ACKSHULLY crime in Uptown Charlotte is up (10-10-2025--Hour1)

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Remember that I remember that, Like, again, I may be dating myself, but there was It's not just in Charlotte where this narrative was advanced. It was in a lot of different blue cities, you know. In response to President Donald Trump criticizing these Democrat controlled areas, and the crime that has been allowed to just get out of control. And we kept hearing, actually, the crime is down, violent crime is down. And then of course we found out like pretty quickly thereafter that they were juice in the stats, you know, they like, particularly in Washington, d C. There were a couple of whistleblowers that said, yeah, actually, actually there there coding violent crime as lesser crime in order to juice the stats and make the stats look better than they actually are. Now, I have no evidence that occurred in Charlotte. I'm not saying that. I'm just saying that in Charlotte we were being told that actually crime is down, and that's why I was kind of surprised. And I've had it in the stack of stuff for a couple of days now, several reports from Queen City News WBTV, the Charlotte Observer, WSOCTV about this this new plan they have to introduce this initiative. Actually they're they're doing one new initiative, but then they were also resuscitating an old initiative that they allowed to I guess expire, but they're going to bring it back now to to step up police presence in uptown Charlotte don't all downtown and South End for some reason. I'm not really sure why, because actually violent crime is down, right, crime is down, So therefore, why would you need to increase police presence in uptown and in South End? So I thought that was kind of odd, you know, And I have the stories. I'll give you some of the highlights here. For example, this is wbtv's report by Michael Warwick. The Charlotte Meckelberg Police Department introduced a new initiative Wednesday designed to reduce criminal activity uptown and help people feel safer. Remember this the perception of safety once again, maybe dating myself, but after the murder of Arena Zarutska, there was this response coming from city leadership and a lot of Democrats that was really echoed throughout the country, which is that if you know, people don't feel safe, then they're not safe, right, So you have to kind of work on this perception. People have this misperception that they're not actually safe because remember, actually the crime is down, okay, so they want to, I guess, put a bunch of cops out on the streets in order to make people perceive that they're safer because they actually are safer. They just don't perceive themselves to be safer. So we're going to put a bunch of law enforcement out there to reinforce the perception, to kind of break through that misperception, if you will. Okay, this was Wednesday, and today we now see the crime stats from uptown Charlotte and actually crime is up. Actually, actually crime is up. Here's wbt's Brett Jensen. You can catch his show here on WBT from six until seven. Sorry, I'm still trying to remember because they redid the the lineups and stuff. So Brett Jensen is on six to seven Breaking with Brett Jensen, and he tweeted this out or he xed it out. I guess. Charlotte leaders and CMPD keeps saying the perception is that Charlotte isn't safe and crime is up, but in reality, crime in uptown is through the roof. Look at the crime stats for the first three quarters of twenty twenty five compared to the same time period in twenty twenty four, and murder is up two hundred percent. Come on, now, that's just a perceptions. It's not no, it is it's up. Yeah, it is up two hundred percent. Now granted, these are small, you know numbers. For example, in twenty twenty four, for the period that ran from you know, January first through October, there were three murders. Okay, last year. This year, same time frame January to October, it's now nine murders, so triple the number of murders. That is a difference of six. That is a two hundred percent increase. Forcible rape up from ten to eleven. And again this is just uptown and south end of the Central Division. Armed robbery commercial went from three up to four. Armed robbery personal some good news that actually declined. Armed robbery declined, going from twenty eight to twenty two. Strong Arm robbery commercial went from seven to fifteen. Strong Arm robbery personal went up from twenty six to thirty one. Assault Aggravated assault with a knife went from twenty two to thirty five. Aggravated assault with a gun went from sixty four to seventy six. Aggravated assault other good news that dropped twenty two down to seventeen. Decline of five aggravated assault. Physical force stayed the same. Nine. Burglary breaking and entering commercial that went down by eighteen cases one thirty five down to one. Seventeen. Residential burglary B and E dropped also eighteen, went from sixty seven down to forty nine. Residential storage units went from three to two. Motor vehicle theft that went up, so that went up to forty one to two fifty three. Two hundred and fifty three vehicles stolen over the course of January and February March April May, nine months. It seems like a lot. It's like almost one a day, you know. Pocket picking basically the same. It went up by