Speaker 1: What's going on. Thank you so much for listening to
this podcast. It is heard live every day from noon
to three on WBT Radio in Charlotte. And if you
want exclusive content like invitations to events, the weekly live stream,
my daily show prep with all the links, become a patron,
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subscribe button. Get every episode for free right to your
smartphone or tablet. And again, thank you so much for
your support. Thanks again to Eric and Robert for coming
in to talk about their coalition, this grassroots coalition they're
trying to build to oppose the transit tacks. And in
case you were not aware, America is now learning of
the attack on the twenty three year old Ukrainian refugee
Arena Zarutska, who was murdered over three weeks ago on
the Cat's light rail train in Southend. Had gotten off
the work at her job as a working at a
pizzeria and had gotten onto the train and sat down.
She had her like her polo shirt or T shirt
with the pize soeria name on it. She had her hat,
she was in uniform basically and she sat down. She
was looking at her phone, she had earbuds in, and
her attacker sitting right behind her for like four four
and a half minutes. He stands up without provocation and
takes a folding knife a pocket knife he had taken
it out, and he stands up and stabs her in
the neck three times and then begins walking to the
exits of the train. He's bleeding all over the floor.
Most people don't even realize what has happened. And then
he gets off the train. And we know this because
local media got the video from inside the cat's train
and they published it over the weekend or on Friday
maybe I think it was. Wbtv's video went viral over
the weekend and people all around the world now were
shocked to see this video, and it is shocking. It's
a shocking good Now. WBTV did not show the actual contact.
Froze the it froze the image, It froze the video
before it shows him kind of rearing back with his hand,
and then it freezes the frame and then it jumps
ahead to afterwards, so it doesn't show her murder, which
I think is appropriate. If that was your child or
loved one, you would not want to see their murder.
On your TV every single day. But the video has
now prompted all sorts of people at all levels of
government and politics and media all over the country and
even outside of America to be just shocked and outraged
at what has occurred. And part of the response from
outside has been also the shock at the way our
local officials have responded and the way national media has responded.
So first, on the local official front, they have been
people are expressing befuddlement and anger at the way the
mayor and local elected officials have responded, which is basically
in you know, well, their argument is that they have
kind of taken a blase approach to this. We've been
saying this now for three weeks that you know. The
first statement from the mayor came like four days after
the fact, and it was six paragraphs long, and the
first sentence was saying thoughts and prayers to the victim
not named, and then five raps about how we as
a society failed the attacker and that got people mad.
And people don't realize from outside of Charlotte, they don't
realize that the local officials kind of want this story
to just go away. This is very bad timing for them.
And I'm not trying to sound you know, uncaring to
the victim here, but this is like there was a
political dynamic to this story and the local officials and
boosters for the Trans attacks like this is the worst
thing that could have happened to them for their campaign.
And I know how that sounds. I'm not trying to
be ghoulish or anything, but this is a terrible development
if you're trying to promote a tax increase that you
need voter support for and you get this, So that
I suspect was the reason why there was this tepid
response out of the gate. Hopefully it will you know,
there won't be a lot to see here. It'll just
kind of go away and that's it. But when the
video comes out, now it's gone viral, and like it
speaks to the breaking down of the old gatekeeper legacy
media model. It really does. Because in the old days,
right before social media and before everybody had a smartphone
and could rebroadcast or publish whatever stories they thought were important,
and they get to decide what is newsworthy and what
is not. This tactic may have very well worked, but
it doesn't anymore. And so now when people come to
this story three weeks after and they start going back
and looking at the developments. Then they see what we
were seeing locally, which was this this effort to kind
of dismiss and to minimize and downplay and just oh
my gosh, you know, it's a terrible thing. But how
did we fail? And oh yeah, let's talk about mental
health and the mental health system and the gaps in
the mental health system and all of that, and now
you got Trump. Trump was asked about it Sunday. He
had not heard about it. Apparently he had not seen it.
He said, when did this happen? He says, I see
the video. I'll know all about it by tomorrow morning.
So Trumps now is now going to get involved in
That's not good for the city of Charlotte. That's not
going to be helpful. It's getting the attention now because
the video got released and people are asking why was
there a lack of coverage? And in defense of our
local media, they have done a good job. Our local
media has done a good job of covering this story
for the last three weeks. All of the outlets I've
not encountered really any local outlets that have that have
dropped the ball or done you know, terrible or misleading
stories or anything like that. By publishing the video. Now
it's gone viral, and you've got the mayor of Charlotte, now,
who's you know, in a primary for her reelection. That's
the other component here locally is that you've got city
council members running for reelection and they're worried out this
is going to impact their reelection campaigns because we are
in early voting right now. So the mayor puts out
another statement after the release of the video, and her
statement seems more angry about the publication of the video.
