A stolen dog clearly illustrates the juvenile crime issue (05-28-2025--Hour2)

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 dpeakclendershow 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, whilst watching the Charlotte City Council meeting that was held last night, it was a public forum. They do this once a month. Everybody gets to come down, You get two minutes to speak and you people seek redress and then go largely ignored by the elected leaders. And this is a time honored tradition. So there were people that came down about the animal care control facility right the they need more space for dogs and stuff. And they've been they've been regulars. They've been coming down there for years trying to get the city council to expand shelter space, which I support. By the way, you had the airport workers. They came down there right making an argument that somehow another the city should dictate federal aviation policy or something on pay. And then there was a woman who came down. Her name is Jala Gittons, and a supporter of hers as well named Amanda O'Hara. And I remember hearing about this story when it first occurred. It's been two months. But Jala Giddons had her car stolen and in the car was her dog. And it's been two months, and here's the story she told the Charlotte City Council last night. Our next speakers are Jayla Gittens and Amanda O'Hara. Alright, she's walking to the podium now. Hello, good evening. My name is Jayla Gittens. I'm a Charlotte resident of ten over ten years, and I'm coming to talk to you today about a crime that has left me heartbroken and frustrated with a system that seems to protect perpetrators more than the people they hurt. On April six, my car was stolen along with my six year old dog, Julio, while I was moving out of my apartment. If you're an animal lover, I'm sure you understand just how much my dog means to me. They truly are a member of the family. Five days After the initial crime, my car was found damaged with my items missing, and my dog, Jolio, has not been seen. Since the heartbreak up. Losing him is something that I really do carry every day. But what has made the situation even worse is what I've observed about our juvenile justice system since the theft. I've received messages and calls from the juveniles responsible, as well as their adult family members, threatening me, taunting me, even trying to extort me for my dog. This isn't just a petty crime. This is cruel, deliberate, and calculated behavior Psychologically. Most of the kids involved were sent home with no real consequences from parents or the law, and no accountability. I was disappointed to find out how few rights victims have when miners are involved. I couldn't get a police report to prove to my job why I missed work. I wasn't allowed to know the names of the juveniles or even their parents. In the situation, I felt like I was left in the dark while the kids who stole from me and threatened me went back to school like nothing ever happened. Some of these kids are repeat offenders, and these crimes aren't isolated incidents. These are patterns that the system is allowing to continue. If there are no consequences, why wouldn't they keep doing it. That's the reality. We're living in a juvenile justice system that sends kids back into the same environments with no accountability for them or their guardians. A system that teaches young offenders that they can steal, lie and threaten without any real repercussions. I'm here tonight because that has to change. We need stronger protections for victims. We need real consequences for juvenile offenders, especially repeat offenders. Thank you, Veron, Thank you so much. Misgittens, miskittens, mis gittens. See this young man walking down that way, his name is Sean He and if you would have an opportunity to talk with him a little bit more about this, this would be very helpful. Thank you very much. So. Part of the problem here is state law, right, remember the big push to not hold juveniles to the same punishment standards as adults, because that's not fair. They're just children. And we got legislation just this session up in Raleigh that Democrats opposed to add more crimes into the bucket where das can prosecute as adults. But those decisions are discretionary for the das and the judges. So, first off, as a person who has moved in and out of apartments many, many, many times in my life, it is a very unsecure way to move. And if you've never moved in and out of an apartment, particularly an apartment that is like a high rise apartment, like you go up in an elevator, Basically you got to move everything in an elevator and. What like. We hired some you know, movers to help us, and they just pile everything in the lobby, or they pile everything by the elevator door, and then they just move everything. You know, you got one person moving stuff out of the root, out of the apartment unit to the elevator and they're just doing that, and then you got somebody else in the elevator riding it up and down and bringing it to the truck. And when we had stuff stolen in one of our moves, it wasn't a car, but somebody made off with a box and it took years for us to figure out all of the contents of the box. By figuring out, hey, whatever happened to our wedding valves that we had in our frame. Yeah, it's missing, along with a frying pan, the big one like that. They were in one box together. Don't look no, don't Christy packed that box. Okay, I am very specific when I pack boxes. Everything goes in the same kind of thing anyway, But we figured out that somebody