one. There were sixty five cases of that per Snatchings went from eleven to six. Shoplifting though, that went up to seventy one, up to three sixteen, three hundred and sixteen cases. That's more than one a day. One shoplifting call a day. Theft from building is up, theft from coin operated machine is up, but that's like one. It went from zero to one. Theft from motor vehicle went up, theft of motor vehicle parts up. All other thefts went down from six hundred ninety seven to six hundred and forty. Here's some good news. Arson dropped by four cases, went from eight to four. Forcible sodomy went down from five cases down to two, but sexual assault with an object went up from zero to two. Hacking went up cases or two six cases, human trafficking, involuntary servitude we had a case of that, but last year we didn't have any identity. Theft went up, forcible fondling went up, kidnapping that went down by one case, went from five to four. So that's good. Simple assault up by thirty five cases. So this is just perception. All of these increases that I just ran through, simply perception people. Okay, Well, actually it's also actual, Okay, so it is. So in other words, people's perception of crime in Charlotte was true, right, it's true. And when people in Charlotte are saying they don't feel safe, and the city leaders are trotting out crime stats through the first half of the year through July, which of course doesn't include July and August, which are usually high crime because kids are out of school, right, the utes running the streets, roaming around, stealing stuff, assaulting each other, getting into some gun play, you know, as kids do. So you have the summertime crime spike. So when they're running around citing the crime stats and oh they're going down. Actually crime is going down. Yeah, Actually it was going up because you guys were looking at stats and using stats that did not include the more violent months. Now, maybe it peters out, maybe it sort of levels off or declines again or something. We shall see. But the point here that I'm trying to make is that when people when the residents of Charlotte are going down, because I watched the city council meetings and they're going down there and they're telling the city leaders that we are not feeling safe. Things are not cool here, things are not secure. They're talking about their experiences on the transit system, and the city leadership's response is okay, okay, yeah, yeah, yeah, we're going to do some stuff because we've got this referendus that we want people to pass, you know, so we're totally going to do some security stuff. But actually crime is down. Yeah, Actually it wasn't. It actually was not, and people's perception was accurate. You know. Stories are powerful. They help us make sense of things, to understand experiences. Stories connect us to the people of our past while transcending generations. They help us process the meaning of life, and our stories are told through images and videos. 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It's called the Crown Initiative. And I have here someplace what this thing stands here it is Center Cities Restoration of Order, Wellness and Nonviolence. Center Cities Restoration of Order wellness and nonviolence. It's called CROWN. I like the acronym. However, should it be c crown because its center city no right, center city restoration of and honestly like, if you're going to use the of in the end, it would be like CCR O W A N or crew an. But that doesn't sound nearly as cool as crown anyway. So the Crown initiative, it's gonna put more officers uptown who will more strictly enforce crimes, which is the tell that is that is quite the tell, right, These laws already exist, they are on the books, but now CMPD is going to more strictly enforce crimes like aggressive panhandling, disorderly conduct, public intoxication, as well as, according to qcityw Queen Cityews, QC news dot Com, unpermitted street vending. So I'm gonna have to find something else to do or another place to locate my shop the announcement, right, Oh real quick, just to circle back to sacking style on that the fact that these laws are already on the books and that CMPD was not quote strictly enforcing them, right, This is what people like me people on quote the right tough on crime people, whatever you want to call them. This is what we have been pointing to. The laws exist, but there has obviously been a directive, an order, a general millieu, whatever it may be. There is a reason why officers have not been strictly enforcing these crimes. Do they all decide not to do it all at once? Like did they all get together, like I don't know, and before or after one of the daily briefings or something, maybe they're getting their gear on in the locker rooms and they're like, hey, you know what, let's not strictly enforce these crimes anymore. No, of course not. There's obviously been some sort of Again, I don't know if it's a directive, a suggestion, if it's an order, or if it's a realignment or maybe a focus area or something like that. And I know this occurs from police officers who have told me, for example, and sometimes it's overt and explicit, right, Like do you remember a couple of years ago. Y'all may have heard of this down in Charlotte here, but I was working up in Asheville at the time when a police officer got