Charlotte presents its new police chief (11-03-2025--Hour1)

What's going on. Thank you so much for listening to this podcast. It is heard live every day from noon to three on WBT Radio in Charlotte. And if you want exclusive content like invitations to events, the weekly live stream, my daily show prep with all the links, become a patron, go to 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 they made the big announcement Friday. I was right at the end of my program where the City of Charlotte announced that after a month's long search, a national search, they have arrived at their preferred candidate for the chief of the Charlotte Mecklenburg Police Department, and it is Estella Patterson. I will refrain from making any Stella references during her tenure. That's my commitment. Okay, it's such low hanging fruit that I will forego it. Okay. I wish her the best of luck. I want her to be successful in her stated aims that she just laid out in a press conference where they actually allowed the press to ask questions. That's kind of crazy for the city of Charlotte. Usually they like to just make their statements and then peel everybody off. So this way all the reporters can't like all gang up on one person. They can't feed off each other for questions and follow ups and stuff. They have you go and you know, pull one or two candidates or council members or city officials aside for a quick one on one maybe ask one or two questions, and then and then they shuffle everybody out. They actually allowed I think it. Was a about five questions, so it's look, hey, it's progress here people. They did call a lid. They only had the room for half an hour. I mean, they're not using the room for anything else, but they only had the room for half an hour, and so they had to you know, first we had to hear from the city manager, Marcus Jones, where he said, we need to address security in this city, the perception and the reality. By the way, this is the preferred narrative that the City of Charlotte is going with that the crime is down by the stats if you believe the stats. And I don't say that because I'm accusing anybody of juicing the stats or juking the stats. Whatever, the term is. I'm not accusing people of lying about the stats. I have no evidence to support that. However, there are factors when it comes to the collection of crime data. There are factors that influence the collection of said data. For example, if if I am victimized and then I call police and it takes, you know, an hour and a half for an officer to show up, and then nothing ever comes of it. They make no arrests, and that's it. Well, the next. Time I am victimized, like somebody you know, broke into my truck and they stole my tools, I file a police report, nothing happens. Somebody then breaks into my truck. A year later, I call the police, I file a report, nothing ever happens. At some point, I'm gonna stop calling police. And this occurs on all sorts of fronts. Right, people walking around uptown are not calling police, you know, reporting every negative interaction that they're having with vagrants and satch. It's just not happening, right, So that is a factor. There are other cities where we know that there have been efforts by command staff, and again I have no evidence of this in Charlotte, but this has occurred in other jurisdictions where they have been classifying crimes to a lower level. So they'll say, you know something that would have classified or should classify as a violent crime, and they'll classify it as a lower nonviolent offense or some other charge, and this way it takes it off of the violent crime data. Point Again, I'm not saying that's happening in Charlotte. I want to be clear about that. People hear things that I don't say, and so I am not saying that there's any evidence that that's been occurring at Charlotte. I've not heard any reports of anything like that. So they keep the City of Charlotte keeps talking though about the crime being down. I think the number was eight percent. Overall crime is down like eight percent, violent crime down like twenty percent. I did hear Brett Jensen from WBT. He was at the press conference, and I think he got the last question in and he pointed out that in Uptown the homicide rate is up twenty percent. And she said the new police chief of Stella Patterson, she said, well, yeah, there are you know, pockets and you know areas and zones where crime is spiking, and so you have to you know, address those zones, which is what you know I would expect her to say. Marcus Jones said that, Oh, but the whole point to that is that you heard this line about perception of crime perception of safety. And I have said from the beginning when people in city government and police departments, when when they use this phrase, it is a form of gas lighting. They're telling us that our person perception is erroneous. They're not telling us that we're wrong, because how could they tell us that we're wrong. It's sort of like the people who say, well, you know it's colder outside than you think, Well, how would you know how cold I think it is? Or hey, you're lining up that putt, it looks longer or it's longer than you think it is. How do you know how long I think that putt is? Right? It's the same thing with this line about the perception. It's a way of saying your perception of crime is incorrect, that you think crime is here and it's actually way down here, and so you're wrong. And it's the only way, it's the only way they can address these concerns without, you know, accepting responsibility that they have for the impact of in Mechlimer County Democrat policies predominantly Demoic policies. Now there are policies at the state level. I went over last week to raise the age law and the ruin that has been left in its wake, not just in North Carolina but all around the country. And you've now sentenced these I mean not in courts, because we don't do that to juveniles, but like you basically set these youths on a lifelong path of criminality by not cracking down on them early, not getting them off of that career path, You've now increased the likelihood that they will stay on that career path. So that's