had stolen one of the boxes, either at the elevator or on the truck, right when you load everything into the truck and stuff is sitting around the truck and unless after that we learned we posted people at the truck. Somebody stayed at the truck the whole time, someone stayed at the elevator the whole time, and someone stayed up at the apartment the whole time. And so if you don't have that kind of you know, uh, that kind of operation going, it is very easy to steal from people when they're moving in and out of apartments. So I completely understand what she's talking about here. She puts stuff in her car, right, she was loading up her car, put her dog in there, and some punks stole her car with the dog in it. And that's one thing. It's called grand theft auto. I was under the impression that that was a serious crime, right, that's a serious offense, but apparently not if you're a fifteen year old punk and then you steal the woman's dog and then you engage in a syop against her, threatening her, extorting her, mocking her. I mean, God only knows what they may do to her dog. How is this? How is this possible? Like to me, this is a very easy thing to go investigate if you are CMPD No, Like, you know who the people are. You know they have my dog, Go get my dog. How do you not go get the dog and then charge the person for stealing the dog? You already charged them for stealing the car. You know who they are. Let me uh, let me go over here to Brian real quick. Hello Brian, welcome to the show. Hi Pete, thanks you taking my call. Yeah sure, I feel like my comments don't match your what you just said about Christy and her dog. But here's my comments. Listening to you talk about the city council. Yeah, yeah, it's all in the same ball of poop. All right, here's my observations. Number one, when I listened to the council talk, my sense is they're not very competent. Number two, No, number two. Number two, there's no accountability. Number three, what do they actually do? So I went online and I try to figure out what their salaries were, and roughly I've come up with the mayor's salary and the city council member salary is roughly around five hundred thousand dollars a year, and that includes benefits. That's all that. They sound like a fair number, not per person, no, no aggregate though, right right, I think they are. Yeah, I think they're each paid like fifty k. So according to the article I read online, which might not be accurate, sixty thousand for the mayor, okay, and that includes benefits and salary, right, and then fifty two thousand that includes benefits and salary for the council members, which roughly is just shy of five hundred thousand a year. Yeah, you know, I think that's I think that's accurate because if I recall correctly, when the activist Braxton Winston ran for council, that was a big push of his was to was to get paid. He wanted Yeah, he wanted a full time salary for the for the. Job, okay. And so every year or every two year, every year they want more money. What did they do where's the account billing? Hello, Brian, I just played, Brian, I just played sound bites of what they do. You like, that's what they do. That's it. Do anything. No, they have meetings and they take votes on stuff, and they hold their town hall. Oh, by the way, Tijuana Brown is hosting a town hall tonight. Maybe you could go down and ask her what she does, I mean besides the fraud and all. But yeah, you will you provide the bail money? Yeah? No, No, I work in radio, not city government, so that's not gonna happen. All right, Brian, good to hear from you. Allright, buddy, take it easy. Yeah, Look, I know it is a lot of work. It is. They go to a lot of meetings, they talk to a lot of people. They have to do a lot of reading of the material before the meetings. I'm not saying they do that they're supposed to. Sometimes you can tell who hasn't done their homework by the questions that they ask. And I've talked about this before, but part of the problem is it is a staff driven model, right, Because we are a council manager form of government. The council relies on the manager and the manager's staff to act as the quote professionals, and that puts you as a council member. It puts you sort of at the mercy of the manager, even though you are the one that hired them, because if they don't help you do your job, especially the newbies when they come in, you will know what you're doing. You get frozen out, you cross people's paths or something, and you know they or you cross them, and they don't like you, they don't help you. If they do like you, they do help you. That's politics, man, politics, all right. If you're listening to this show, you know I try to keep up with all sorts of current events, and I know you do too. And you've probably heard me say get your news from multiple sources. 