into a fisticuffs with a guy who was simply jaywalking across the street. And the guy's name was Johnny Rush, and the Ashville police officer told him, you know, don't jaywalk. There's a crosswalk right here, like ten feet away from you, you know, stick to the crosswalk. And then Johnny Rush goes into the store, says okay, okay, fine, goes into the store, makes a purchase, leaves the store middle of the night, and crosses a four lane road again jaywalking, at which point they go over to give him a ticket. He doesn't want a ticket. I don't want this ticket, and he begins to run away. He begins to fight the cops. The cops fight back, and that's when and then there's, you know, the body cam footage comes out and oh my gosh, it's our own, you know, George Floyd. So that was actually nobody ever reported this, And whenever I talked about the case, I always tried to make mention of the fact that the reason why the cop was enforcing the jaywalking was because that's what the city told him to do, the City of Ashville told the police to focus on pedestrian safety, to start going after the jaywalkers. You know, why they had been embarrassed the city was embarrassed by a ranking of the least pedestrian safe cities and they made some top ten list of the worst cities to walk around in. And the downtown area in Asheville is actually pretty safe. I mean, if you've ever been there, you know, it's a lot of sidewalks and shops and stuff. It's a you know, it's an old downtown. But outside of the that you know, business district, downtown and they do call it downtown up there. Outside there, like there are not a lot of sidewalks. There's not even like shoulders on the side of the road. It's just like a cliff that drops off the side of the road because it's the mountains. And so people walking around on those roads at night, they're twisty and curvy and cars don't see, you know, motorists don't see them, and they hit people. And so the city was like, we're going to crack down on this, bust those jaywalkers. So they told the police to focus on this very kind of infraction, and when they did. When you have more law you have more law enforcement, you have more interactions with the public, and the chances are increased that you're going to have something like this happen, especially when you have a person that doesn't want to take the ticket and then refuses to be brought to jail for refusing to take the ticket. Right so, and then he fights back against the cops. He tries to grab a taser and whatever. Okay, So the point here is that these directives do come down. So obviously in Charlotte the message went out, do not strictly enforce these crimes, and now we are going to strictly enforce them. Any wagers on whether or not crime goes up or down here? Mmmmmmm, 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 a celebrating an anniversary, a honeymoon, maybe you want to plan a memorable proposal, or get family and friends together for a big old reunion. Cabins of Asheville has the ideal spot for you where you can reconnect with your loved ones and the things that truly matter, nestled within the breath. 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I think no, I don't know. I don't know. I don't know the answer to this question that he is he is m I A which honestly like if he were to show up at one of these press conferences and try to offer comments. I'm sure he would be peppered with questions about his settlement and all of that scandal, and so he's just laying low until the end of. The year and then he's gone. That's my bet. Let me see here. This is from Martin quoting the mayor. I know what loss is about, and so sometimes we have to remember that even though when we're working together, there's a lot more to do and to work around and get it done. And I will and I will never forget this loss. I will never forget it. It has been something that has been difficult for me, but also something that has made me a better mayor for the people of Charlotte. Right, that was her quote. I read it. This was at that press conference where they showed off their new bikes and UTVs that they were going to be using along the transit properties. Right, that this has made her a better mayor. Her failure has made her a better mayor. Look, and hey, you know you can learn a lot through failure because you've tried something it didn't work. So okay, let's take this as a positive step. Let's look at this glass as half full and say that she tried the path of soft on crime. It did not work, and now it's made her a better mayor. So now she's going to back more more enforcement. We can hope. Travis says, the correct name for a message on X is a cross, so he crossed it out barely. I barely give that one to you, Travis. It's like rearranging decks on the Titanics. As an anonymous seven oh four number eighth three numbers says, is there any kind of rape other than forcible rape? That's a good question, that's just I guess I was codified in the law. Bill says, I worked uptown off and on for forty one years, although I haven't worked downtown in six years. When I go visit now, it is scary. Ramir beard In Park has been turned into a criminal haven. The last time it got safe was when Mayor pat decided to do something about it and really had a much larger police presence downtown during that era. Have many colleagues that have had