
is impressive. She holds a bachelor's in political science from
University of North Carolina Charlotte UNC Charlotte Masters and criminal
justice from the University of Oklahoma. She was in the
Charlotte Mecklinburgh Police Department starting in nineteen ninety six. She
was a patrol officer, an instructor, internal affairs commander, Deputy
Chief of Patrol Services. She and her husband, Lance Patterson
adopted their two nephews whose fathers were incarcerated and raised
the two boys through high school. One joined the US Army,
the other the Air Force. Estella Patterson again recruited in
nineteen ninety six. She was the class president of her
recruit class. She served numerous roles in her twenty five years.
She spent time at the academy as an instructor and
in recruitment. She spent time, as I mentioned, in internal affairs,
and as the Deputy Chief over Administrative Services and then
Deputy Chief over Patrol Services. She was a member of
the US Army Reserve from nineteen ninety six through two
thousand and five, served combat tours in Kosovo and Iraq twice,
receiving the Army Commendation Medal for meritorious service and reaching
the rank of captain. She's also a graduate of the
FBI National Academy, and then, of course, she went to Raleigh.
She was the chief of the Raleigh Police Department from
August twenty twenty one through March of twenty twenty five.
It's about three and a half years. During her time
in Raleigh, she oversaw significant changes with the RPD, including
instituting a recruitment and hiring plan that made substantial progress
in reducing the department's vacancy rate from one hundred and
fifty down to forty in three years, as well as
the creation of the Raleigh Police Foundation, which raised four
million dollars in two years to fund special projects to
bolster employee morale. Additionally, she led her team in reducing
violent crime, achieving a one hundred percent clearance rate of
homicides in twenty twenty four. That's according to the Charlotte
Government website press release as well as the Charlotte Observer.
This is from the Observer story by Evan Moore Or.
She pushed for a fifteen percent pay increase to help
fill the vacancies. She also helped secure federal grants to
build an intelligence management system and oversaw expansion of a
real time crime center with hundreds of cameras to identify
trouble spots more quickly. Now like I said, she joined
RPD as the chief in twenty twenty one. August of
twenty twenty one, the city saw its highest number of
homicides in nearly three decades. In twenty twenty two. She
then flagged Newbern Avenue in Raleigh for high incident rates
of gun violence and championed a community violence intervention initiative
as a long term solution, and under her tenure, RPD
was chosen a partner with the US Department of Justice
for a three year effort to reduce crime in the city.
And so, looking at the crime stats for Raleigh from
citydata dot Com, I went and pulled the Raleigh data.
I would have compared it, but for some reason, Charlotte
doesn't report their numbers. I guess, so they don't get
they don't get the crime report for citydata dot Com
all of the other cities in North Carolina, and it
appears are there but not Charlotte. So before she got there,
there were generally speaking, well, if you go back to
twenty eleven, and I'm going to run just through these
numbers for the years that they have the data, because
there's like two years, there's twenty fifteen, twenty sixteen, twenty
seventeen that they don't have data these three years actually,
and then in twenty eighteen they reported zero homicides, which
I find that hard to believe. So I think there
was something going on with the data set. But Raleigh
was typically seeing about seventeen murders back in twenty eleven,
seventeen seventeen, then twelve, then eight, and then it went
up to twenty in twenty nineteen. In twenty twenty two
it went up to twenty two or sorry, that was
twenty twenty went up to twenty two. The next year
when she arrived, there were twenty six twenty twenty two,
then there were forty four, and then it started coming
back down twenty three. In twenty twenty three there was
twenty eight homicides, and in twenty twenty four there were
twenty five homicides. Charlotte has way more than this, Okay,
But if you're going to say that, you know the
homicide rate went up under her tenure. It did in
the first year, but then it declined. And honestly, one
hundred percent clearance rate, I would love to see that
in Charlotte not asked at the press conference anything about
the court system. She's the police chiefs, so she's not
in charge of the court system. But I have to
imagine the same problems with repeat, repeat, repeat offenders that
Charlotte is suffering from, and a court system I call
it a catch and release court system. I have to
believe that they saw something similar in Wake County as
well also Durham, So.
Speaker 1: That was not asked.
Speaker 2: Maybe they would have gotten around to it had they
had more time to ask her more questions. You know,
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talk to Michael.
Speaker 3: Hello, Michael, Yes, how you doing?
Speaker 1: Okay, what's up?
