Charlotte transit officials release some details of latest train stabbing (12-11-2025--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 vpeteclendershow 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 okay, we've got a new report from Queen City News based off of a release of details by the Charlotte Area Transit System. The CEO, Brent Cagele, or interim CEO, released new details yesterday about the man accused in the latest stabbing on the Blue Line, and also he addressed concerns about cats safety and security. According to Queen CityNews qcnews dot com piece by Sierra Langford and Andy Weber Katz confirmed that Oscar Solarzano should have been barred from the system indefinitely, but a clerical mistake prevented that from happening. Kat said that he had received a one year exclusion on October eighth for a weapon violation and a six month exclusion the very next day for public intoxication. Right, so we have two interactions, one on October eighth, one on October ninth, two interactions with Cat's security NCMPD. The first for having a knife on the train or on the platform, and that got him a one year excresclusion banned for one year the very next day, though he's publicly drunk on a platform or on the train, and because of a clerical mistake or something, I guess, they did not know on October ninth that they had just had an interaction with him the prior day for having a weapon. Katz says that a data entry error during training meant that officers on October ninth did not have visibility into the prior day's exclusion. Without that information, Katz said, the indefinite band should have been applied, but it never happened because they didn't know about the prior day's interaction. Katz also emphasized transit bans are legal restrictions, not physical barrier, and that's part of the issue is that they can ban you from the train, whether it's a year or six months or permanently, but that's not going to stop you from getting on a train, especially for somebody like this guy, Oscar Solarzano, who was caught twice coming into the country illegally. Well, I guess now three times he was deported twice. He obviously does not care when people tell him you're not allowed to be someplace, he doesn't care. He goes and exists in that place. Katz explained that there is no practical way to identify and excluded a band individual as they get on board, because the system does not have controlled entrances, right, So how do you police this? I don't know. I don't think CATS knows either, Like this is going to be a very big challenge for them to try to figure this out, to try to figure out a way to actually enforce a band. There was a story I heard in one of the newscasts here at WBT quoting I guess she was an employee or maybe a former employee of CATS who talked about. How the band people are. Like how or how drivers are told like, hey, watch out for this person, and it's like in the break room they have a they got like a bulletin board and they post people's faces up there, like hey, don't let this guy on the train. That's not going to work. Folks like that's that's not an effective system. It really is shocking that the Blue Line was able to operate for as long as it has been without more of these types of incidents. When you see like the system that they have been using, it is kind of amazing. We've only seen two of these types of attacks. Officials added they do not yet know whether Solarzano had a valid ticket, but it's presumed that he did not. Oh no, yes, really shocking. Katz also confirmed that security was not inside the light rail in the car when the stabbing occurred, which, honestly, that's the best option. I'm not saying that's I'm not saying like you shouldn't staff security. What I'm saying is that, in light of what transpired, it would be far worse if there was a security guard on the train, because that would have meant that the security guard did not intervene and did not try to deeac escalate or did not try to, you know, stop this guy from accosting people on the train, which then precipitated the the altercation with Kenyandbe who got a knife in the chest for his efforts. And speaking of Kenyan Dobe. He is the victim in this light rail stabbing and he was arrested yesterday. He got out of the hospital and police took him into custody. Now I will say I found because I'm this kind of person. I went, I went and ran his name through the Mecklemburg County Jail. I did this. I guess it would let's say Thursday, so it would have been Tuesday evening and it popped up. He's got a record, which is why I have n't been promoting his go fund me. He was arrested. According to the jail's website. He was committed to the jail February twenty fifth this year, released the next day, and the charges misdemeanor crime of domestic violence and assault on a female. For the domestic violence charge, he was released on a five thousand dollars unsecured bond, and for the assault on a female he was released with no bond because I guess it was consolidated with the other charge. So that's what I found on Tuesday night. That's why. And I wrestled with this because because I don't know any of the details when I found this record, I don't know any details of what happened, if there's some sort of domestic issue going on, as it possible his girlfriend or his wife or somebody you know, filed some fake charges against him because they had a fight or whatever. You just you don't know. I don't know, And so because I don't know, like