very negative experiences downtown recently. Prior to COVID, I felt completely safe there. Letting people riot in the streets did not help perception either. Well, and Bill, it's a good point, because you've got this talk about it a lot, I know. But this permission structure that was erected with the protests that were allowed to get out of control, and they even began before twenty twenty, before the summer of fiery but mostly peaceful riots, right Keith Lamont Scott, remember that he was shot and killed by a CMPD officer. And you had all the leftists that took to the streets and were protesting, and then oh my gosh, I see a police officer with a tactical vest I'm so triggered. I have to like throw a rock through a window or something. So the culture has been growing and the permission has been granted little by little over time until we got to where we are now. There was a quote actually from Michael Smith. Let's see here, I have it here. It is Michael Smith is the CEO of Charlotte Center City Partners, and he said quote during COVID, the world needed grace and we offered it. In doing so, I'm concerned that our community has inadvertently relaxed our standards for public safety. Okay, so no, there was no inadvertently about it. It was intentional, right In fact he acknowledges. He says, the world needed grace and we offered it. In other words, it's okay, we know it's a pandemic. So if you need to go around and you know, commit some crimes here and there, will allow it. Okay, all right, fine, we're gonna give you some grace here. And grace means what turning a blind eye or something that like. But that's not justice. You're giving grace. It's not yours to give, right And in doing so, I'm concerned the community inadvertently relaxed our standards for public safety. So there's the admission they did. They did relax the standards for public safety, although it was inadvertent, just like any decision that was made during COVID by you know, my good friend Ray the governor at the time, and Mandy Cohen, who, as I understand it, has it going on that and that's from a song that some moron sang for her. Anyway, it doesn't matter. But yeah, during COVID, like they made all these decisions, lockdowns, masking all of this stuff, and every single decision they made I guess was perf They didn't make a single mistake because nobody has ever come out and said, you know what, we probably shouldn't have done this, Oh, we probably shouldn't have had it last that long or whatever. There's been no accountability, no post mortem assessment to say this is what we did right, this is what we did wrong. This made things better, this made things worse. They haven't done it. But now we're finding out, Okay, maybe some standards were relaxed. It was inadvertin, so now we're going to have to crack down again. So 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. 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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. Charlotte Police introducing the Crown Initiative, which is basically policing. They're just gonna put more police in uptown South End, and they're also re establishing the EED the EEDU, the Entertainment District Unit. This will primarily patrol outside bars and nightclubs in Uptown and in South End. The Public Safety Task Force will work with state lawmakers also on needed changes in the court system. This from Queen City News. The increased visibility will include more officers patrolling, biking, or walking throughout Uptown. No word yet on how many officers will be out at a time, but CMPD said those officers will enforce ordinances that ban aggressive panhandling and unpermitted street vending. The EDU will be deployed around the bars, it's part of their work. As part of the work, they'll focus on reducing violence in fourth Ward, which, in case folks don't know, they like the old the original the wards were the original voting districts for the city. And so if you're looking at the map, you got trade and try on right there at the square. They call it the square, even though it's a it's a cross, which is weird, but whatever, it's called the square. And so trade and try on, you know, tryon running north south, trade running east west. And those are the four corners where the corners of the four wards meet. That's how they came up with the name. So first ward, second word, third ward fourth word. It goes in clockwise fashion around the horn there if you will so. CMPD will have an update on their progress once they release their latest crime data, which is supposed to be next week. I guess this from the Charlotte Observer Nick Sullivan's piece at the paper minor infractions. This is according to Major Gene Limb, the area commander over the southeast part of the city. Minor and fractions can eventually lead to more serious crimes. Really, oh my gosh, who knew that, except like everybody who has studied law enforcement procedures and policies for like the last I don't know, sixty years. It's called the broken window theory. When you let the little stuff slide, you get more of it, and then people feel emboldened to do the bigger stuff right Crown. The Crown initiative will focus on quality of life crimes such as panhandling, illegal street vending, and other quote public disruption crimes. The Charlotte Meckleburg Police Department is launching