She doesn't like attack anybody, but she says something to
the effect of, you know, thank you for the responsible
media partners for the way that they're sharing this. This
video kind of a thing, like sort of a backhanded
compliment kind of a thing. In other words, don't let
people see the video. It's one thing to hear sort
of a TikTok a chronology of what transpired, but when
you see it, and I have seen it, and it's shocking,
and you can tell the guy is sitting there leaning
against the window and muttering to himself and this victim,
twenty three year old Zarutzka. She walks in and has
no situational awareness. She's not paying any attention. She's in
a high trust society, or so she thought. She just
walked on the train, sat down in the seat, and
happened to be sitting right in front of this deranged
man and never saw the attack coming, which we are
told by the local transit leadership and city officials that
even if we had a security guard or a cop
on the train, they wouldn't have been able to prevent
it from happening because it happened so quickly, and there
was no indication ahead of time that this guy was
going to stabb her, and it did happen very quickly,
and if he was bent on doing it, probably not
a cop probably could not have stopped that from happening. However,
his presence on the train may have. I've been hammering
this away. The deterrence effect is being ignored by all
of these local officials that keep saying, well, we couldn't
have stopped it because he jumped up so fast. The
presence of security may have.
Speaker 2: So.
Speaker 1: 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. Richard, Welcome to the program.
Speaker 3: Hello Richard, Good afternoon, sir.
Speaker 2: The last thing you said before the break, how the
law enforcement officials said there was no indication that this
sort of thing could have happened. No, maybe they were
asleep the fourteen times. Yeah, he was arrested.
Speaker 1: What they're talking about is that there was What they're
talking about, there was no indication at the moment in
the car. For the entire time he was on the car,
there was no verbal altercation, there was no provocation, There
wasn't anything. He was just sitting there and then he
stands up in a tax her. That's what they were
talking about.
Speaker 3: But to the point, but they're not taking any responsibility
for the fact that this guy had been arrested and
the judicial system that's actually acting in this case like
a guy in a coma.
Speaker 1: Well that's there. So there's a difference. Cops have done
what they were supposed to have done over the years, Right,
They've arrested him and that's all that they can keep doing.
So they've been doing their jobs, and so this isn't
really a law officer problem, right, This is a local
elected official. And I know city council doesn't enforce the
laws and such, but they do have the ability to
beef up the security on their own transit system, and
they have the bully pulpit, you know, they can call
for action. They can put political pressure on the judicial
court system. And that's really where this stuff sort of
points all back to, is the court system.
Speaker 3: That's the breakdown.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the breakdown is the judicial system.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Absolutely, we have a good day, by.
Speaker 1: Hi, buddy. Yeah, you too, appreciate it. Richard Vye Lyles,
the mayor, issued a statement Saturday after the video was
released started going viral, and she posted on Saturday morning
on Twitter formerly known as x quote, the video of
the heartbreaking attack that took Irena Zurutzka's life is now public.
I want to thank our media partners and community members
who have chosen not to repost or share the footage
out of respect for Arena's family. So she's shaming the media.
Speaker 4: Now.
Speaker 1: I don't know. She does not differentiate as to whether
or not she's talking about the edited version that does
not show the actual point of impact right, the cutting,
the stabbing part, right, or if she's talking about just
in general the video. I don't know. It seems like
it sounds like she's not happy that this video was published,
and she's making she's going to try to shame the
media by saying, basically, you should not have published that
because it's hurtful to the family, right. But it's also
hurtful to her because now she's having to tweet about
it on a Saturday morning. Now Charlotte is the focal
point of international coverage all of a sudden. Whereas they
may have thought they had, you know, dodged a bullet
on this one and had gotten you know, gotten past it.
They gotten away with it, but gotten past it. She says,
this was a senseless and tragic loss. My prayers remain
with her loved ones as they continue to grieve through
unimaginable time and unimaginable time. Like so many of you,
I'm heartbroking and I've been thinking hard about what safety
really looks like in our city. I have some ideas. Yeah,
how about a cop on all the trains start there?
How about fair collection, cracking down on fair skipping? Right,
how about using your pulpit in order to hammer away
at the court system and the magistrates who turn these
people loose. How about that? If I have to bet, though,
I bet she's going to go after the General Assembly
because they're Republicans. And by the way, Republicans, they could
do something about this too. At the General Assembly. They
can increase funding for prosecutors in Charlotte. Sure they could
do that. They could crack down with amendments to law,
which they have done. They have done some of this
stuff over the last session or two, trying to tighten
up laws, cracked harsher, crackdowns on rioting and that sort
of thing. But this always comes back to the DA.
And look the DA here, Spencer Merriweather. He keeps saying
he needs more prosecutors, So fund them, give them the money.
The judicial system actually makes more than it costs. Do
you know that it makes more money than it costs?