I. Don't want to, you know, I don't want to slander the guy or anything. But on the other hand, if it turns out that he did do something bad, I don't want people. I don't want to direct. People to go to a GoFundMe and give this guy money, which a lot of people have now done. He has raised like one hundred thousand dollars because of the stabbing, and he can spend that money on yes, medical bills, but he can also spend them on his legal bills. Now, So this was the ethical dilemma I was kind of wrestling with. And then this morning I saw that the story now has some more details, and I feel a lot better about not telling people to go donate to his GoFundMe. All right, if you're listening to this show, you know I try to keep up with all sorts of current events, and I know you do too, And you've probably heard me say get your news from multiple sources. Why, well, because it's how you detect media bias, which is why I've been so impressed with ground News. It's an app, and it's a website and it combines news from around the world in one place so you can compare coverage and verify information. You can check it out at check dot ground, dot news slash pete. I put the link in the podcast description too. I started using ground News a few months ago and more recently chose to work with them as an affiliate because it lets me see clearly how stories get covered and by whom. The blind spot feature shows you which stories get ignored by the left and the right. See for yourself. Check dot ground, dot news slash pete. Subscribe through that link and you'll get fifteen percent off any subscription. I use the Vantage plan to get unlimited access to every feature. Your subscription then not only helps my podcast, but it also supports ground News as they make them media landscape more transparent. Let me jump get Clay to jump on here. Hello Clay, Welcome to the program. Hey boss man, what's up? I think I just got a comment on this stabbing and all I think that that people were afraid sometimes to defend themselves because they know the ramifications of if a guy stabbed you, and your shooting and you're killing, which I don't can done killing somebody, but if you have to to defend your life, then they got to go through all the legal ramifications. And I think it's a fact of if I would have been on the train, I probably would have. You know, we're not going to out shot the. Guy, but well you're not allowed to have a gun on the train, no concealed carry. You can't have weapons on the train, and that's why, well that's why criminals don't carry any weapons either. Oh okay, well he had a knife. But if I would have pulled a knife out and stabbed him, then I would have been just as much, if not more trouble than he was. I think the fact that people can't defend themselves anymore. Yeah, I mean, well this is the Daniel Penny effect, right, And Daniel Penny didn't even use any kind of weapons. He just subdued a man that was threatening people on the train in New York City, and he got charged because the guy that he subdued he died, and so they charged Daniel Penny, and I think, yeah, that's going to make that's going to make people think again about about whether or not to get involved and to try to protect themselves or other people. Sure, yes, sir, Well thanks for listening. I love your show and keep going all. Right, thanks Clay, I appreciate it. So the guy who got stabbed, now, remember Kenyon Dobe is the victim here at twenty four years old, and he claimed in that video from his hospital bed as he's got tubes draining blood out of his lungs. And he put out a video and he said that he was not going to allow this guy to attack random people for no reason, especially the elderly. How could he hear you defend themselves? Right, So he's, according to him, Solarzano, drunk is going around and accosting elderly people on the train. And Kenyon Dobe, twenty four year old guy, seems to be pretty fit, pretty strong, and he stands up to this bully, right to this maniac that's threatening people on the train, which is what we would want people to do if it was your grandma, grandpa sitting on the train in fear of their life because some drunk crazy person is threatening them. You would hope that somebody like Kenyon Dobe would stand up to protect them. But it turns out that Kenyandbe had some outstanding warrants on him. And here's the report from WCNC television. Mecklenberg County court records show a man who was the victim in a stabbing was arrested yesterday. He faces charges of assault with serious bodily injury, assault on a pregnant woman, assault on a female, domestic violence, and three counts of communicating threats. Court records say that the incident happened on October eighteenth. Now remember I found his mugshot. And this says he was arrested back in February and the charges were domestic violence, assault on a female. This says that a warrant was issued for his arrest on October nineteenth for serious bodily injury assault, another warrant issued on November eighteenth for the remaining charges. Court records say that the incident happened October eighteenth. He's accused of punching a woman in the face, causing a facial fracture. This is ah doesn't sound like a good guy. He did a good thing, but he did a bad thing too. Apparently they picked him up immediately after he was released from the hospital. He's now held without bond. He has a court appearance, or he had a court appearance. I think he was supposed to appear in court this