Asheville reparations and the Charlotte light rail murder (09-08-2025--Hour3)

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 dpeteclendershow dot com. Make sure you hit the subscribe button, get every episode for free, write to your smartphone or tablet, and again, thank you so much for your support. And as we always do on Mondays at two o'clock, we chat with ap Dylon. She is a reporter for the North State Journal. You can read her work at nsjonline dot com and you can read her substack newsletter. It's called more to the Story. Ap. Welcome, How are you? I'm doing great, Pete? How are you doing? I'm doing well as well, not great, but almost great. Almost So that's good enough. All right. So let's first look west. Let's look to the mountains. The Asheville City Council you read pored in a very lengthy piece over the weekend. Millions of tax dollars have been funneled towards reparations in Ashville, and more could be spent. So I guess what. Tomorrow, They've got their city council meeting and they're going to be reviewing a final report from the Community Reparations Commission. Yes. Yes, this document includes various ways that are basically for the black community only to access housing, to improve education. It deals with public policing and those sorts of things. And there were a number of things packed in there in this report, and also it's draft report that came out ahead of this a year ago that could be problematic. It has things embedded in it like DEI culturally relevant pedagogy, sensitivity training being required for employees of the city. There could be some civil rights violations in there, you know, dedicated transportation systems for just the black expectant mothers I believe. I believe that's called pregnant people ap pregnant people, right. Thank you. You know. Also, the one that really stuck out to me was the affordable housing specifically for black populations. And they talk about using block grants, federal block grants for that. That's a big no no, Yeah, that's not good. Yeah. So the legality of all these questions, you know, kind of percolated up on Twitter or ex as. It's called now and the Assistant Attorney General Hermiet Dillon for the Office of SILLOVL Right said that if the folks in Wencom County, we'll be hearing from us tonight. If they pass illegal race based programs, they will find out we're serious about ending the EI racism in America. And it turns out she did send a letter to them, which was confirmed by a gentleman named Matt van Swell, who's been very vocal in them part of the state following Hurricane Helen. He's garnered a lot of followers, and House Speaker Dustin Hall also spoke up on and retweeted Harmet Dillon's post NX staying at woke policies have no place in NC. I'm directing the gov Ops Task Force to investigate city councils statewide to ensure taxpayer dollars aren't being wasted on DEI racism. Yeah, I mean, think about it. They're saying, if you're a black person, we're going to give you this housing voucher over a white person just because you're black. That's I mean, that's essentially what they're saying that they're going to do in a form of reparations, which look and I've when I worked up there, I talked about this at the time, like the dislocation of residents, and this happened all over America for various reasons at various times. Happened near in Charlotte during quote urban renewal that was under a Democrat administration where they leveled the Brooklyn neighborhood. But in Asheville there was a predominantly poor area of the downtown area and they seized all the land and they booted everybody out because it was like the drain field basically where all of the runoff would collect, so like the sewerage and all that stuff, and so they cleared it all out. But actually more white poor people were dislocated than black poor people from that area and they weren't going to get any reparations for that. And my view on it is if you got a government taking your property and you didn't get compensated for it, then I think then yes, you should get compensated. You want to call that a reparation, I think that's totally legit because that was an illegal taking. But this idea that now you're going to give somebody who maybe moved into the Ashville area a decade ago, and because they're black, you're going to give them some extra money over some poor white person. Is it is clearly raised based and clearly illegal. I mean, in my view, I don't know any other way around it. And it seems like the Feds believe it too. Yeah, yeah, well see what comes from that. They've been warned, and you know, they just settled that racial discrimination lawsuit right ef using membership to suit to the Human Rights Council to anyone who wasn't of a minority race. Yeah, so that was, if I recall correctly, that was I think it was former Councilman Carl Mumpower who had applied to be on that commission and they said no, and then they kept the open application period. They kept it open for like an extra year or something because they couldn't find anybody to sit on the panel. They and so. Obviously they didn't want him on there because of his race, and so he sued and he won. You would think that would be sort of a kick in the pants for them. Now you report in your piece here this is at your sub stack. More to the story. The announcement said the city Council's appropriation was quote aligned with a July fourteenth, twenty twenty vote resulting in a resolution supporting community reparations for Black Ashville. And of course black is capitalized because that's reparations as well. And so I think though that you missed an important point here, which was that this was this was a fantastic way for the Asheville City government to get good pr during the fiery but mostly peaceful Summer of Love. I mean, that really was the benefit. And I think you just completely ignored. The George Floyd riot, right, Yeah, No, this was one of those reactions to the George Floyd riots. And you know, it's. They got so much coverage for it. Remember, I mean they were they were celebrated, they were going on all sorts of they were on MSNBC, they were making all of the rounds for the for their sensitivity foot. Washington thing that went on, you know, I mean, whatever. Yeah, And that really is