the two initiatives in response to what officials say are public perceptions there. It is again the perceptions of danger in the city. Some notable and by the way, those perceptions are based in reality, because again in twenty twenty four first nine months, there were three murders uptown. This year, there have been nine murders uptown, so it's not simply a perception. All of the violent categories have increased over last year in the center city. Some notable recent incidents in Uptown include a shootout that left one person dead at a club in September. This week, a teenager was arrested after a group of people were shot at Romer Beard in Park. Critics say the city has not done enough to quell violent crime. The FOP just last week wrote a letter calling for the National Guard to be summoned to the Queen City. I have the letter here. I still haven't gone over. Well, maybe I'll do it right now. Let's do it. Let's do it live. We'll do it live. Okay, here's the letter. This is a request to the mayor, to Governor Josh Stein, and to Donald Trump's administration. Due to the request is due to the ongoing failure of city and police leadership to address the severe staffing crisis within the Charlotte Mecklenburg Police Department, which we believe has led to a violence crisis in Charlotte. Now, what's hilarious about this, I mean not hilarious, but about the Democrat messaging on this. Right, what do you keep hearing when it comes to like the federal government shutdown? What do we keep hearing that there needs to be more funding? Right? More money? What did we hear after the murder of Arena Zarutska there needs to be more funding, more money. What did we hear after the passage and during the debate over Arena's law in the General Assembly? More money? We need more money. That's been the constant drumbeet. We need more money. Why? More money for cops? Got to fund more police positions. We need more money for the police, more money for the police. Right. Well, okay, that seems to indicate then that there needs to be more staffing, right, you need to staff up because we're at a recruiting deficit. We have a lot of open positions in Charlotte Mecklenburg Police. Okay, So how would you like some National Guards national Guard troops to come in and help backstop CMPD. Right, So this way you would have like some National Guard walking around doing that stuff, and you'd have CMPD. That would be able to, you know, go and effectuate and arrest. They could do more investigations and stuff. They could do more of that kind of work and they're not going to be tied up with some of the patrolling. Right. Well, why wouldn't you want the National Guard? Well, I don't know. Apparently the mayor she says she doesn't want the National Guard. I think even Senator Tom Tillis said we don't need the National Guard. Well wait a minute, which is it? Is there a problem with a lack of policing, a lack of police officers? If so, shouldn't you welcome some more bodies on the street, right? I mean not like dead bodies like we're seeing right now, but like live bodies, like officers walking the bead and troops that are like providing protection for businesses in like the downtown area, round the bars and stuff. Why not do that? Why not accept this offer? Why not make the request? Why not join the FOP request? I know, I know, because Trump, It's all because of Trump. Residents can expect to see more officers patrolling the streets and stricter enforcement within a half mile radius of trade and try on. Okay, So if you're if you're a criminal, just make sure you keep the crime outside of the like the trade and try on area half mile radius around trade and triumph. Okay, that's apparently that's the message. Major Gene Limb from CMPD said this is a focused, high impact effort to immediately shift the environment and perception of our center city. Disorder will not be tolerated. Well, I know I'm dragging these people a bit, but honestly it's about time. I welcome the renewed focus on public safety and sweating the little things. You know. This is from Mark on the text line. It's awful funny. There wasn't enough police for transit. Now they can increase police around town. But it's like you said, it's not the police, it's really the court system. Is more aggressive enforcement really going to lead to more aggressive prosecution? I think not. I mean that's a fair question. And Robert says the police are not the problem. The governing democrats are and have been, and everybody knows it. Should they call in the guard to help the police, we both know that won't happen. None of this would be happening if the killing of Arena Zarutzka could have been swept under the rug, but it wasn't it made national news and even then Charlotte politicians, especially the mayo or mayor. I guess that meant to say, try to ignore it. Charlotte is in a sad state of affairs, Buddy says. I grew up in Charlotte when it was still downtown. Now if you go there, it would be going uptown. Downtown means you've been taken downtown. Okay, I don't know if I'm following that. Downtown always yeah, that always struck me as like that's where the police department is. You know we're going downtown. So 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 thepetecallanershow dot com. Again, thank you so much for listening, and don't break anything while I'm gone.