They is is a revenue generator, So take the money,
put it towards more prosecutors. The city council could also
beef up the police force. They could add way more officers.
By the way, Congress can do grants for more local cops.
State can do grants for more local cops. Right, everybody
can play a part. Like people want to place blame,
and there's enough blame to go around. But how about
offering some solutions because, like you know me, I'm all
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limited timeofer. I just saw uh Brett Jensen from Breaking
with Brett Jensen here wbt uh. He just retweeted I
had not seen this A post from our Attorney General
in North Carolina F. Jackson aka Baby Jesus. He just
tweeted this at one eighteen pm, so about twenty minutes ago,
and he says this was an outrageously heinous and vicious act.
Arena Zerutzka Arena was killed while sitting peacefully, an innocent
life taken in a shocking and brutal way. We have
told the district attorney who is leading the prosecution, that
our office will provide any and all support to deliver justice.
We will remain steadfast until that justice is achieved. How
about I don't know, trying to prevent the next one
from happening too? But also why now it's been as
Brett pointed out, it's been seventeen days since the murder.
Why just now? Why On the Monday after the release
of the video. Oh yeah, so the Mecklenburg District Attorney
talked to Axios dot Com and Alexandria Sans reports it
as such a deadly stabbing on Charlotte's light rail system
is exposing the cracks in Mecklenburg County's mental health and
justice systems. So there's already the framing. It's exposing the cracks.
She points out how the attacker's mother blamed the courts.
We talked about that. There was an earlier report. I
think it may have been WSOC that did that, like
two weeks ago. She then cites another example. In August,
CMPD got into a shootout with a man described as
acting erratically. The family had tried to get an involuntary
commitment for the man the day before, but a Mecklenburg
County magistrate denied the request. You see that there's a
pattern here, and maybe Baby Jesus could look into the
pattern of magistrates and judges. They keep letting people go
without these types of psychiatric assessments or involuntary commitments, and
such a very few commit a disproportionate gross amount of
the crimes. It has always been that way. These are
people that are known to law enforcement, generally speaking. District
Attorney Spencer Merriweather could not directly comment on the case,
which I understand, but he said broadly, defendants often must
undergo an evaluation to determine whether they are mentally capable
of assisting in their own defense. Merriweather noted some defendants
stay in mental health facilities for years while the court
waits for them to reach the capacity to stand trial.
In some instances, judges eventually dismiss the cases, releasing people
who committed dangerous acts. He also says the standards for
involuntary commitment are more complex than they seem. Brown was
released from jail without bond back in January. When he
called the cops, he told them that somebody had injected
him with some man made material that was making it
was controlling what he said and what he did and
how he would you walk and talk and whatever. So
he was claiming to be under the control of somebody else,
and the cops that had responded, they said, well, we're police.
That sounds like a medical issue. He became angry, and
so he called nine to one one while they were
standing there trying to get more police out there, and
they're like, you're misusing the nine one one system, and
so they brought him in, and the public defender at
the time questioned his ability to proceed in his own
court case. The judge ordered a forensic evaluation, which was
never done, and Brown stayed out of custody. Do you
see the problem? See, I don't think that's a crack
in the system, or as our colleague here at WBT,
Brett Winterbole says, the system failed. See this way, everybody
gets to avoid any kind of culpability. Wasn't our fault.
Somebody else didn't do something or something and the system
that we had there was a gap in the system
and that's what failed. It wasn't us. Even though his
own lawyer, the public defender, was like, yeah, this guy's crazy.
I mean, they didn't say that, but they basically did,
he's crazy. He needs some sort of psyche valt. Even
the judge is like, yeah, probably let's do that, and
then it's never done. Oops, cracking the system. System failed.
No one's to blame. His past convictions include armed robbery, felony,
larsony breaking, an enery shoplifting. In the early two thousands,
lawmakers slashed the number of state hospital beds without adequately
funding community care as part of a national movement to
deinstitutionalize mental health. That's according to Axios early two thousands,
Who did that? Who did that in North Carolina, that
would be the Democrats. They were in charge of the
legislature through twenty eleven. They had a lockdown on the
governor's office as well. They have had a lockdown on
the Attorney General's office. That was Roy Cooper all those
years Meriweather. The DA points to some systemic improvements, especially
in handling repeat, repeat offenders. In twenty twenty three, the
Pre Trial Integrity Act became law. It requires judges, not magistrates,
to set release conditions for eighteen violent offenses. That would
be the Republican legislature that did that. Judges can also
now decide the conditions for defendants who are facing any
type of new offense while awaiting trial for another, which
means if somebody is charged with a misdemeanor let's say,
like public urination or misuse of the nine one one system,
and they've got some other case that's pending, than a
judge could order a mental health assessment, whereas a magistrate
would not you get or another misdemeanor fair evasion because
the guy who attacked this woman on the train had
skipped the fair he never paid for his ticket. The
DA suggests considering tighter punishments for such offenses. We're using
these types of minor violations as a means of early intervention. Okay, ah,
I would say not the latter. I think your first
instinct on that was right. Tighter punishments. Once again, public
mass transit only works in a high trust society. You
do not get a high trust society if people can
commit misdemeanor after misdemeanor after misdemeanor, they can they can
skip the fares, they can ride the trains for free,
they can pee everywhere, they can beat up people whatever.