what it's about, isn't it. I Mean, come on, it's not about keeping the people safe. It's not about making sure that you know you're prepared for disasters. It's about the signaling, you know, the virtue signaling. Yeah, and everybody, you know, let the open up the jails and reduced sentences and did all that stuff during COVID too. And I believe one of the people who had their sentence reduced when it was released was the gentleman. He's not a gentleman, but the individual who murdered the Ukrainian young lady on the on the cats. Yes, So that's we've been talking about that for the last hour and for the last two and a half weeks. Actually, it's just it's a mystery as to why now we've got a statement from our Attorney general finally weighing in on this seventeen days later, and all of a sudden, now we've got people and the governor put out a statement on Twitter. It's what I wonder why it took so long. Do you think you may have had something to do with the release of the video that's now gone viral? Do you think I think it might have. Yeah, and I've been trying to confirm it. But from a couple sources told me that the city council members had have been maybe trying to crush the release of that video. I have seen that rumor as well. I've been trying to track it down. I can't find anyone who go on the record, So yeah. I think it right. And so right now, that is the rumor that council members tried to stop it, and I think that's pretty standard whenever there's like something that they don't want released, like, they'll they'll try to make an argument that it's not in the public interest or something like that in order to, you know, to fight the release of city owned video. You know a number of times in the past. Right, it's sort of like the bodycam footage, except it's the complete opposite, where usually the politicians, well the Democrats, are trying to get the videos released, right, but in this case they did not want them. And remember we're having a vote on a transit tax increase in November, and so this has got a lot of people very worried that now people won't vote to expand transit funding when you're getting people murdered on the on the trains as it is. Well, that video is like a scene off of the New York City subway. Mm hmm, yeah, I mean you didn't think you don't think that will happen in yours in your state? And lo and behold there it was right. Well, this poor woman was ambushed, just mind her own business and her cell phone. Right, So, well, have you ever been have you ever been on the light rail line here in Charlotte. Nope, don't find it ever, be right. Well, there you go. So but they don't they don't have they have a kiosk, an automated or like a touchscreen kiosk on the platforms. There's no gated entry onto any of the platforms, so they're all open, so anybody can walk up onto the station platforms and then you just digitally buy a ticket and it's on your phone. But if you don't buy it, there's nobody that comes around and checks, and so it's like a free train. And so the homeless people ride around on. It because it's absolutely stupid. Yes, oh yes, absolutely, and it was designed to be stupid. My right, that's and so that's why. Uh, it was an original design flaw and it caused this woman her life. So uh was a feature? Right? Yeah, yeah, AP, I got a run. I appreciate your time as always. Check her out at nsjonline dot com. Thanks AP, thanks so much. Take care. That's ap Dylan from The North State Journal end her substack as well. More to the story. Game on Week one starts now, and every touchdown brings you closer to a payout. With Draft Kings sports book and official sports betting partner of the NFL, this isn't just football, it's first touchdown fireworks anytime TD rushes live bets that ride every momentum shift. At Draft Kings, every play is your next shot to win. Will the Panthers win? Will we even get a touchdown? 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Of the national coverage that has erupted over the weekend because of the release of the video by local media, which then went viral, okay, and Elon Musk put it on his account, and when Elon Musk tweets anything, everybody on Twitter is obligated to read it. That's the best I can tell because this stuff always shows up in my fees, so that that goes viral. That has now prompted all of these reactions from the governor, attorney general. Right, we're getting all of this now focus, We're getting national attention, national coverage because of social media because of the video, which might explain why local leaders may not have wanted that video to be released, Okay, and there could be multiple reasons. It's not an either or situation. Right. You can say it's difficult for the family to see this video of their loved one moments before she's murdered. Absolutely, But if we're going to force change, people need to understand what exactly occurred. And when you read a story about the attack, it didn't get any coverage, and local leadership had an incentive for the story to just go away. The incentive is Number one, they're up for reelection right now. They don't want this to be used against them and harm their electoral prospects. And number two, they're trying to get a referendum passed to increase funding for the very transit system where this occurred. Okay, so this could yes, it could actually impact the mayor's race, either in the primary which is going on right now early voting, or in the general. We shall see seven oh four number says. Putting people who are guilty in jail and keeping them there may have stopped this, may have prevented it. Yeah, early primary voting and oh it ended Saturday, thank you Chris in Monroe. So primary voting ended, early primary voting, but the primary, and this is just for municipal races. So like I live in the county, so I don't get to vote in the municipal races. The ignorant Charlotte electorate will re elect Mayor vy Lyles in a landslide. That's all. That is one way it could go. Scott says if he wasn't on the train, that women would be alive. Mental people need help not to roam free. Jim says, Pete, you said local media has covered this story well, but surely you didn't miss this one from the Observer headline deadly light rail stabbing and Charlotte grows political under national