Charlotte Mayor's third statement on light rail murder (09-09-2025--Hour1)

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So last week when we had you on, we did talk a little bit about the murder on the light rail line that had occurred on ap or sorry August twenty second. At that point, it was about a week and a half into the story. The video of the attack had not been released at that point, and it kind of seemed like it would remain a local crime story, to use the words of a Washington Post reporter in her defense of not covering the Kerrent Gosnell abortion doctor murderer. But it has now gone national, international, And my view, and I'd like to know if you gree or disagree on this, my view is that the release of the video made this a national, a viral story. What do you think, Yeah, I mean, I think you're absolutely right. I mean, the facts of the case didn't change any you know, the video didn't unveil anything we didn't already know. But what it did is, you know, just very starkly illustrate how completely horrific this crime was, how completely random. And it's it's hard to watch. I mean, even the edited versions that are out there are are just heartbreaking to watch. So it doesn't surprise me that that that's what pushed it over the edge to become a national story. Yeah, because when you read the just a written description of what occurs, there's a detachment right where you can just kind of read the words and think, oh my gosh, girls sitting there, guy jumps up and stabs her, and it's very sort of sanitized exactly right. But then when you see. The video and you you now have the imagery of it, like I could be right there on the train seeing this very thing happen, it changes the way the event is perceived. So which raises the question, could if there were some media outlets that the mayor of Charlotte vy Lyles. She thanked certain media operations for not showing the video and said that, you know, it would be hurtful to the victim's family. And I understand that argument. Where do you come down there from a media uh, you know, journalism ethics kind of perspective. Do you think if you're making that call in a in a newsroom, do you release the video edited or not edited? Or do you not release it? Yeah? I mean it's a good question, I think, to be honest, Mayor vy lyles response to this whole situation has been a masterclass in tone deaf leadership. You know, if you're if you're blaming the media or thanking the media for the coverage of something, you're generally going to be in the wrong. If you're thanking the media, you also said, and blaming the media, you're going to be in the okay, sorry, So it's just focusing on the media reaction that means that's a good indication you're in the. Wrong, exactly, and especially in something like this. You know, Lyle's her first reaction. The first response was to say, you know, the light rail is by and large safe. You know, most of you won't be murdered if you ride on the light rail, and called for sympathy for the attacker. Then her second statement was, as you said, chastising the media for talking about the video. It's really just yesterday when we finally got a substantive statement from Mayor vy Lyles, where it seems like she's starting to take it seriously. And you know, it's never pleasant, you know, to witness a media circus, but in this case, it was necessary to get Charlotte leadership to actually wake up and realize, oh, maybe this is actually a big deal. So why do you think it took that. Is it like just a general tone deafness, or is it the Charlotte way so to speak to just kind of I think you used the word last week sort of a blase approach to it, that like they just take this as a well, this is just a story, and it'll go away, and then it's you know, back to business as usual, pushing for you know, the transit tax, and everything is fine. Crime's not a problem, restorative justice whatever. I'm not one hundred percent sure. I mean, I don't think it is the Charlotte way to brush stuff like this under the rug. I mean, Charlotte historically has been pretty adamant about public safety. I mean, on both sides of the aisle, there was a pretty good consensus that crime is an issue and Charlotte should do something about it. I mean, I think about Julie Isiolt's campaigns not that long ago, all about public safety, and she was and is still a Democrat. I'm not sure what's the make of the fact that Charlotte leaders just didn't want to talk about this. I'm really at a loss for words. It might be their election, you know, the primary is today, and maybe they got sort of deer in the headlights, paralyzed by the referendum vote coming up in November for transit, and they got paralyzed by their own you know, end of the wire primary election, and so they were just caught and didn't know how to react without alienating a large chunk because look, I mean a lot of the stuff and I've got the remember Governor Cooper's Racial Justice task Force or whatever it was, Like, I've got their conclusions. I went and pulled them out again. It's all the same language that she used in that first terrible response, and that's you know, riddled throughout the governor's recommendations from that task force. So I suspect maybe there was some political preservation maybe or butt covering, so they don't want to alienate a pretty large I think cohort inside the Democrat Party primary voters that do speak in these terms and want these types of you know, equitable restorative justice, and so they just recoil at this kind of a story. I think that's part of it. I think another part of it is, sadly, public safety has become a left versus right issue. Yeah, and so when you have President Donald Trump talking a lot about it, you know, sending the National Guard into Washington, d C. The left just reflexively has wanted to minimize the problems of crime and urban areas. I think that had a lot to do with it. I mean, and you see it. And you know, Axios in their piece about this whole situation, their headline was, you know, MAGA influencers sees on Charlotte lightrail killing, which is just unreal. I mean, that is one of the most horrendous headlines I think I've ever read. Yeah, Mark I Peedo wrote that piece and it's I've got it here in the stack. I mentioned