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. Here's why I think this story matters. I'm going to play the clip from another speaker who came to back up her friend, Miss Gittens. Juvenile crime has been a problem for years, right, and it seems like there is virtually no political will to address the situation. There's some up in Raleigh to dial back some of these quote reforms that everybody got guilt tripped into after Saint George Floyd died up in Minneapolis. But the reforms are not working okay, In fact, they've made things worse. Now you have juvenile that are employed in the service of gang's organized crime, or just like an older friend who knows that if I have you steal the cars, then nothing will happen to you. So you steal the car and bring it to me and I'll take care of it. And that this way, I don't get the big charges you do, and then they throw them out or and your record's expunged and everything else. You've created a whole new set of problems. Trade offs people, right, there are no solutions. There are only trade offs, as Thomas Soule said, So here's the deal. Apparently, juvenile crime can get so bad and nobody will care as long as they are either murdering each other or they are stealing cars. But you steal a dog, and now you're in trouble. Now, See this moves people. This will move people that you stole my car with my dog and now you're holding it for ransom and you're taunting. You're taunting me, you're trying to extort me. And for some reason, law enforcement doesn't care. Law enforcement owns dogs, they're on the payroll. You would think they would care. Anyway. Let me go over to Dane. Hello, Dane, welcome to the show. Hey Pete, how are you doing. Hey? I'm good. What's going on? Hey? Being in previous law enforcement, I've called your show many times. I was just want to reiterate what you just said about juveniles being employed by gangs. I worked just outside of Charlotte for almost twenty years, and that's what we found was older people recruiting fifteen, fourteen, thirteen year olds to steal cars and breaking the stores or feel more cars, get guns, And that's where it precipitates from. They're getting told what to do. And as a law enforcement officer, we arrest these juveniles and they're out within twenty four hours because there is no you know, if it's not a violent crime, they're not going to hold them in ps in the juvenile system. Yeah, and I agree with everything you just said. Yeah, and they turn them back over to parents that obviously don't give a flying rip about what they're behaving, what they're engaged in, the behavior they're engaged. In one I mean, and that's what it is. It's the parents are not taking they're not taking it seriously because they're like they well, you know and when they're eighteen, well they'll get expunged and they don't have to worry about it. Yeah. In the meantime, they're making money. Yeah, it's easy for a twenty five year old man to recruit a fifteen year old go seal car, break into a liquor store or a gun store, steal whatever they want. They don't get the charges. Yeah, they know that the juvenile is going to go for twenty four hours and then go back with the parents. Yeah, and then be right back out. They like this woman said, within twenty four hours. They were back out less than twenty four hours, and they went to school the next day, and then they're sending text messages. I don't know how they got our information, but I guess, you know, probably in the neighborhood they see the flyers or something, or I don't know, maybe the police report. Because the police report lists her name as the victim, but not their names because they're juveniles. Juve, it gets redacted. It's all blacked out. I mean, her name will be on the report and it's public information, so yeah, they can get her information, but obviously if you're under the age, it's going to be redacting, blacked out. Yeah, and it's frustrating. As a law enforcement officer, it was very, very frustrating because you spend hours and hours and hours working a case and building a case against the juvenile just to have it thrown back in your face and say no, we're not going to we're not going to prosecute because he's fifteen. Right. Yeah, It's just it's nuts. The whole thing is nuts. And from a law enforcement perspective, the officer's care, they solved the crime for the victim, are doing their best. That's what they do. What's your read on why they wouldn't have gone? Why they wouldn't have gone? They know who has the dog, obviously, so why don't they go and get the dog? Can you prove they have the dog? They stole the car, they were charged with stealing the car. I understand them. And they got all the text messages taunting the woman, extorting her, trying to get money for the dog and all of this. You have to have established a serious probable cause to get a search want to go get into somebody's house to. Find a dog. And I'm not disagreeing with you, and I understand you have text messages, you have the stolen car that was recovered. Hopefully they did a forensic on the car, got fingerprints and all that. You have to build the case before you can just rush in. And I know that sounds silly, but you have to be very meticulous about how you do it because if you do it wrong and then the officers have fault in. Yeah, all right, Dane, I appreciate the call, buddy. Good to hear from you. Yes, sir, right, good talk you, thank you too. Yeah. I don't know. I just two months seems like a long time. And if they've got all the text messages like this woman claims, like, how do you not go to a judge and get a warrant? That seems like enough probable cause to go shake these people and get the dog back. 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. 