the Republican legislature did that to raise the age law. I mean, it was bipartisan, everybody voted for it, and it was part of the quote reforms that swept the country over the last six years. So there's that. Marcus Jones, the city manager, also highlighted Chief Patterson's ability to communicate that was clear when and I've got her statement, I'll play it for you here. They just did a press conference. It started at eleven thirty and it just wrapped up before I got on the air. So I just pulled a couple of Oh, I pulled her opening statement. I will not subject you to the mayor's ugh, just read the script, VIY, just stay on the script anyway, she said. The chief said, she's very happy to be home because she worked for Charlotte Meckleburg Police for twenty five years. She worked her way up through the ranks. She then went to Raleigh and was their police chief at a time when homicides increased. She was there for three and a half years, and now she's back during the break here. I will check, but I don't believe anybody asked anybody at that podium about her husband. Her husband is a longtime fire department official, fire official, and he sued the city and they just settled it. Yeah, because that's what Charlotte needs right now. Is another one of these settlements. Now, this one was in the court system, so it wasn't a city council thing in closed session, so we got that going for us. But I have those details as well, but I'm not sure that came up in the press conference. Like I said, I'll go back and double check here, but I listened to all but about two minutes of it, and I don't think. That was raised. Here's a great idea. How about making an escape to a really special and secluded getaway in western North Carolina. Just a quick drive up the mountain and Cabins of Asheville is your connection. Whether you're celebrating an anniversary, a honeymoon, maybe you want to plan a memorable proposal, or get family and friends together for a big old reunion. 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We have a new police chief hired where the announcement was made on Friday Estella Patterson named the new chief of the Charlotte Mecklenburg Police Department. And there was a question during the press conference about what does it mean to be the first woman? So she's the first woman police chief, so it's historic. Okay, great, now we've got that out of the way. Now we can actually just like talk about, you know, the job here. Her bio is impressive. She holds a bachelor's in political science from University of North Carolina Charlotte UNC Charlotte Masters and criminal justice from the University of Oklahoma. She was in the Charlotte Mecklinburgh Police Department starting in nineteen ninety six. She was a patrol officer, an instructor, internal affairs commander, Deputy Chief of Patrol Services. She and her husband, Lance Patterson adopted their two nephews whose fathers were incarcerated and raised the two boys through high school. One joined the US Army, the other the Air Force. Estella Patterson again recruited in nineteen ninety six. She was the class president of her recruit class. She served numerous roles in her twenty five years. She spent time at the academy as an instructor and in recruitment. She spent time, as I mentioned, in internal affairs, and as the Deputy Chief over Administrative Services and then Deputy Chief over Patrol Services. She was a member of the US Army Reserve from nineteen ninety six through two thousand and five, served combat tours in Kosovo and Iraq twice, receiving the Army Commendation Medal for meritorious service and reaching the rank of captain. She's also a graduate of the FBI National Academy, and then, of course, she went to Raleigh. She was the chief of the Raleigh Police Department from August twenty twenty one through March of twenty twenty five. It's about three and a half years. During her time in Raleigh, she oversaw significant changes with the RPD, including instituting a recruitment and hiring plan that made substantial progress in reducing the department's vacancy rate from one hundred and fifty down to forty in three years, as well as the creation of the Raleigh Police Foundation, which raised four million dollars in two years to fund special projects to bolster employee morale. Additionally, she led her team in reducing violent crime, achieving a one hundred percent clearance rate of homicides in twenty twenty four. That's according to the Charlotte Government website press release as well as the Charlotte Observer. This is from the Observer story by Evan Moore Or. She pushed for a fifteen percent pay increase to help fill the vacancies. She also helped secure federal grants to build an intelligence management system and oversaw expansion of a real time crime center with hundreds of cameras to identify trouble spots more quickly. Now like I said, she joined RPD as the chief in twenty twenty one. August of twenty twenty one, the city saw its highest number of homicides in nearly three decades. In twenty twenty two. She then flagged Newbern Avenue in Raleigh for high incident rates of gun violence and championed a community violence intervention initiative as a long term solution, and under her tenure, RPD was chosen a partner with the US Department of Justice for a three year effort to reduce crime in the city. And so, looking at the crime stats for Raleigh from citydata dot Com, I went and pulled the Raleigh data. I would have compared it, but for some reason, Charlotte doesn't report their numbers. I guess, so they don't get they don't get the crime report for citydata dot Com all of the other cities in North Carolina, and it appears are there but not Charlotte. So before she got there, there were generally speaking, well, if you go back to twenty eleven, and I'm going to run just through these numbers for the years that they have the data, because there's like two years, there's twenty fifteen, twenty sixteen, twenty seventeen that they don't have data these three years actually, and then in twenty eighteen they reported zero homicides, which I find that hard to believe. So I think there was something going on with the data