Cops are doing their job, the courts are the problem (09-18-2025--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 I Daily show prep with all of the links. Become a patron, go to dpeteclendershow 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. All Right, So, developments in a local story here in Charlotte. So it started yesterday morning a four year old boy was shot and killed. While in his house. He was shot after or during a car theft in the parking lot of these town homes or apartments. I think they're townhomes. Yeah, townhomes. A suspect fired shots while stealing a black Dodge charger from outside a town home. This occurred near the intersection of South Tryon Street in Carowin's Boulevard. The According to the Charlotte Observer report, the suspect fired directly intentionally into the house, unprovoked and for unknown reasons, and one. Of those bullets struck the boy. Then yesterday afternoon, I see the story come across. Here's the report from Queen City News by Robin Kennedy and Sierra Lankford. Police swarmed an area just minutes down the road where at least one person was taken away in handcuffs. Swat teams and dozens of police cars surrounded a Steel Creek neighborhood between Rivergate Parkway, which is at the Rivergate Shopping Center there. And Duval Drive. Okay, it appeared to be. A single family home neighborhood, so during the news here I just checked up on this story and WBTV is reporting piece by Luke Tucker. Four men were arrested and charged with the murder of a four year old boy who was shot during a car theft in a Charlotte neighborhood Wednesday morning. Court documents showed that Angelo Lamont Hudson, Jordan Chandler Davis, Marquise Gerriere were arrested in the case. Anthony Abel was arrested in Raleigh in connection with the shooting and will now be brought back to Mecklenburg County. AffA Davids connect all four to yesterday's theft of a Dodge charger on Cigar Court in Charlotte. The affidavit's alleged, and by the way, I'm reading this for the first time, so you'll forgive me if I give you if I read some information twice here. The affidavits alleged that when they stole the charger, a person in the vehicle that they arrived in fired shots into the town homes. The shots entered at least one of the homes and hit a four year old named Jace Edwards. He died before he could even be taken to the hospital. In addition to stealing the Dodge charger, the affidavits also linked the group to a stolen Dodge Durango in Cabaris County, a Chevy Camaro in York County, and a Jeep. This is an auto theft ring. That's what the that's what you would call this an auto theft ring. Court records indicated the investigators were able to use surveillance footage to get descriptions of the suspects. Using those descriptions, they were tracked to a gas station. Once they were tracked to that gas station, the affidavit said, Charlotte Mecklenburg police tried to pull them over, but they kept driving before they eventually got out and ran. One of the suspects got caught and admitted to being at the scene with the other three men. They will now all be charged or we're all charged with first degree murder. Good job, Charlotte Mecklenburg Police. Good job, because we've been hearing that the problem is not enough police. We have to spend more money to hire more police, and that's the reason why people are getting gunned down in the streets. It's all about the police. No, like the stabbing on the light reil car, it's not a police problem. Look, I'm fine if you want to hire more cops, totally fine with that. You want to propose that Democrats, which I have been told Democrats are now actually going to be pitching ideas at the General Assembly to hire more police, which is quite. The turnaround from twenty to twenty. But hey, I welcome them to the side of logic and rationality. I welcome them hire more police. Yes, however, that's not the problem. The problem was what happens after the police bring them into the jail, and then they go before a magistrate, and then they go before a judge. Then they get released and then they get their charges dropped. That's the problem. That's always been the problem. Here's a story from Fox News National Fox News. This was from July. An already grieving father was further enraged upon learning that the man accused of killing his daughter in a home burglary could have already been in prison for numerous other crimes had it not been for an apparent clerical error. Logan Federico, a twenty two year old aspiring teacher from Waxaw, was visiting friends at the University of South Carolina in Columbia, staying at a home on Cyprus Street when a career criminal broke in and shot her in the early morning hours of May third. The suspect, Alexander Dickey, a thirty year old man with a lengthy rap sheet, entered the home early in the morning, stole several credit cards and debit cards, and then fatally shot her. The police describe it as a random crime. Dicky has nearly forty prior arrests across different counties. The Fox reports says North Carolina, but I think it's South Carolina because this was in Columbia. I think they just mistated that, and then they used South Carolina throughout the rest of the report forty arrests across the state dating back more than a decade. Technically, he had. Thirty nine arrests for twenty five felony charges. Over a decade. In August twenty fourteen, he was charged with grand larceny. South Carolina Law Enforcement received his fingerprints associated with that arrest, and the charge and disposition appear on his criminal history. He was served with four additional burglary and larceny warrants in August of twenty fourteen. Again, this is eleven years ago, but those charges and dispositions do not appear on his criminal history, and SLED said that it did not receive additional prints for that set of charges. A couple months later, authority serve additional warrants on burglary and larceny. Those do not appear on his criminal history, adding to the agency did not receive additional prints for that set of charges either. A first to agree burglary charge carries a minimum fifteen year prison