part of it yesterday. I'm gonna go a little bit deeper today because it's just repugnant. You know, like you said, it's not a left right issue, it has apparently become so. And I think a lot of it is sort of Trump derangement syndrome. If Trump is for something, then we have to be against it, and you don't have to be against it. You can actually, you know, you can say, okay, well, you know the Orange Hitler is correct on this, like you could say that. And now the problem is, I think that you've got Viylyiles who's out with a third statement, third times, a charm, a third statement, and she seems to be now directing the blame towards the courts and the magistrates, which okay, yes, there's blame over there, But had she said that initially, she actually would have sounded a little bit more like her now soon to be former police chief Johnny Jennings, who has been saying this stuff for a while too. But she totally failed in the moment. And now I think the third statement is out and it's not going to land the same way. What do you think, No, certainly not. I mean, if this was a statement she had put out two weeks ago, I would fully support it and say that she's taking the right approach to the response. But the fact that it took days upon days of national outcry, the President of the United States talking about this, the leader of the FBI talking about this to actually take it seriously, it just leads me to believe that it's disingenuous, that she doesn't really mean it. She's just saying it because she feels like she has to. Let's shift up to Raleigh now. The Speaker of the House, Destin Hall. According to The Observer, one of the Republican leaders of the General Assembly, Phil Berger, is also weighing in on this, saying that they're going to be looking at ways to clean up the courts, looking at potential legislative action to address the public safety failures in Charlotte. So like, are you hearing anything about what specifically they may be looking at doing or what could they do? I haven't, and I'm sure that there are levers that the General Assembly can pull, and I'm glad that they're going to. You know, that was one of my big points in my initial column that we talked about last week was, you know, I compared it to the death of Eve Carson in two thousand and eight at UNC Chapel Hill, and it did spur a legislative response and some changes were made around probation and parole. So I'm glad that the General Assembly is going to take this seriously. And I do think in some multiple branches of government issue and I really wish that Attorney General Jeff Jackson would be out in front on this. I mean, he is the chief law enforcement officer in North Carolina. He did put out a statement saying he's sad about it, but I haven't really seen any leadership from him and kind of marshaling the resources to figure out what we can actually do and put it in place. No, And in fact, I think the first statement I saw from him. I think may have been yesterday or Sunday, and it was only after the video was released. Again, it seemed like that would be something that the Attorney General should have been right on top of right out of the gate, particularly one who is from Charlotte, Like, why would he not have Yeah, why would he have waited, you know, two weeks before weighing in? Yeah, no idea. I think it has to do with everything we've been talking about. Yeah, but at least, you know, I guess I have to try to look on the bright side a little bit. And I guess now we may actually see some changes which are desperately needed. Yeah, all right, Andrew Dunne, We appreciate your time. As always, you can read Andrew's work at long Leaf Politics, longleafpol dot com and in The Charlotte Observer, where he is a contributing columnist. Andrew, thanks for your time, buddy, appreciate it. Talk to you next week. Thank you, all right, take care. So when I was. 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Maybe a charm here, but I think it just lands flat because of the two prior attempts that she made, one which took her four days to issue, where she mentioned thoughts and prayers, which apparently is adequate in this scenario, but is inadequate in every other type of a scenario according to the media and the Democrats. But I repeat myself. Then she issued another statement after the release of the video made where she said the video is heartbreaking and she thanks all of our media partners and community. First off, we're not your partners, okay, media is not your partner. Media is your watch dog. To quote the documentary almost famous, We're the enemy. Okay. I want to thank media partners and community members who have chosen not to repost or share the footage out of respect for the victims family senseless and tragic loss. Prayers remain with her loved ones, continued, who were grieving. She's heartbroken. I've been thinking hard about what safety looks like in our city. Well think harder, Mayor. I remain committed to doing all we can that's not true, to protect our residents and ensure Charlotte is a place where everyone feels safe. Okay. So that was the second statement, which again not great, And now we have the third. As I reflect on the tragic murder of the arena's Zoska, my heart continues to go out to her family and our community as we try to make sense of this horrific and senseless loss. Well, you can't make sense of the loss if it's senseless, Mayor, she says. Over the past several weeks, as our community has worked to understand this, what we know is that this was a tragic failure by the courts and magistrates. So there we go. We are directing our fire on the courts and the magistrates. Magistrates, by the way, require no real legal experience. They are hired by, believe, the Clerk of Court, and there are all sorts of people that act as magistrates that really don't have any business making any kinds of decisions like this our police. So maybe the General Assembly could institute some standards for the magistrates. Our police officers arrest people only to have them quickly released, which undermines our ability to protect our community and ensure safety. We need a bipartisan solution to address repeat offenders who do not face consequences for their actions my gosh, she sounds like a Republican, and