A Minnesota church shooting; juicing the crime stats (08-27-2025--Hour1)

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, go to vpkclendershow dot com make sure you hit the subscribe button. Get every episode for free right to your smartphone or tablet, And again, thank you so much for your support. So, as you heard at the end there of Vince Cokeley's show, going into the news, the press conference was held up in Minneapolis, the scene of a shooting that occurred at a Catholic school for K through eight grades. It was at the Annunciation Catholic School and students were in a morning mass service. According to the chief of police in Minneapolis, the gunman approached the church began firing through the windows from outside. He had a rifle, a shotgun, a pistol. Two kids were killed, ages eight and ten. Seventeen others were injured, fourteen of those were children. Two were reportedly in critical condition, and then the gunman. Killed himself. That's all the information we have right now, and so as I do in all of these types of cases, I wait until we get more information. There's no indication as to who the shooter was. Also, I will not name him when we find out who he was. And I think despite what the mayor in a grotesque fashion, dismissed thoughts and prayers, no prayers are important. That's what the kids were doing at the time. So pray for the families up there in Minneapolis, and we'll give you more information as it becomes available. But right now there just is not a lot of information to report to you. This issue though, of crime, it's not going away, despite what I think a lot of political leaders would prefer, particularly political leaders in our large cities in America. In fact, a second, I've got the latest Associated Press NARC poll. The vast majority of Americans see crime as a major problem in large cities. Eighty one percent say it's a major problem. And of course this is the Associated Press, and so they will frame this as literally a concern Trump has seized on, because remember Republicans always pounce or seize sometimes both. When a scandal is about Democrats, then the media coverage is always the Republican reaction to the scandal. And make no mistake about it. Crime in Democrat controlled cities is a scandal for Democrats. That's why you get this framing of the Republican reaction and that they are seizing on this in order to make Democrats look bad. It's not that Democrats have made themselves look bad. It's not that they've proven themselves unable to govern large cities. Now, whether voters will ever say, you know what, let's give some Republicans a shot and see if they can clean up the city, not sure if that's ever going to happen. Tribalism is real, and so they the voters are, in my estimation, probably not going to make any kind of a change. They'll just keep picking different Democrats who always have to cater to the same base. Despite the perception, data shows that violent crime in DC is at a thirty year low. So we're still getting this narrative from the Associated Press when covering the crime stats in DC. Despite all of the stories now, and there are multiple different stories, I've got another one in the stack about how DC has been lying about the stats. Here's a great idea. How about making an escape to a really special and secluded getaway in western North Carolina? Just a quick drive up the mountain, and Cabins of Asheville is your connection. Whether you're celebrating an anniversary, a honeymoon, maybe you want to plan a memorable proposal, or get family and friends together for a big old reunion. 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All Right, So I just read to you the line from the Associated Press story about Washington's crime rate getting better. It's down thirty percent, and the crime stats prove it right. A recent Department of Justice report shows that violent crime is down thirty five percent since twenty twenty three, returning to the previous trend of decreasing crime. That puts the district's violent crime rate at its lowest in thirty years. But as we heard like two weeks ago, word broke that a DC police commander had been suspended for shall we say, massaging those very numbers for his district. This is a piece by Beege Wellborn at hotair dot com. Surely it's no big deal if there's only one rotten apple in a barrel, right, that's how one rotten apple and a barrel works. I think it never spreads off of the one rotten apple, right, that's the old axiom. Well, it turns out that the officer was suspended in May and only placed under investigation when he fingered a big guy in the department in an equal opportunity complaint, and then his union stepped into the fray and the union then began gathering the evidence. The Fraternal Order of Police chairman Greg Pemberton said at the time, when our members respond to the scene of a felony offense where there is a victim reporting that a felony occurred, inevitably there will be a lieutenant or a captain that will show up on the scene and direct those members to take a report for a lesser offense. The police department's command staff is focusing on two categories in order to get the numbers to fall, Pemberton said, armed with a dangerous weapon and injured person to the hospital. Those are the two categories when management officials are directing the rank and file officers to take a report for felony assault or if they're going back into police databases and changing offenses to felony assault. Well, felony assault is not a category of crime that's listed on the department's daily crime stats. Does that mean they. Created a category of felony assault that they don't report, and then they tout a decline in violent crime while not including felony assaults. But now, oh wait, there's more. Now Here comes the Washington Free Beacon, a national treasure with a report that in a sane and rational world would probably cut the legs right out from under that whole narrative. It's down thirty percent, but it obviously will not. A former DC cop sued the department in twenty twenty, and the city has now quietly settled her lawsuit. Do you know what she sued them for. I'll give you three guests. Three guesses, and the first two don't even count. That's right. It was for juice and the stats. The District of Columbia quietly settled a lawsuit from a sergeant who accused Metropolitan Police Department leaders of misclassifying offenses to deflate the district's crime stats. This is according to court records obtained by the Washington Free Beacons. So now you have two different officers, two saying that this has been occurring and has been occurring for a while. Because this lawsuit was filed in twenty