Speaker 3: Yes, I was just wondering. I know that the Raleigh
is a smaller community just population wise, and obviously the
demographics there are a lot more of a research kind
of base. I know that even uptown Rawley area that
they're turning a lot of their vacant commercial space office
space into research for Duke get it for Duke University
and Chapel Hill and also I mean as a as
obviously as an addict research for Chapel Hill, USC, Charlotte
and also in the state. I also know that they
also share some commonality between the three universities and so forth,
and that there's a lot of a lot of growth
on the outskirts of some of the other counties. How
is how is the police chief? How is was she
coordinating with some of the other towns in it around?
You know, you brought up Durham, there's you know, obviously
Chapel Hills another they had their own cop and then
there's either was there for the West. There's a lot
of people that commute into Raleigh that aren't actually in
in Raleigh, but obviously the crying still commutes into obviously.
Speaker 2: Okay, yeah, I like, yeah, Raleigh is a smaller jurisdiction
than Charlotte, as Charlotte consolidated with Mecklenburg for the police
services what forty years ago, and so it's a much
larger jurisdiction CMPD covers versus Raleigh police.
Speaker 3: Yes, yes, so, I mean I know that Durham has
their own I mean, wake Forest has their own even
within some of the other even some of the brother
towns within the same county. I know that here in
this particular county, since CMCD does go county wide, that
there is some pushback with some of the other towns
in the county with regarding to how their services are
being met. Another ways, So I was just wondering, how
is she gonn amend some of these, uh, some of
these conflicts with other services, and obviously police goes along
with with these other services as supposedly.
Speaker 2: What do you mean what what conflicts? What conflicts are
you talking about?
Speaker 3: Well, specifically, you know, like Matthews is definitely dead said
against the one percent sales taxs because they're saying that
we're not going to get anything until twenty twenty one
hundred or something like that, for another one hundred years,
so obviously, and then the there's also a conflict there
with Matthew specifically that the cop city. I don't know,
there's been a lot of pushback with that. I don't
know whatever it has been resolved, whether it's a developer
for city city has decided to try to put that
on the backburner until the next twenty twenty seven budget
to see if things become resolved, or whether they found
another another plot of land somewhere else within the county.
Speaker 2: Well, as far as I know, they're moving As far
as I know, they're moving forward with that training facility.
And I don't know what the what the chief. I
don't think the CMPD chief of police would have anything
to do with the transit stuff. That's why I asked
about you said there was some sort of conflict. How
was how would she go about mending relationships with these
other with with the six small towns or whatever. And
that's why I asked what conflicts because I'm unaware, Like
I know, people complain in the unincorporated areas where you know,
they don't see CMPD presence a whole lot, maybe, and
they complain about that, but that's a contracted service basically.
And then you know, the small towns around Charlotte, they've
got their own police forces. So was there some specific
thing about police that there's a conflict over.
Speaker 3: No, I was just saying, how was she going to
continue those relationships and mend any any harm that might
have been happened from the previous administration.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't know what what harms may have may
have been, but I appreciate the call.
Speaker 1: Michael. I don't know what harms you're referring to.
Speaker 2: And I mean, I'm you know, that's one of the
benefits of bringing somebody new in is that you get
to build your own relationships. Now she has been on
the force, and she was on the force for twenty
five years. Charlotte FOP is very supportive. The Fraternal Order
of Police very supportive of her hiring. This is from
the Charlotte Observer. The FOP released a statement, actually this
is from their Facebook page. Congratulations to Chief Estella Patterson
on being chosen as the next Charlotte Mecklamberg Police Department
police chief. She served CMPD for twenty five years before
leaving to serve the Raleigh Police Department until her retirement
in March. Her name was repeatedly mentioned in an FOP
survey as someone our members wanted as cmpd's next police chief.
We are extremely grateful for her willingness to serve. We
wholeheartedly support Charlotte City Manager Marcus Jones's decision and are
looking forward to working with Chief Patterson on matters important
to our members. Now they don't say this, but I
do wonder if like she was like This was a
question that was asked during the press conference by the
Charlotte Observer.
Speaker 1: Do you remember the Keith.
Speaker 2: Lamont Scott protests, right, the guy who was shot by
police because he had a gun wouldn't drop it and
then raised it up to point it at cops and
they opened fire and they killed him. And this was
supposed to be some sort of racial injustice proof. But
the officer that shot him was black. He was black,
and so it didn't really fit that that narrative that
would fully form with George Floyd. But she was apparently
in internal affairs, and she was, I guess in charge
of the panel that cleared the officer that called it
a good shoot, right, Like that's and so I wonder
if like that decision and that kind of a record
endears her to the officers, and many of them probably
know her from her time on the force. Right, all right,
if you're listening to this show, you know I try
to keep up with all sorts of current events, and
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Speaker 1: I'll just say it.