Like you don't have a high trust society, then you
don't get to have a mass transit system that works.
And as the president of El Salvador, Naib Bukeiley has said,
you cannot build infrastructure on top of chaos, and he
is exactly right. Crime is chaos.
Speaker 2: All right.
Speaker 1: You hear me talk a lot about incentives, right, Well,
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Visit incentive tripkit dot com because great trips deserve even
better returns real quick. I have my rules of journalisming.
You've heard me discuss them in the past, and rule
number two is that if the scandal is about a Republican,
then the story is the scandal. If the scandal involves democrat,
then the story is the Republican reaction to the scandal. Okay,
so what we are seeing now that the video of
the murder of the Arena Zurutzka has gone viral. Now
we are getting the journalism in rule number two applied.
So now it's about the Republican reaction. This is where
you start getting Republicans pouncing publican seizing right. These are
the words that media use in order to form a
frame and form the narrative, in order to deflect away
from the actual story and focus on those bad people
are taking advantage of this situation. How dare they point
out that this occurred. They're more angry that the story
has gone viral because they don't get to gate keep it.
And if you want a juxtaposition, if you want the
proof of what I am saying, one man's name, Daniel Penny,
and the fact that you know his name proves what
I'm telling you is correct. This is not as was
said during the Kermit Gosnell trial by a Washington Post
reporter who said this was a local crime story because
Kurmit Gosnell was murdering babies, but he was doing it
under the auspices of an abortion clinic, sorry women's healthcare
center that killed women, and he would collect trophies of
the dead babies, right, put him in jars in his
office and such, that's a local crime story, and that's
why that story didn't get national attention. Right, Daniel Penny
restrains a deranged man on a New York City subway
and that guy, the deranged man, dies and Daniel Penny
gets charged, and now we have to have the national
conversation about race and about homelessness and mental health and
like all of these other things. But the point here
is about the coverage that story was covered in all
of the legacy outlets, national filtering down to the locals
all over America. This one. It took the release of
this video, that's what now has forced media outlets to
have to cover it. And those that get dragged to
the story, they cover it through this prism of Republicans
pouncing Axios, Mark Copudo, mega influencers are drawing repeated attention
to violent attacks to elevate the issue of urban crime
and accuse mainstream media of undercovering, undercovering shocking cases. Yes,
because you are. That's why local media covers these stories.
Our local media has covered this story, but the nationals
are nowhere to be found, and we all know why. Okay, well,
all Dean, Welcome to the show. Hello Dean, Hi, p Hey,
Let's say.
Speaker 5: Hey, all this conversation about transit systems and everything, I
thought I'd do just a little bit of research because
rather than analyze the event, maybe come up with a solution.
Speaker 4: Solutions, right, I do prefer it, Okay, And what I
researched and researched, and I couldn't find any transit system
to model against.
Speaker 5: I mean, any public transit seems to be it seems
to be systemic, So I really I couldn't come up
with a solution there. So the only thing I could
come up with it seems to function as far as
transit or wrap it goes, is to privatize it.
Speaker 3: And then.
Speaker 5: You know, is that a solution or is there something
sure where it is working?
Speaker 3: No?
Speaker 1: I mean there are systems over throughout the world where
it works a lot better for various reasons. If you're
trying to compare it to American systems, there are varying
degrees of quote unquote successful. But it depends on what
your metric is for success. If you're talking about crime
and safety, that's one metric, But if you're talking about
like revenue generation, I mean, none of them really actually
make money. Just depends on what you're what you're trying
to engineer for, uh Dan, I appreciate the call. The
Axios article, by the way, is not the only one
we had. Thomas Mills of Politics NC fame. It's a
blog anyway, Democrat consultant guy, and he went after you know,
Republicans for how dare they draw attention to this? W
faees got the headline video of links blue line stabbing
sparks national outrage, including from inside the White House. Elon
Musk repeatedly posted about the case this weekend, also commenting
White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, Trump confidant
Charlie Kirk, Senator Mike Lee, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, North
Carolina Senate candidate Michael Wattley going after Roy Cooper on
all of this as you as you should expect, as
you should expect. 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
businesses that advertise on the podcast, so if you'd like,
please support them too and tell them you heard it here.
You can also become a patron at my Patreon page
or go to thepetecleanershow dot com again, thank you so
much for listening, and don't break anything while I'm gone.