morning. He was booked into the jail last night and he had his first appearance. So again, like. A lot of people donated money to this guy's GoFundMe, and I think a lot of people are going to be upset now because they didn't know this about it him and I think that definitely would have impacted his ability to raise money, but maybe not. Like this is the ethical dilemma that I was wrestling with yesterday whether or not to you know, direct people, Hey, if you want to help him out, here's his GoFundMe. And because I didn't know the nature of the charges and what that story was, I said, I'm gonna wait, I'm gonna hold off. I'm not going to promote this GoFundMe. And I'm glad I did, because I would not have felt comfortable if I had if I had recommended in any way people go give this guy money, only to find out that he's got these kinds of charges against him. The nature of these charges is such that I think people would have regrets for giving money to him. Now. I don't know what happens from here. I don't know if you can get your money back from a GoFundMe. I don't know, but you deserve to know that, especially if you've donated the money back to the Queen City News story on the Cat's response, Katz says that there is a video of the stabbing of this incident. They say it has not been released due to the ongoing investigation. Okay, and just like we saw with the Arena Zarutzka murder, you know, local media forced the issue and forced Cats to release the video. I suspect that's going to be the outcome here as well. The video is not going to jeopardize the investigation. The video is what it is, and Cats can sit on it. They can try to withhold it for as long as they can, but at some point they will be forced to make it public because it is public record. Part of the story also is the Charlotte City Council's vote on Monday night. We talked about this yesterday on the show as well. Their vote on Monday night to approve a three point four million dollar marketing and communications contract with a PR firm out of Texas. Bad timing. Obviously, they started their Request four proposal process before the stabbing on Friday. We have more details on the timeline because I suspected that the PR contract was sought after the murder of Arena Zerutzka. But according to Katz, they say, no, no, no, we put the RFP Request four proposals. We put that out in July. So Kat says they started soliciting bids for the contract in July before Zerutzka was murdered. Now, obviously the comm's strategy, the PR strategy is going to probably look a lot different now. Well then it was looking in July whatever, whatever the RFPs looked like in July, and whatever they were thinking of these PR people. You know, they thought, oh, we could do something, you know, with the Charlotte rail like you know, Charlotte, Charlotte moves you or something like that. Right, I suspect the branding is going to look a little different now. It's probably going to say something along the lines of ride cats, it's safer than you think, or it's safer than you've heard, or something like that. You know, they have to address the public safety concerns that are that obviously exist. Right. Katz said there's no connection between the contract and the stabbing on December fifth, and that it's been in the works for several months prior. Cat's also clarified that the three point four million dollars for the marketing and comms will be spent over the course of the contract, which is a one year contract with the option for three one year renewals, so it's eight hundred fifty thousand a year. The new contract includes community engagement. Catz said it's previous contract for PR was three hundred thousand dollars annually. Okay, so they're they're they're ramping up the PR campaign. They were doing this before Arena Zerutzka's murder. The idea was you were going to spend three hundred k or that you were spending three hundred k a year for PR, and then in July you're like, you know what, we need to almost triple this budget. This needs to go from three hundred thousand a year to eight hundred fifty thousand dollars a year. By the way, I'm open for endorsements. Cats if you would like to pay, I kid, I kid the cats. 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. I have the memo here from cats and it's six pages, although the last I think the last two are just the republication of their safety and security protocols, says before diving into the details, I want to take a moment to reflect on the broader context. Transit is a microcosm of our community. It is deeply woven into daily life and reflective of the challenges we face as a society. Yes, I agree with Brent Cagel, interim CEO of CATS. I agree with that much. Look, the school district says the same thing, right, that the problems outside in the community at large, they come into the schools. I agree with that. In this particular case with Cats and the violence that we have seen on the and by the way, these two stabbings, these are not the only incidents of violence. We've been covering the various attacks on passengers for quite. A while now, and it does seem to be getting worse. More attacks, and those are the ones that we know of. Stacy Matthews had a piece at Red State today or yesterday, and she tells the story because she's here in Charlotte, and she tells the story of a friend of hers who rode the trolley and talked about how she was sitting on the trolley and these four men get on and they basically surround her. One