spotlight. Grows Really. Yeah, no, Look, the local media has done a good job of covering this story. This is why, by the way, that I have been able to cover the story for the last two and a half weeks, because local media has been covering it. Reporters have been going, I'm not a reporter, right, I'm not going out and making a bunch of phone calls and attending city compan I do watch the city council meetings and that sort of thing. Yes, but I'm not a reporter. I'm a host. Okay, So I'm only one person. I can't cover every single beat, So I rely on media reports, and so for crime and some courts beats and stuff, I rely on local media. And they have done a good job in getting the details of this case out. And it's only because of their work that now the nationals come in and they have a body of facts that they can use to populate their story now that they have finally gotten around to doing it, because they can put the video in their story. 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. But also there is a custom app that's a game changer for these trips. It's called incentive trip Kit. 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From Benny Johnson he had Harmie Dillon, who is the Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights, and he asked her about this case in Charlotte and whether or not the FEDS are going to be looking into the city of Charlotte and the judicial officials who allowed this deranged maniac to be out on the streets, and whether or not there's any lawsuit that can be brought. Here's what she said, I am looking at other cities for their race based prosecution. And you know, if there are law enforcement officials in Charlotte who have information about similar race based arrest patterns, prosecution patterns, or plea agreements in that city that favor one race over the other or others, then we would very much want to hear about that because that would be a due process, an equal protection issue, and illegal under our federal civil rights laws. And so we'd be interested to hear that. And it's tragic that any American lost their lives to a repeat offender like this. I saw this kind of thing happen regularly in San Francisco, where I lived for almost twenty five years. Violent criminals who would prey on the same racial type. For example, in that city, elderly Asian Americans were frequently the targets a violent crime from African American perpetrators, and they were catch and release, catch and release, let out again and again and again and in some instance is actually killing our elderly citizens in our community. So this is wrong, and you know, with evidence, we can put a stop to it. Right. So again she's asking if there's you know, if anybody has evidence of a pattern of this kind of. I don't know. I don't want to say justice, like if there, if there are a patterns, she's going to be looking into it. Let me get back to the text line here and get some of these texts regarding the the response from local officials over the last two weeks, which has kind of been, well, you know, it happened so fast, there was no sign, there was no argument or anything. That precipitated it. He just attacked her. So even if there was a cop on the train, they would not have been able to prevent her death. And while that may be true in that exact scenario, it ignores the obvious idea that deterrence works, that if you've got an officer on the train, he may never have done the. Attack in the first place. Also, as Michael texts in, it doesn't matter what or how fast the response would have been. This guy should not have been on that train, right because he was a fair skipper. He should not have been there. He did not pay to be on the train. This from a Florida number who says it was a hate crime. He was fine until she got on the train. I don't know. He seemed to have been muttering to himself before she got on, but I don't know. Again, the guy is mentally deranged. That seems obvious. So yes, then there's this. The New York Post had an article this morning about a go fundme page set up for the killer. It's now been taken down after outrage. I know you don't click links, so none is provided. Well, I already had that. Actually there were whereas there were actually three of them that were posted, or I saw references to three. Two that were actually posted. One was put up by somebody named Ezekie ol Rivers. No specific goal was created nine am yesterday. This person that was at a Fort Polke, South Louisiana. And then there was another one that had a thirty five thousand dollars goal for put up by Ryan Nicholas Rangham that was created at one o'clock on Sunday, and go fundme says that it has taken down any of these go Fundme pages because then there was another one that was set up by somebody named Reverend Ray Christman. But it doesn't. I think that's a fake one. I think that's a fake profile because I went looking at his Twitter feed it seemed like he was a parody. Troll kind of account. Either way, gofund me says they are taking down those types of. Those types of fundraisers. People pointing out here, yes, that the whole thoughts and prayers crowd that they're not enough. Remember after the Minneapolis school shooting that now the mayor comes out with the thoughts and prayers in a statement and the Attorney General Jeff Jackson a thoughts and prayers statement, Like now it's a thoughts in prayers time. It's because it's different when Democrats do it. This is from Carol who says I posted on my Facebook about the tragedy, and my friends in Phoenix and Chicago were like, what are you talking about? We've never heard about this story. Yeah, that's true. Until this weekend, nobody had heard about it. I kept seeing people responding that they had not heard anything about the story, and that is true because when you do searches for media on their media websites, they don't have the story. It's just not part of their coverage. They did not cover the story. Don't know who this is from. It's a seven oh four number. I love your show, Pete. I wanted to make a quick comment. It's sad. Oh no, now the text line just bounced. It's sad that initially our mayor came out with a statement four days after the killing and was victimizing the young lady and almost defending this animal. Also very