sentence and maximum life sentence. In twenty fourteen, he pleaded guilty to second degree nonviolent burglary, sentenced to ten years. Here's the key suspended. A ten year suspended sentence meaning he would not have to immediately serve any prison time. The next year, he had one of his two other burglary charges dropped. He pleaded guilty to a first defense third degree burglary, which carries a much lighter sentence. He then pleaded guilty to a first offense third degree burglary for a second time. You see the pattern. It's the same. It's not the police. They caught the guy, and had they not dropped the charges, had they not pled him down, had they not reduced the charges, that guy would have been imprisoned for a long long time. He would not have been out to murder the twenty two year old wax Saw native Logan Federico. It's not an understaffing of police issue. It is a turning the criminals loose through a revolving door justice system that is the issue. Here's another one. This is more recent. A man. This is from yesterday WSOCTV suspect back on the streets after bystanders stop a rail trail beating. 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The defendant's name Hayden James Davidson, and the victim says, it almost seems like you can go do whatever you want, and as long as you post bail, you can get out the next day. Okay, Well, all right, hang on a second. There's a rational, reasonable explanation for why it seems like that. It's because it's actually true. Davidson was seen on video using racial slurs when first responders arrived. He was also struggling to get out of the stretcher while in restraints. He had spent time on probation for assaulting deputies in Iredelle County in twenty seventeen. Deputy said he was drunk at the time and had a warrant for assault on a female and again he is back out on the streets. Now, the. Warm fuzzy part of this story is that those good Samaritans who came to the victim's assistance, they beat the snot out of this defendant. So that's say it's a happy ending kind of sort of, even though he still out walking the streets. Already. Let me go over and get Jim on the program. Hello, Jim, what's going on? Hey? A quick question. Have you looked up our president district attorney in Mecklenburg County? Yes, Spencer Merriweather. I've had him on the show. Really yep, you had him on the show and the microphone didn't melt down. Now, Spencer is a restorative justice. He has a DEI department, and he doesn't believe in criminally charging people. He would disagree and point to stats that show he does charge people, and he does. They do have some get they do. We get press releases of people that they have charged and you know they've taken plea deals or a jury convicted them or a jury acquitted people or whatever. So they do try people. I mean we do, like I got some ined to jury duties. So there are trials. Yeah, well the problem comes in is you're talking about all of these people getting charged with ault and then getting out on misdemeanor assault. That's a free deal and it's from him. It's good. So not so not necessarily you have the magistrates when somebody gets brought in and. Then with magistrates in North Carolina are charging. Magistrates they charge at the level they charge. All they do is determine probable cause and give an initial bond. Right, So they're the magistrates judge. I know, they're not trial judges because those are trial judges, right, So when a magistrate is that they're the first contact with the court system, right when the somebody gets arrested, and the magistrates are supposed to just say, well are you going to appear in court or not? Right, And so they have to determine is this person a flight risk or are they not going to show up for court, Like if you've got a history of not showing up for your appointments, then they can situate a high bond or something. But there is this belief now that this cashless bail idea that that's too onerous for a poor person. So I'm not going to set bail, So we're just going to release them with the promise to appear, right, But what it ignores is the threat to public safety, which they are not. In the case of de Carlos Brown Junior that murdered Arena Zarutzka on the light railcar, right, this guy had and known mental health history. He had a violent past, he had multiple charges, he had served prison time, and I would submit that when a magistrate looks at that history, they should identify this person as a risk to the public. When you rack up fourteen. Arrests for all of the charges he had, I think it's pretty clear this guy is a threat to the community. That is, provided she gets that information. Which there's no reason why she wouldn't have. But yeah, no, I appreciate the call of Jim. That's the I mean, that's the key. Did you have the information? All indications are that she did. Richard, Welcome to the show. Hey Richard, Hey, how you doing. You know there's a pattern here throughout the country and we all have to ask Ussel, well why because common sense, if you're a career criminal, whether you're doing burglaryes et cetera, et cetera, you're going to graduate to homicide. Same thing with the mentally ill, but. Exactly it always does because they're in that world. Unfortunately, they become so desensitized and sociopathic that they're going to kill somebody. So there's a pattern throughout. The country now, So there is an ideology going on that is allowing dangerous people on the street, and we have to examine this. Yeah, it's the same thing, Yeah, Richard, it's the same idea. It's the same concept behind the broken windows policing strategy, and it's based off of the same concept as you know, when you have a kid that's you know, that's that's murdering pets, right, that's killing dogs and cats and stuff at a young age. Like every serial killer has done that. There is like say, there's a pattern there, and that pattern is in our society. When they start doing the low level stuff, they eventually graduate to worse and worse and worse and worse. Look at the story I just did about the guys that stole the car and shot into the house. They've been they've been committing auto theft and now they graduated to murder because they haven't ever faced the consequences in a harsh way. At the very beginning to say this is unacceptable. You're gonna throw the rest of your life away you do this. I appreciate the call, Richard. So when I was a kid, my grandpa died with Alzheimer's, and before he died, my mom and my dad took care of him as he got worse. Forty years ago, there were no treatments and not much support for caregivers and family. 