twenty, the brass at the department repeatedly told officers to downgrade theft cases, knife attacks, and violent assaults to downgrade them to lesser offenses. According to internal Metropolitan Police Department emails, depositions, and phone call transcripts that the Free Beacon has now reviewed the former sergeant. Her name is Charlotte Jossoue. She sued the department in twenty twenty, alleging that police leadership punished her for speaking out against the scheme. Josu, who joined the force after serving honorably in Iraq, accused MPD brass of attempting to distort crime statistics by quote downgrading a number of felonies to misdemeanors so that there will be fewer felonies in the statistics. By the way, I wonder how many other cities are seeing this. Are any other jurisdictions engaged in this kind of data manipulation, right, Because when this sort of thing happens, that's just the first time you caught it, right, And it's only because you had a couple of whistleblowers that did so. And I'm curious, like, maybe there are other jurisdictions. Maybe here in Charlotte, somebody, some enterprising young cub reporter could try to root this out. I don't know, but it's going to rely on whistleblowers and people coming forward and having the proof, right, that's what this is going to require, as these two cases have the evidence themselves. She also provided records showing that police leaders explicitly instructed their subordinates to underclassify certain instances of theft to keep them out of the crime stats that the city reports to the public. Josue reported also according to the Free Beacon, one case in which a female was cut on the side of her face was a deep, open cut with an unknown object from her forehead to the bottom of her chin. While the responding officer had called in the crime as assault with a dangerous weapon, the captain allegedly classified the offense as a sick person to the hospital, which isn't really the same thing. Josue called Captain Conbo. Really, that's his name, Captain Conboy how Dickensian, the captain who ordered officers to use the TPO sorry tpwor strategy is what they called it. About another case from twenty nineteen. In that instance, there was an on duty watch officer who downgraded an assault with the deadly weapon to a misdemeanor simple assault, and Josue said, I feel like they're just downgrading the classifications. Well, there's a reason why. It's because they are. Captain Conboy was then promoted for his work. He was appointed Captain of the Metro Police Departments Research and Analytical Services Branch in twenty twenty one. And do you know what you do when you're in charge of that branch. He's responsible for overseeing the development of statistical reports, charts and maps covering crime trends and patterns. In other words, this has been rigged in DC for years, for years. All right, you hear me talk a lot about incentives, right, Well, let's talk about incentive trips, the kind that companies offer employees to fire them up and reward their teams. If you own a business or you work somewhere that offers these incentive trips, first off, good for you. 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I never thought this was a really good idea. The violence interrupters. You know, the whole concept seemed a bit too social worky, you know, like we're gonna get these like old gang bangers. We're gonna get these people that came from the gangs, and we're going to like give them some reflective vests and have them walk around the worst parts in the most crime ridden areas and they're going to quote interrupt the violence. I kind of thought it might actually contribute to the violence a little bit because they're wearing reflective vests and people may see them as like an extension of law enforcement and anyway, so it hasn't really gone It hasn't really gone that well, in particular in Chicago. Okay, so this is from CWB Chicago dot Com, state, county, and city programs. A lot more than one hundred million dollars to so called violence prevention programs in Chicago. Much of that money is distributed to violence interrupters, people whose life experiences on the street are supposed to make them uniquely qualified to intervene in and defuse conflicts before they spiral into shootings. I don't think it's working. I understand it. There's like a bunch of people murdered, like every in Charlotte or uh, Chicago, But there are some new questions about what some interrupters are actually doing. And now the questions are starting to pile up. See back in March, a woman was shot during a chaotic teen takeover in Streeterville. I do not know what a teen takeover is. I assume it's like one of the street takeovers, or it's like the wheelie boys that drive their ride their bicycles and motorized scooters and stuff and traffic and assault people and scare people and jam up the traffic patterns and all of that. I assume it's like that. I don't know if they card you to make sure you are eighteen, Like, I don't know if you're a twenty year old and you're trying to access the teen takeover and they're like, no, you can't be part of our teen takeover. I'm not sure how that all works. But there was a teen takeover and one of the self styled violent interrupters ended off ended up speeding off after two or three teens jumped into his car, so he drove the getaway car from a teen takeover event, which is illegal. I guess these teen takeovers, they're not exactly smiled upon by law enforcement. And I guess when the cops showed up, a violence interrupter took a bunch of the teens maybe they can't drive, don't have licenses because they're too young, or something, just piled them in the car and help them evade arrest. So I mean, and now, to be sure, that is a form of violence interruption, right, particularly if the teens were to have tried to resist arrest. Then Earlier this year, one of these peacekeepers received a nine year prison sentence for taking part in a mob beating that left a motorist badly injured in little village of former Obama administration official excused his conduct by saying the man mishandled the stress of being a violence prevention worker. See, and that happens to me all the time, Like people are like Pete, you know, we need you to come in here and try to keep the peace, and it's just so stressful, you know, for people who don't know, I did a stint as a bouncer at a bar years and years ago. Well to be all right, to be honest, I was more of a of a door guy, like I just carded people, but it did require some sort of contract work as a bouncer. Whenever there would be a fight or something, I would have to go in and help the other guys break it up. And