disheartening to know that it took two weeks for this story to make national. News video or no video. People should have been talking about this on social media now for this monster that is behind bars. The police have arrested him multiple times, but I believe the last time he was arrested he was actually showing signs of mental disorder. He was. It seemed to me that he should have been in some type of institution getting the help he needs. This all could have stopped such a tragic event. Charlotte is a wonderful city, but it's become a clown show over the past few years. We know which right in which wrong, but we are not following our moral compass. Our city leaders need to wake up and start making changes to protect the innocent and help out the ones that needed. Thanks for reading. So I track this all back to the Summer of fiery but mostly peaceful rioting. That's when everybody went completely nuts, and that really is rooted in COVID and rooted in the government response to COVID. The lockdowns and you know, all the mandates and such, and then the riots and they were like, okay, now you can protest for social justice. That's okay. You can spread COVID during those events. You know, that's what broke the institutions. It broke media, it broke people's brains. And the Democrats went full bore onto this restorative justice stuff and started, you know, defund the police, demoralization of the police, release people from the prisons because of COVID, get them out of the jails because of COVID, all of it. That's where I trace this back to. 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 care givers 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 Petespac. 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. Let's see here to do. Thanks for your This is from the text line by the way driven by Liberty Buick GMCP. Thanks for your coverage of this tragic story. The mayor is invisible and ineffectual and needs to go. Unnamed person says, uh, where are the I stand with Ukraine people, except if you are murdered on the light rail in Charlotte. It's time for the mayor of Charlotte to resign over this mess on the light rail. Oh my goodness, just go to the peapod dot com. Yes, Bill, okay? Uh? If a c H this is I don't know. This is from they give me your names. People. You are correct. If a ce oh had been in the train, it would have possibly stopped the crime. I'm guessing that's a if a cop. Yeah, if a cop had been in the train, it would have possibly stopped the crime. Except watch example, watch how, oh my gosh, this text line how people follow speed limit when a cop is driving around them? Right, exactly, if you're driving down the road and there's a police cruiser nearby, everybody slows down. Okay, I'm not tech support. Someone needs to ask the mayor. Okay, spelling errors. I'm going to delete. I'm just going to run my past that because I don't understand what you're saying. Okay, let me do this. Remember the Charlotte Optimist, it's the website Charlotte Optimist dot com. Michael Graff reporter, He had the sit down interview with Johnny Jennings, the CMPD chief that he was the one that first broke the details of the quote separation agreement aka the settlement of the lawsuit that never was he got to sit down or a walk around. Actually, the jail with Gary not my fault. McFadden our sheriff, and I've read through the piece. It's very well done, very lengthy, but there was one part of it that relates to this topic of the murder of the Ukrainian refugee, and so I want to give you the give you a Gary said, here you go. I brought up this case with McFadden in the context of his mental health and rehabilitation efforts, right that he's always touting like we're doing all this stuff with the jail and for rehabilitation and all of that. I asked him, how we help people who will make the most of second chances while protecting the community from the truly dangerous? Right, And that is that's the question, right, that's the friction. If there are people that made a mistake, how do we help them along to give him a second chance, pay their debt to society, as long as it's not some violent offense or something. Right, they make a mistake and then they don't do anything ever again and they get scared straight, so to speak. So how do we do that? How do we help them but also protect the community from people who are truly dangerous? How do we solve for both things? That was the question. Here's what not my fault? McFadden says, the majority of his time is spent in his community. So we take that the time that de Carlos Brown spent with us versus the time that he is with the community who failed him. I didn't fail him. The community failed him, and Graft points out, I had not suggested that Fadden had failed anyone. But this is McFadden. This is always Sheriff McFadden. That's why I call him Gary, not my fault McFadden, because nothing is ever his fault. He says that on everything, And look, I don't think that McFadden is at fault in the light rail murder. I do not, at least from the information I have seen. The jail did what it was supposed to have done. Right. The problem was in the courts and the magistrates and the judges and such. The problem was at cats where they didn't put officers on the trains, or they haven't been checking fares, they haven't making sure people are paying to get on the trains. Right, That to me is the breakdown. So no one is accusing Gary McFadden of causing or having any culpability in the murder. But when asked about how do we solve for both of these challenges, his response is who failed him? I didn't fail him. The community failed him. He immediately takes it as an attack and then deflects the blame onto somebody else, onto the community failed him. The community failed him. Everybody else failed him. By the way, this is what former Charlotte City councilwoman, the late Susan Burgess said after a guy executed two CMPD officers Shelton and Clark murdered them, and her response at the first city council meeting was exactly this. How has the community failed that man? And boy did she get blowback, But I guess times have changed, 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 dpecleanershow dot com. Again, thank you so much for listening, and don't break anything while I'm gone.