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Call or text eight two eight three six seven seventy sixty eight or check out all there is to offer at Cabins of Aashville dot com and make memories that'll last a lifetime. I have a message from Melissa. It's a pete tweet quote unquote. Underage crime run by gangs or syndicates. It's another business opportunity for criminals, proving once again that capitalism works. If law enforcement dug deeper, it's likely these gangs have a hierarchy and rico charges would be in order. Racketeering. Yeah, that's possible. But again, you you have to have a DA that wants to prosecute this stuff, and you have to have judges that will hand and down harsh sentences. These are all choices. These are all choices that voters make to put people into office on these quote unquote reform platforms that basically say you can get away with crime, and that is how you kill a city, That's how you kill a society. Right. The criminals do not allow the law abiding people to carry about their daily business. And when you do not have that element in your society, then all you will have is the criminal element. Because people who are law abiding and choose to continue to you know, not harm other people, not take their stuff, they will leave people who were otherwise law abiding. But now see that, Hey, this opportunity exists for me to just hurt other people and take their stuff, and I can make more money doing that without any kind of ramifications to myself, Well I'm gonna do that, which then creates a greater preference cascade in that city or in that society. You know, Charlotte is on a pathway here to a not good place, and it's not going to get off the path unless the people who are in the leadership positions do something different. You have to change course because the thing that you were sold and you sold to us is not working. It is not working. Let me play this second clip. This is from Hang On, Hang On Amanda O'Hara. She is a supporter of the woman Jayla Geittons, who had her dog stolen and then has been some for the last two months as the punks threaten her, the punk's family members threaten her, taunt her, send her messages because again, her information is public because she's an adult, but theirs is all blacked out, redacted on the police reports. She can't get information, she can't get stuff about them because they're kids. Yeah, they're criminals, is what they are. Thank you, Thank you, I appreciate that. Okay, good evening. My name is Amanda O'Hara. Nearly two months. That is how long Jayla has been living this nightmare, and how long Julio has been missing since he was stolen in a brazen crime by a juvenile in our city. The crimes committed should not go unchecked. We are not talking about just the stolen car. We were talking about stolen dog, stolen car, an extortion. Today it's a dog, Tomorrow it could be a kid. We are here tonight for answers, accountability and justice. Reports show that just last year, sixty one percent of juveniles arrested in Charlotte will repeat offenders. Many cases that go to the District Attorney's Office involving juveniles will not even see a courtroom. This is not working. We are here tonight to ask that we get some sort of justice and accountability. CMPD is doing the work arresting the teens. How are the judges and DA's office continue to put the community at risk by not taking crime seriously? As many of you know, we have email City Council, the DA's office, CMPD, Chief Jennings, Captain Brian Crumb, the principal of North Mech High School, among others. The city council members present tonight not and clude not, including newly sworn in City Councilman Peacock the only one to respond with City Councilwoman Renee Johnson. Miners are not above the law because of their age. Where is Julio? The community has poured in tips, conducted their own community patrols, and place flyers in various areas. When I asked CMPD if they would hold a press conference to spread the word about Julio, why was I told no. We demand justice for Julio and for Jala. I asked represent Johnson of District four where the crime occurred, Mayor Lyles and City Manager Jones to request from CMPD a daily log or report of progress made in Julio's case, to ensure that this is not being pushed to the wayside, and to guarantee justice and accountability get served. We will not stop until Julio comes home, all right. So there was the second speaker on this topic. There was one thing that she mentioned there, the stats, and it's in this story over at WBTV. She said, reports show that just last year, sixty one percent of juveniles arrested in Charlotte were repeat offenders. Oh, this has always been the case, people, This has always been the case. A small percentage account for a large number of crimes. And so, just as Sheriff Gary not my fault, McFadden doesn't believe that you can deport in order to solve the illegal immigration process. It appears that I guess the DA's office and a bunch of judges don't believe that incarceration can solve the crime wave committed by a handful of people. The numbers are supported by the city's own data. According to WBTV, there were almost seventeen hundred juvenile arrests last year. Seventeen hundred. I'm trying to do the math on that, and that's like what five or six a day, And of the seventeen hundred, over a thousand were repeat offenders. This is a choice. This is a choice. And if you're going to make this choice, District Attorney's office, judges, elected leaders, if this is your choice, you should have the stones to say it. I choose to put your family, your pets, your property in jeopardy, to repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat offenders here a time of renewings because they are worth more anniversaries. And that's the decision that they have made. Your family's making memory for the decision I agree with. But let me ask, obviously, all of those treasured moments from days gone by? Are they hidden away on old VCR tapes, eight millimeter films, photos, sly? Are they preserved? Because over time, these precious memories can fade and deteriorate, losing the magic of yesterday at Creative