set. But Raleigh was typically seeing about seventeen murders back in twenty eleven, seventeen seventeen, then twelve, then eight, and then it went up to twenty in twenty nineteen. In twenty twenty two it went up to twenty two or sorry, that was twenty twenty went up to twenty two. The next year when she arrived, there were twenty six twenty twenty two, then there were forty four, and then it started coming back down twenty three. In twenty twenty three there was twenty eight homicides, and in twenty twenty four there were twenty five homicides. Charlotte has way more than this, Okay, But if you're going to say that, you know the homicide rate went up under her tenure. It did in the first year, but then it declined. And honestly, one hundred percent clearance rate, I would love to see that in Charlotte not asked at the press conference anything about the court system. She's the police chiefs, so she's not in charge of the court system. But I have to imagine the same problems with repeat, repeat, repeat offenders that Charlotte is suffering from, and a court system I call it a catch and release court system. I have to believe that they saw something similar in Wake County as well also Durham, So. That was not asked. Maybe they would have gotten around to it had they had more time to ask her more questions. You know, stories are powerful. They help us make sense of things, to understand experiences. 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They are your life told through the eyes of everyone around you and all who came before you, and they will tell others to come. Who you are visit Creative video dot Com. All right, let me jump over here and talk to Michael. Hello, Michael, Yes, how you doing? Okay, what's up? Yes, I was just wondering. I know that the Raleigh is a smaller community just population wise, and obviously the demographics there are a lot more of a research kind of base. I know that even uptown Rawley area that they're turning a lot of their vacant commercial space office space into research for Duke get it for Duke University and Chapel Hill and also I mean as a as obviously as an addict research for Chapel Hill, USC, Charlotte and also in the state. I also know that they also share some commonality between the three universities and so forth, and that there's a lot of a lot of growth on the outskirts of some of the other counties. How is how is the police chief? How is was she coordinating with some of the other towns in it around? You know, you brought up Durham, there's you know, obviously Chapel Hills another they had their own cop and then there's either was there for the West. There's a lot of people that commute into Raleigh that aren't actually in in Raleigh, but obviously the crying still commutes into obviously. Okay, yeah, I like, yeah, Raleigh is a smaller jurisdiction than Charlotte, as Charlotte consolidated with Mecklenburg for the police services what forty years ago, and so it's a much larger jurisdiction CMPD covers versus Raleigh police. Yes, yes, so, I mean I know that Durham has their own I mean, wake Forest has their own even within some of the other even some of the brother towns within the same county. I know that here in this particular county, since CMCD does go county wide, that there is some pushback with some of the other towns in the county with regarding to how their services are being met. Another ways, So I was just wondering, how is she gonn amend some of these, uh, some of these conflicts with other services, and obviously police goes along with with these other services as supposedly. What do you mean what what conflicts? What conflicts are you talking about? Well, specifically, you know, like Matthews is definitely dead said against the one percent sales taxs because they're saying that we're not going to get anything until twenty twenty one hundred or something like that, for another one hundred years, so obviously, and then the there's also a conflict there with Matthew specifically that the cop city. I don't know, there's been a lot of pushback with that. I don't know whatever it has been resolved, whether it's a developer for city city has decided to try to put that on the backburner until the next twenty twenty seven budget to see if things become resolved, or whether they found another another plot of land somewhere else within the county. Well, as far as I know, they're moving As far as I know, they're moving forward with that training facility. And I don't know what the what the chief. I don't think the CMPD chief of police would have anything to do with the transit stuff. That's why I asked about you said there was some sort of conflict. How was how would she go about mending relationships with these other with with the six small towns or whatever. And that's why I asked what conflicts because I'm unaware, Like I know, people complain in the unincorporated areas where you know, they don't see CMPD presence a whole lot, maybe, and they complain about that, but that's a contracted service basically. And then you know, the small towns around Charlotte, they've got their own police forces. So was there some specific thing about police that there's a conflict over. No, I was just saying, how was she going to continue those relationships and mend any any harm that might have been happened from the previous administration. Yeah, I don't know. Yeah, I don't know what what harms may have may have been, but I appreciate the call. Michael. I don't know what harms you're referring to. And I mean, I'm you know, that's one of the benefits of bringing somebody new in is that you get to build your own relationships. Now she has been on the force, and she was on the force for twenty five years. Charlotte FOP is very supportive. The Fraternal Order of Police very supportive of her hiring. This is from the Charlotte Observer. The FOP released a statement, actually this is from their Facebook page. Congratulations to Chief Estella Patterson on being chosen as the next Charlotte Mecklamberg Police Department police chief. She served CMPD for twenty five years before leaving to serve the Raleigh Police Department until her retirement in March. Her