of them sits right up next to her starts making all sorts of comments about, oh, you must be rich because you have a very nice pocketbook or purse. Like menacing behavior towards this woman. There was no police report for that incident, right, This sort of thing happens all the time, and people who live in cities like Charlotte, they get this idea that, well, you know, that's the trade off of living in a big city, like we just have to put up with the random attacks. But that shouldn't be the case. It shouldn't that that should not be something that people just accept and as proof. You know, I originally I'm from New York. I lived on Long Island, but our media market was the TV stations in the city, so we saw all of the you know, newscasts of all the stuff going on in the city. And I grew up at a time before Rudy Giuliani became mayor, before he cleaned up the city, and like it was scary. You know, you wouldn't go to Times Square, you wouldn't go down there. Why would you go down there? Unless you wanted to go like see the peep shows and get some drugs or something, you wouldn't go down to Times Square. But you clean up the city, and how do you clean up this city? You take a zero tolerance approach to the kinds of anti social behavior that fray the fabric of a high trust society. The reason why we can walk around in a city and feel safe in our person and our belongings is because we are a high trust society. And that comes from a belief that if you are attacked, other people may intervene to help, but more importantly, the person would face serious repercussions. So therefore you have the umbrella of security that allows you to engage in commerce and activities. If you don't have the umbrella of security like this is like the first order, the highest principle of any civilization, of any city, of any tribe or village, right otherwise you're living in anarchy or under a warlord. So when you have local officials that abandon public safety as the primary highest order priority, then you have the fabric of that high trust society start to fray. And when that breaks down, you then end up with less economic activity. People aren't going out and visiting all of the shiny buildings that you have built, all of the attractions, all the concert venues and such. People don't want to go and risk their lives for a stake for dinner in uptown. That's what you're losing. Think about and be at a front. Row seat to the push in the early two thousands by Charlotte city leaders Democrat and Republican. They were all on board with this idea, almost all. There were a couple of people that were not, but virtually all on board with the idea that Charlotte needs to be a world class city. We want Charlotte to be put in the category of all world class cities. And they spend so much money, time, treasure right, resources and personnel and man hours and all of the efforts to make uptown Charlotte what it is today, but to make it a world class city. They were very proud of the fact that it was clean. Like they got mocked by a former host here on WBT, Keith Larson used to call it tidy Town because everything's got to be so tidy and perfect and everything and somewhere along the way, somewhere along the way, we've decided to just whiz it all away. No, they've they've deprioritized public safety, and that's along the that's a similar trend at a national level as well. I mean, the amount of damage done by the defund the police movement. We're going to be seeing that for years, for years. The criminal justice quote reforms abject failure. They are an abject failure, and we are seeing the ramifications of those policies today. The policies that were implemented five six years ago, we're seeing them now because people who end up in the you know, catch and release, turnstile court system, when they first embark upon a career of criminality, it takes them a while to escalate to the most violent types of crimes. So that's why you keep seeing people with these rap sheets that have like fifty sixty arrests. It's because they kept getting released under reform, under suicidal empathy, right, Oh, they just they're they're robbing all of these people and stealing all these cars and shooting into town homes and such because of poverty. No, they're they're anti social sociopaths. There is a there is a social compact between citizens and a government and the compact is that I will I will uh sacrifice or surrender some of my liberty to you gov co the government agencies. I will trade that liberty for some security so I don't have to worry about maintaining security for myself and family at all times. And I don't have to worry about going out and exacting revenge or retribution against somebody who who does something wrong to me or my family. We have a court system that will take revenge, that will meet out the justice not me. They'll investigate, they'll incarcerate, right, they will do that. And that's what I give up in exchange for that agreement, that social compact. But if you, the government, are not fulfilling your end of that bargain, then I have no reason anymore to participate in this contract. Why would I? Right, This is what Charlotte is risking right now and has been risking for a while through their attempts at nullifying federal laws. They don't like, Oh, we're not going to cooperate with any immigration stuff. So you don't know who's in the county, you don't know who's in the city. How you end up with this guy on the light rail line multiple run ins with security deported twice rap sheet in three different states. But nobody, nobody cares enough to protect the law abiding citizens that are giving up a little bit of their liberty for that security. You're not fulfilling You're end of the bargain. Local government, you're not doing what you need to be doing for the contract to remain. Valid. And nobody talks like this at the city level. Nobody is saying this stuff. This is fundamental civilizational stuff. Here's a great idea. How about making an escape to a really special and secluded getaway in western North Carolina. Just a quick drive up the mountain and Cabins of Asheville is your connection. 