so. That was just very stressful too, and that just made me beat people up like that. So I totally understand how that could happen. You're there to prevent the violence, and then it's just so stressful preventing all the violence that you end up beating a dude into the hospital, right, So I mean that does make some bit of sense, I guess. And then on Sunday, a new video surfaced showing men claiming to be violence interrupters heckling and interfering with Chicago cops who were trying to arrest a man accused of illegally carrying a gun with an extended ammunition magazine. And I watched the video and the guy is on the ground resisting arrest, and you know what he's saying to the police. They don't have their knee on his neck or anything like that. One cop has him by one arm, another cops got the other arm, and they're trying to stand him up, and he's struggling against them, and you know what he's saying, I can't breathe, which is what a lot of people who don't want to get arrested say. Now, they say I can't breathe, and they're being captured on somebody's smartphone so they can be the next Saint George Floyd. 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, you too, And you've probably heard me say get your news. From multiple sources. Why, 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 podcast 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 dot ground, dot news slash pete. Subscribe through that link 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. Some messages from the text line driven by Liberty buick GMC data. This is from Bubba Data. Manipulation is alive and well in cmpd pete, twenty cars broken into at an apartment complex is just one incident, not twenty. In the white shirts eyes, it's funny you mentioned that there was in my neighborhood. There was a string of burglaries. There's a there are a set of docks down on the other side of the neighborhood. I don't have a boat, but some people in. The neighborhood do, and they had somebody came up and slashed all of the boat covers and stuff and stolen things out of the boats or whatever. And that's exactly what they did in that scenario too. They tied it all to a single incident report versus individual even though the boats are all owned by different people and the boat's slips are also owned. By those people. They counted it all as one incident instead of a slew of incidents all at the same location. So can confirm they that is what they do. Kevin says, could you imagine being a DC police officer and you arrest somebody for shooting someone, and because your supervisor tells you to reclassify the offense, the next day, you see this dangerous individual back out on the street. That has got to be frustrating. Well, it absolutely is. And if you talk to law enforcement officers and you can get them, you know, in sort of an unguarded moment, they will tell you they are supremely frustrated as well. The Justice Department should make a public announcement that all whistleblowers will be protected from reprisals by the federal government if they come forward. Well, yeah, I mean there are whistleblower laws that do protect them from when they come forward, but I think every state is different. But there's the federal whistleblower law. And so if, yeah, if you go blow the whistle with the Feds, then I don't know if that would protect you, you know, to a higher standard. Somebody wanted to know the website for the Alzheimer's Association walk again, it is al Z for Alzheimer's al z dot org slash walk and then if you want to make a donation or you want to walk with my team, it's just search for my team named Pete's Pack. Pete's Pack. That's not Political Action Committee. That's pac k like a like a pack of wolves, but friendly one dogs, like a pack of dogs, well trained and friendly dogs. Anyway, I was going for the alliteration, not really the canine reference. Kirk says, I am supportive of the federal takeover in DC of law enforcement, but I think to do the same in the States is not constitutional. I tend to agree with that that they can ask for support, they can call it their own national guard, and they can do that sort of stuff. But these are democrat controlled cities. They can actually direct their own law enforcement agencies to do more. But they can and not juice the stats. But the other big part of this, and I'm going to get into this in the next hour, particularly here in Charlotte, the bigger component are the courts. It is the magistrate judges, it is the judges, magistrate judges, Yeah, the magistrates, it's the judges on the bench. And it is state law that allows for these generally juvenile offenders to be immediately released right back out into the general public. And in my view, this experiment has failed. Okay, that wasn't the problem, right when you when you allow people who are fourteen fifteen years old to break all sorts of laws and not suffer any immediate repercussions, but instead get turned right back out onto the street, back onto the you know, the guardianship of their parents or guardians who obviously are not doing a bang up job as it is, it's not solving the problem. In fact, it's sending the message that you can do all of this stuff and to the point where and I have had these discussions with law enforcement officers when talking about like all of the kids that walk through the neighborhoods and pop locks on doors. Right, they walk up the street and they just go into your driveway and they check your door handle and if you leave it unlocked. First off, that's a stupid thing to do. But secondly, they open up the door and now they get access to your car, and they can steal your car. They can take everything in your car. And those kids are often organized by adults. The adults will drive the kids to a neighbor a neighborhood, send them out into the neighborhood, and then they come back and they turn over all of the stolen merchandise. They get paid some money, they get to keep some stuff, and then the adults go and fence the rest of the stuff, either online or at pawnshops. So you've created juvenile criminal gang enterprises. The experiment is not working. There needs to be some sort of a shift here. One other note in Chicago with these violence interrupters. Back in twenty twenty three, police allegedly found a full time violence interrupter hiding naked under a bed with fifty thousand dollars in cash on the floor, narcotics in the room, and a gun on a kid windowsill. That same summer, two peacekeepers were shot in separate incidents, including one who was on electronic monitoring at the time. Again, I'm not sure this experiment is really working. 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.