those who cannot get treatment for their mental illnesses and are allowed to be on the streets. We have partnered before on legislation like North Carolina's Pre Trial Integrity Act, and we stand ready to partner again at the local, state, and federal level. I want to assure the community we are taking action and will continue to take action. Last week, Katz Leadership presented to Charlotte City Council and the Metropolitan Transit Commission about the ongoing work to address safety and security on our public transit system over the past two years, we have doubled the number of CATS security personnel, triple the safety and security budget from five point eight million to nearly eighteen million, and are shifting from a corporate security model towards a stronger transit policing model. I must confess I do not know the difference between those two models, but that does seem like an admission of failure, right that the model you were using, a corporate security model, now going to a transit policing model, which she describes as stronger, which then begs the question why weren't you Why weren't you using a stronger model in. The first place? She says, effective immediately, security personnel on CATS will be redeployed for a stronger presence on Blue Line platforms and to increase fair enforcement because this guy who murdered the Ukrainian refugee had not paid the fare, as most people really don't even need to pay the fare, because you just walk up jump on a train, and the chances that you're going to get caught on the train pretty low, and even if you are caught, you just jump off right or you buy the ticket as you see somebody approaching checking fares and then you do your digital app on your phone boop, and you make the just right then and there so very and there are no turnstiles on the platforms, so it's an open quote honor system program and it obviously does not work very well. 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. 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This is another death by Democrat issue that happened, and Charlotte's received worldwide attention, and all of her proposed fixes don't address the problem. This is a This is a function of their policies of letting people out four time fellings, fourteen time felons, letting them out cashless bail, defunding the police, Gary McFadden's policies, our police chief's policies. All of us are at increased risk because of these Democrats. It is not a putting thirty police officers on a on a railway. That's not going to stop this. It needs to be stopped at the source. I'm just I'm outraged. I mean, you know both city is turning into Baltimore. Well, okay, so a couple of things I think you do. You do actually. Help reduce crime by putting more cops on trains and on streets, more police presidence acts as a deterrent. So I believe. I believe that, But then what happens after the police and I think the mayor is correct here that the police officers arrest people only to have them quickly released now to your point, these are the quote soft on crime policies that undergird the leftist project which the Democrat Party has now been captured by. And so I don't know if they can offer the kinds of policy changes to keep people who are you know, mentally unstable, to keep them off the streets. And that's what this case really boils down to. In particular, You've got this judge, Roy Wiggins, who is the he is the chief District Court judge. He was the judge that a couple months ago said this guy, this attacker, needed to have a PsychEval and ordered, but then released him. So like, if you recognize that the man is mentally unwell, why do you release him before the psych eval? Right? But they did, and then a couple of weeks later he murders this woman. Now the case goes back before Roy Wiggins, who now says, no bond and a psych eval and oh, by the way, he may not be competent to stand trial, so he will claim insanity as a reason why he should not be convicted. Right, So like he's gonna get he's going to. Get all the benefit of being crazy when it comes time to adjudicate him. For his crimes. But he's never held for you know, for the evil or for an involuntary commitment. When you recognize these symptoms that he is not well, that he is insane. But no, when you see that in the first appearances, you just let him back out onto the street, so we get to be preyed upon by him. But now that he's actually killed somebody, now it's like, okay, a lot of media attention. Now we're going to hold him. And oh, by the way, he may actually avoid you know, a life in prison term because he's insane. Yeah. No, in this instance, yes you have that, but you have many sane people who are also committing crimes because they're sertalized. There is no deterrent for them to do otherwise. Right, And if you cannot afford to put security in the transit system, why don't you raise money through bail? Raise money through the funds you collect from these criminals that you keep letting out with zero bail. So a couple things. Number one, I think the state legislature needs to needs to not be taking as much money out of the local court systems as they do. I think they need to allow that local money to stay local to hire and have it dedicated for you know, district attorney's budgets, police officer budgets, public safety budgets in general. I think that's that's part of it. Because the judicial system actually generates more revenue than it costs. So that has historically been the case, and so I think that the legislature needs to stop drawing money. Out of the of the local judicial systems. Number one. But the other thing you mentioned there is the casualist bail, and the casualist bail that's become a pillar of the social justice left. So I don't know if Democrats would be willing to go along with something like that. Yeah, you know, it's just another death by Democrat and nothing will change until we have a massive shift in our political makeup in North Carolina. Well, you know, today is the primary for these municipal races. So if people would like to register their disgruntlement at the current state of affairs, you can vote against all of the incumbents that are up for election, including the mayor herself by Lyles. Yeah, I did, and I hope