Video, they help you protect what matters most. Their expert team digitizes your cherished family moments and transfers them onto a USB drive, freezing them in time so they can be enjoyed for generations to come. I urge you do not wait until it's too late this spring. Celebrate your past. Visit Creative Video today and let them preserve your legacy with the love and care that it deserves. Creative Video Preserving Family Memories since nineteen ninety seven, located in mint Hill, just off four eighty five. Mail orders are accepted to get all the details that create a video dot com. Let's go over and chat with Gigi. Welcome to the show, Gigi, how are you hey? Pete A couple of things very quickly. As the mom to two dogs, I'm sick that they've had her dog in godness, what they're doing to her to the dog. And I was wondering because I didn't hear the whole story I was driving. Did she specify how much they're trying to extort her for to get the dog back? No, she didn't say what they've demanded of her, but she has offered one thousand dollars rewards, So I would guess it's more than that. Because I either gofund me or if I could, I would take the money out of my savings and try to help her get that dog back, because that just I mean, I'd end up in jail for what I would do to them to get my dog back. But that's aside from the point. Is there any way to find out how I mean, any way to contact her or the other woman who spoke for her to see if we can help her just raise the money to get her dog back. I don't Yeah, I don't know. I mean I know, I mean I gave her name. It was Jayala Gitton's Jay and the dog's name is Julio. So there's obviously a big effort online underway to try to find Julio. I think it's where's Julio? He's not down at the schoolyard, I can tell you, But yeah, I. Know, I'll I'll search for that, thank you. The other thing in the category of how much are they getting paid and what the hell do they do for it? Am I remembering correctly? Because this is an article from a couple of years ago, and I thought I could never go to the city council meeting to talk about this, because again, I'd be dragged out of the meeting. Does the city manager really make five hundred thousand dollars? And if he does, what the hell does he do for that? I don't even know the guy's name, and I think. Marcus as Yeah, Marcus Jones is the manager's name. Trying to I don't know what his salary is, but it would not surprise me if all of the top three posts, the county manager, city manager, and the superintendent probably all make about that. I mean, that's more than the President of the United States. Well, I mean, when we're talking about the superintendent for CMS, he's he's educating the children of the future, you know. So, I mean, can you really put a price on that, Gigi, really? You know, after the guy, after the guy that they brought in a couple of years ago. We're from like Virginia who then hired his wife and Hi, I mean, it's just I don't even know what to say about Charlotte's And just in the twelve years I've been here, the change has been so dramatic, shocking, alarming. Yeah, it's hard to even wrap my brain around the other thing I was thinking about, because you said this is really an issue about the youth offenders, a state issue. I'm embarrassed to say, I don't even know who the heck are represented aves are, but really, why shouldn't they be dragged into this conversation as well, because if they're our representatives, shouldn't they be representing us in Raleigh about this issue? Yeah? Well they've they're running legislation and I don't know where you live, so I don't know what district you're in, but chances are you're being represented in Raleigh by Democrats and so they have no power or voice. But if they were to try to open up more of the offenses from protected staff as a juvenile to let das charge as adults, the problem is that the decisions are still up to the das on whether to bring the charges, whether to plead the mout. It's up to the judges, and we don't know. I don't know what the judge is. Somebody asked me in an email who the judge is in this case, and I wish you would have said that, because that judge needs to be called out too. But we ye, and this is part of the problem is that you have the different levels. You know, you have state legislators making the laws. They did their you know reforms, quote unquote. They have since clawed back some of the more serious offenses in order to combat this juvenile crime wave. And it's not enough and they have to do more. And I will say though, that they ran the bill, and they ran a bill, and we covered it a couple of weeks ago, and it did pass in the in one of the chambers I think it was the House, and it went over to the Senate. So there are some efforts underway at the state level. I don't know if it's enough. I think they need to go. I think they need to do more and go. Harsher is mister Merriweather still the district attorney. He is, So why, like I. Mean, and again, why can't we use the tactics of the left and go protests outside his office? You could? You could absolutely do that, absolutely, And you got a great poster dog for the effort, because this dog is adorable. It's a little French bulldog. Oh my god, Yeah, it's adorable. So yeah, and so it checks boxes and it's like, got you got a branding campaign ready to go Giji. It's a good idea. Let me know if you organize it. I appreciate the call, Thank you so much. And yes, Marcus Jones made four hundred and eighty thousand dollars last year. 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.