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Call or text eight two eight three six seven seventy sixty eight or check out all there is to offer at Cabins of Aashville dot com and make memories that'll last a lifetime. A text from Buddy says, I remember commuting to downtown every day. That's uptown Charlotte, Buddy a Downtown every day on the light rail when it first started. CMPD was on there every morning checking my ticket while I was wearing a suit. That was back when they still had cloth seats until the homeless started staining them and they changed them out for the medical grade plastic seats. That must be where all the money for CMPD security went. Do you ever wonder why the benches in uptown have the bar right in the center of them. It's the same reason. It's to make it uncomfortable to sleep on. Look. I mean that which is incentivized, you will get more of. It's just very simple. Whether it's you know, trying to address the homeless situation, trying to address crime, right, not collecting fares right, if you are, if you are not punishing, or even worse, you are incentivizing certain behaviors. You're going to see more of those behaviors because you are incentivizing them and there's no repercussions for people who violate whatever rules you're trying to enforce or not in forcing. This is seven oh four number. That is exactly why my husband was fired. The thug had more rights than my husband, who has never been in any trouble in his life. He had choked. Marks, scratches and scrapes and bruises on him. Oh sorry, there was another text before that. My sixty five year old husband was fired from his job after standing up for a handicapped employee slash coworker who was being harassed by a thug who ran a stop sign and almost crashed into his vehicle. My husband simply pointed out that the thug ran a stop sign. He didn't call him a thug or any names, but he was a thug because he jumped my husband, tried to choke him and then threw him down on the blacktop and sped off. Five sheriffs showed up, a report was written. They said my husband could press charges for assault, but they never caught him. A week later, my husband was fired. He tried to free himself but never fought back. The thug uh was a black eye in his forties. My husband's sixty five year old white guy. I don't think race should be a factor, but it obviously was because corporate fired him. They didn't like the optics. I don't. I mean, I don't know if you know that. But his managers and co workers were so upset they loved him. It took six months for him to find another job. But look, companies do this stuff all the time. We've heard stories repeatedly for years about pizza delivery guys right conceal caring and they get jumped, they get mugged, somebody's trying to rob them, somebody's you know, trying to kill them or something. They pull out the gun, they shoot the attacker, and then corporate fires them because you're not allowed to carry conceal when you're on the clock. Right, Well, you're alive. You may have been fired, but you're alive. Right. This is like, this is what we now have been reduced to, this idea that if you protect yourself or somebody else, you're going to get a bunch of poop from your employer, from social media whatever. You could even be charged, Pops says cats commuting around town scared, I got you for the campaign. So from the cat's memo, their Q and A responses, questions and responses, Why did the suspect receive transit exclusion? So? Why did this guy Solarzano? Why was he banned? He was under an active transit exclusion at the time of the December fifth incident. He got a one year ban on October eighth for a weapon violation, then a six month ban the following day for public intoxication. Due to a data entry error that occurred during Kat's training on the evening of October eighth, officers responding on the ninth did not have visibility into the prior day's ban. Had that information been available, mister Solarzano would have received an indefinite ban on October ninth. Both PSS, which is the private security firm, and CMPD responded promptly to both October events, so CMPD was there. CMPD was there for both of these events, both of these incidents in October, but because they're never allowed to check on immigration status, they could not determine that this guy was already convicted of a felony re entry charge for coming into the country after he was deported for coming into the country illegally. See, these are the downstream impacts of policy decisions made by elected leaders, and until those leaders start changing those policies, and by the way, I don't think they will. I see no indication that they're going to change course on this stuff. But until that changes or they change, expect to see more of this. 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.