others do as well. Yeah, there you go, Steve. I appreciate the call man. Thank you. And I do believe that the election, the primary election season that we are in and have been in for the last few weeks, along with the transit tax increase referendum coming down to us for a vote in November, I think that's what paralyzed a lot of these Democrats from in leadership from responding. I think they hope that it would just kind of go away and they would be able to get through this primary season and then maybe, you know, give it a couple of weeks, nobody will be talking about the story anymore and it won't jeopardize the referendum campaign. On the text line, Frank says, I think vy Lyle's initial response to this murder as really the ultimate attention getter. I don't know if you're saying that that's what brought the national attention, that would not be my opinion. One who has followed this from the very beginning. The national attention began this weekend. The first stories that began being reported about this from a national perspective, they came after the release of the video. And then going back, when these stories get written, you go back to see if you're the reporter, you go back to see, Okay, what has been the local response, and that's when you put into the story the response from the mayor, which was suboptimal, shall we say. So, you see the. Video on the social media and then you see the response and it's like, what the hell is going on in Charlotte? All Right? So you've heard me talk about Creative Video for almost a year. But did you know they also offer a game changing app for businesses that reward their teams with incentive trips. Well they do. It's called Incentive Trip Kit. If you own a business or work at one that offers these incentive trips, this is a must have. Maxes the impact and value of these motivational trips. 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Uh, here's our one of our favorite trolls on the text line Yes, we can label you as such on our text line how naive do you want to remain? Video was on social media two weeks ago. Wrong Troll Wrong. The video from the cats bus was released after a freedom of information request from several news organizations. That request was finally fulfilled on Friday, and that's why the video got posted over the weekend, which then generated all of the media attention at the national and even international level. And you don't have to believe me. You can go look up there are media aggregation sites and you can go find the tracking of stories and you can see I am not lying to you. The explosion of coverage began this weekend. I know this for a fact. So despite your attempt to pretend to be a Republican, you're saying you want me to focus on the master of election fraud weighing in on local issues. So the orange hitler obviously quit taking the bait and realize some of us Republicans have seen through his manipulation in life, I really believe. Just go back to reading the Huffington Post, as all true Republicans do. Brenda, Welcome to the program. Hello Brenda, good morning, and I love your show afternoon. I appreciate you, love. It and you speak the truth always one percent. It was put out Friday, she died on the twenty second. It went viral on TikTok. With the videkein right with the video, that's why with the. Video exactly, and until President Trump spoke out, vy Lyles did not change her story. She was for the criminals and sympathy. Never mentioned the young beautiful girl's name who was sitting on the tram minding her own business. Again and no one offered to help this girl. No that well, no, no, that's okay, that's that's that's that's not true though. When yeah, yeah, when she was when she was stabbed, there were people. One guy took his shirt off, tried to uh, you know, stop the bleeding with it somebody, uh performed CPR. There were a lot of people on the train. They didn't even know what had happened because it wasn't like a gunshot went off, you know, it's such a it was such a quiet attack on a loud train. Yeah, he just stood up, he walked away. He walked away, and everybody's still looking at their phones, and he's dripping blood everywhere, talking to hisself. Nobody ran off that train. They all walked up. I mean, if you look at the video, yeah, I have the sports self. Right, But that's what I mean. The people of the people who were there who were not on their phones, they were they were talking to their friends that were on the train. People didn't realize because where he walked to get off the train was a good you know, sixty seventy feet away, I want to say, from where he had attacked her, So they weren't aware of what had happened down farther on the train. And so when he walked past them and he's dripping the blood and he's talking to himself, and they're just ignoring him, because that's what you have to do on a train. You ignore the guys that are talking to themselves and obviously crazy because you don't want any trouble. And then people started noticing the blood crazy. He is not crazy. He is an evil person. He could be bud. He should have not been turned loose. Our judges and the court systems let this young girl down. Yes, yeah, they absolutely he is. Anyone that turned him loose knowing he was a criminal. I mean they do it every day. I even tried to vote this morning. I'm in the wrong district. I got into an argument with the lady. Everybody's a Democrat where I went to vote in Mallard Creek. That's a Demo. I wanted to vote. I want vote for Tear the car's wife. You're not in her distort. Of course, I'm not in district right, so you can't vote for it. And that's not fair. We should know it is fair. That's the district system, Brenda. You can't vote in somebody else's district. You have to vote where you live. So there's only one Republican primary for the district six. That's it. Now, that's why I register on affiliated. I can vote in either party's primary. That's why I do that. And unfortunately I'm outside city limits, so I can't vote against the mayor in this race. I can't vote against the incumbents, but that's what I would do. 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 thepetekallanershow dot com. Again, thank you so much for listening, and don't break anything while I'm gone.