name was repeatedly mentioned in an FOP survey as someone our members wanted as cmpd's next police chief. We are extremely grateful for her willingness to serve. We wholeheartedly support Charlotte City Manager Marcus Jones's decision and are looking forward to working with Chief Patterson on matters important to our members. Now they don't say this, but I do wonder if like she was like This was a question that was asked during the press conference by the Charlotte Observer. Do you remember the Keith. Lamont Scott protests, right, the guy who was shot by police because he had a gun wouldn't drop it and then raised it up to point it at cops and they opened fire and they killed him. And this was supposed to be some sort of racial injustice proof. But the officer that shot him was black. He was black, and so it didn't really fit that that narrative that would fully form with George Floyd. But she was apparently in internal affairs, and she was, I guess in charge of the panel that cleared the officer that called it a good shoot, right, Like that's and so I wonder if like that decision and that kind of a record endears her to the officers, and many of them probably know her from her time on the force. Right, 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 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. I'll just say it. This is the honeymoon period for the new police chief, Estella Patterson. Everybody was very happy today. It's you know, there's a grace period. There's a honeymoon period. But I have questions. I have some questions. I will outline some of my questions in the next hour. I have audio to play. I have a couple of phone calls to get to and the questions are not necessarily well, not all of them are directed at her. I have questions about the City of Charlotte. Far be it from me to suggest that the city might enter into some sort of a settlement with a city employee for a large chunk of money. You know, But. There's there is a related story here. Let me first play the SoundBite. This is from the Charlotte Observer reporter question that I mentioned before the break there about Keith Lemont Scott, who was shot by cmpd oh gosh eight years ago. I think it was long before George Floyd and the riots and all that. But that's what started the local I mean, that's what propelled Braxton Winston into his run for Charlotte City Council, which he won. Right. So here's the question from the Observer. Jeff Chamber Charlotte's Every thank you. I wanted to ask you about your time previously with CMPD when you were ahead of internal affairs. Do you stand by your decision to clear the officer shot Keith fla Monscot Okay? I would add the answer to that question is yes, I do stand by that decision. We made that decision at the time. It was the right decision. I stand by that decision And. How do you feel about that decision now? I don't feel any way about it. It was the right decision to make. Thank you like That's how I would have answered this question. Here's how Chief Patterson answered me. I was seven, eight years maybe even ten years ago. My position is very clear when it comes to excessive force, when it comes to treating the community with disrespect, we will never ever have that. I would never uphold that as the major in Internal Affairs and then going to be the chief and Raleigh, my position has always been that we will make sure that we treat every member of our community with the utmost respect and with dignity. That is a position that I will take and continue to take moving forward. All right. So remember the question was do you stand by that decision? And the answer to that I would assume and should have been yes. I absolutely stand by that decision. It was the correct decision. All right. Let me go over here and talk to James. Hello, Jeans, Hey, that last caller you had was talking about issues with CMPD and the surrounding police agencies. Yeah, I wasn't clear what he was what Michael was getting at, if there was some sort of I don't know, hard feelings or conflicts or something with other jurisdictions. I wasn't quite clear on that. Well, to my knowledge and agreeably, I am retired now, but there wasn't any conflict or bad feelings that I was aware of back when I was working. And as far as the north end of the county goes, we don't ever see a Charlotte Mecklenburg police officer up here now because if you call, and this has been pretty much the same for at least fifteen years, if you live in an unincorporated area, you call nine to one one. If it's in Davidson's area of responsibility, the Davison police show up. Yeah, Hunters area, the Hunters of Will police show up. Same thing for Canelias. So CMPD didn't come up here anymore. Yeah, yeah, and and there are that's sort of the standard contract uh kind of service that CMPD does for the unincorporated areas, and Mecklenburg County commissioners are free to contract with any of the town police in order to provide coverage. And that makes more sense, uh, for for those towns to police, uh, the unincorporated areas around them, because they're already up there, and they've already got their police stations up there, right they got there, you know, it's easier for them to mobilize because they're closer. So it just makes sense, yeah, that the the response times are much much better. And uh, as I said, I Absolulie, I was trying to figure out what what your caller was talking about, because to my knowledge, there was any hard feelings between CMBD and the at least not the townships in the northern End. No, and I'm not aware of any hard hard feelings with any of the other law enforcement agencies in Mecklenburg County, so that's why I was asking them for, like to clarify. I do know that there were in the past, there were you could call them conflicts or disagreements about the cost of the contracted services, but that was at the county commissioner level. That was never between the agencies. So James, I appreciate the call, sir, thanks so much, right, yes, sir, take care. 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 dpetecleanershow dot com. Again, thank you so much for listening, and don't break anything while I'm gone.