Speaker 2: This is the honeymoon period for the new police chief,
Estella Patterson. Everybody was very happy today. It's you know,
there's a grace period. There's a honeymoon period. But I
have questions. I have some questions. I will outline some
of my questions in the next hour. I have audio
to play. I have a couple of phone calls to
get to and the questions are not necessarily well, not
all of them are directed at her. I have questions
about the City of Charlotte. Far be it from me
to suggest that the city might enter into some sort
of a settlement with a city employee for a large
chunk of money.
Speaker 1: You know, But.
Speaker 2: There's there is a related story here. Let me first
play the SoundBite. This is from the Charlotte Observer reporter
question that I mentioned before the break there about Keith
Lemont Scott, who was shot by cmpd oh gosh eight
years ago. I think it was long before George Floyd
and the riots and all that. But that's what started
the local I mean, that's what propelled Braxton Winston into
his run for Charlotte City Council, which he won.
Speaker 1: Right. So here's the question from the Observer.
Speaker 4: Jeff Chamber Charlotte's Every thank you.
Speaker 2: I wanted to ask you about your time previously with
CMPD when you were ahead of internal affairs.
Speaker 3: Do you stand by your decision to clear the officer
shot Keith fla Monscot Okay?
Speaker 2: I would add the answer to that question is yes,
I do stand by that decision.
Speaker 1: We made that decision at the time. It was the
right decision. I stand by that decision And.
Speaker 4: How do you feel about that decision now?
Speaker 2: I don't feel any way about it. It was the
right decision to make. Thank you like That's how I
would have answered this question. Here's how Chief Patterson answered me.
Speaker 5: I was seven, eight years maybe even ten years ago.
My position is very clear when it comes to excessive force,
when it comes to treating the community with disrespect, we
will never ever have that. I would never uphold that
as the major in Internal Affairs and then going to
be the chief and Raleigh, my position has always been
that we will make sure that we treat every member
of our community with the utmost respect and with dignity.
That is a position that I will take and continue
to take moving forward.
Speaker 1: All right.
Speaker 2: So remember the question was do you stand by that decision?
And the answer to that I would assume and should
have been yes. I absolutely stand by that decision. It
was the correct decision.
Speaker 6: All right.
Speaker 1: Let me go over here and talk to James.
Speaker 4: Hello, Jeans, Hey, that last caller you had was talking
about issues with CMPD and the surrounding police agencies.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I wasn't clear what he was what Michael was
getting at, if there was some sort of I don't know,
hard feelings or conflicts or something with other jurisdictions.
Speaker 1: I wasn't quite clear on that.
Speaker 6: Well, to my knowledge and agreeably, I am retired now,
but there wasn't any conflict or bad feelings that I
was aware of back when I was working. And as
far as the north end of the county goes, we
don't ever see a Charlotte Mecklenburg police officer up here
now because if you call, and this has been pretty
much the same for at least fifteen years, if you
live in an unincorporated area, you call nine to one one.
If it's in Davidson's area of responsibility, the Davison police
show up. Yeah, Hunters area, the Hunters of Will police
show up. Same thing for Canelias. So CMPD didn't come
up here anymore.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, and and there are that's sort of the
standard contract uh kind of service that CMPD does for
the unincorporated areas, and Mecklenburg County commissioners are free to
contract with any of the town police in order to
provide coverage. And that makes more sense, uh, for for
those towns to police, uh, the unincorporated areas around them,
because they're already up there, and they've already got their
police stations up there, right they got there, you know,
it's easier for them to mobilize because they're closer.
Speaker 4: So it just makes sense, yeah, that the the response
times are much much better. And uh, as I said,
I Absolulie, I was trying to figure out what what
your caller was talking about, because to my knowledge, there
was any hard feelings between CMBD and the at least
not the townships in the northern End.
Speaker 2: No, and I'm not aware of any hard hard feelings
with any of the other law enforcement agencies in Mecklenburg County,
so that's why I was asking them for, like to clarify.
I do know that there were in the past, there
were you could call them conflicts or disagreements about the
cost of the contracted services, but that was at the
county commissioner level. That was never between the agencies. So James,
I appreciate the call, sir, thanks so much, right, yes, sir,
take care. All right, that'll do it for this episode.
Thank you so much for listening. I could not do
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