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 org 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 Pete's Pack. 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 This from Jeff, who notes the story of the suspect that beat up the man and broke his neck is out on parole, Build more prisons. I actually have that story here too, Jeff. Charlotte Observer report from two days ago. Angelia Adams, she goes by Angie. She's from Chester County, South Carolina. She has seen in her days of news coverage about the August stabbing death of a Ukrainian woman. She has watched with empathy for. The family of the dead woman and wondered what will be done to keep the public safe, and she shares the pain. It is not the news of others, It is her life because her brother is paralyzed after an attack on a Charlotte Area Transit System bus back in March. Her brother cannot walk, he cannot feed himself, He cannot change the channel on the TV or work a cell phone. For weeks, he couldn't even breathe without a machine to keep him alive. Adams's brother, Aiames Mark Godfreed, sixty four, suffered a broken neck and spinal injury in the March sixth attack on a Cat's bus pushing age sixty five. Her brother now has to depend on others to eat, sleep and survive. Adam says she has even more concerns about overall Cat's safety after learning of the assault of a fifty seven year old veteran on a Cat's bus on August twelfth, and then the fatal stabbing of Arena Zarutzka on August twenty second. In her brother's case, emergency officials were not called to help her brother on March sixth until the bus dropped off the suspect at a men's shelter and the bus returned to the Downtown Transit Center. The victim In this case, mister Godfrey, a Navy veteran who was homeless at the time, was hurt when another passenger on the bus hit him several times. There is Cat's video surveillance footage that shows Godfrey, the victim, appears to go up and talk to the suspect. They then argue and Godfrey points at him before attempting to grab a book bag next to the suspect, the document states. The affidavit here from the law enforcement states the suspect hit Godfreed in the head and face with his knee, knocking Godfrey to the ground unconscious. He continues kicking and stomping on the victim as he lays on the ground. The suspect uses his feet to stomp on the victim's body additional times while the victim remains on the ground motionless. Um Adams said her brother required emergency surgery and a ventilator and was hospitalized for months until. Recently being sent to a nursing facility. He cannot walk or use his hands and likely will be disabled for the rest of his life. After the suspects got off the bus, the bus driver continued her route to the Cat's Transit center. And requested medic after realizing that the passenger on the bus was injured, which I'm unclear as to how she didn't see the motionless, paralyzed body laying on the floor, or maybe she did see the body and assumed, well, he's homeless, and that's just what a lot of homeless people do on our transit system. They just lay down on the floor in sleep, and so maybe she thought he was sleeping until the bus got to the transit center. CMPD detectives went to the men's shelter and identified the suspect, Moses Early, twenty nine years old. They arrested him four days later on a charge of attempted murder. Early's case of attempted murder and assault remains pending. He has been released on an unsecured two hundred thousand dollars bond, unsecured with GPS ankle monitor pending the trial. This guy attempted to murder somebody. It's on video. Why is he out? He is homeless? Why is he out? His address on police in court documents is listed as the men's shelter. The sister of the victim said Charlotte's prosecutors advised her of the defendant's release, yet she has safety concerns for the public as well. She should and should all of us. Guy's charged with a serious crime. He's free to roam the streets, engage in his similar patterns, his habits. But he has an ankle monitor, so I guess we'll be able to pinpoint his location if and when he victimizes somebody else. Once again, I will say this, Democrats, liberals, leftists, your ideas for criminal justice reform have failed. We are not doing this anymore. We are not doing this anymore. In fact, Congress is gonna come to town. Congress is coming to Charlotte this month. Yeah, they're gonna hold a Congressional hearing here. Oh that's I'm sure that's what the local boosters in chamber are really excited about, right, having Congressional committees come here and hold a hearing on crime, getting national headlines and detention because we can't seem to keep our crazy, deranged, violent criminals locked away from the society at large. This is a choice. This is all a choice. The US House Judiciary Committee has scheduled a field hearing for September twenty ninth in town here. Jeff Van Drew, a New Jersey Republican who chairs the committee, says, I'm holding this hearing in Charlotte to expose how blue cities keep putting career criminals back on our streets, making our communities less safe. This was entirely preventable, and we owe it to the people to fix it before another innocent life is lost. Yeah. I wonder if they're going to be pulling some crime stats. Ooh, I wonder if they're. Going to be dragging some local elected officials in front of the committee and the cameras. 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There's an idea, prisons. Why don't we use Eastland Mall site as a place for a new prison. Put a new prison in each zip code in Charlotte and it will bring jobs for people. Yeah, well, if we do a prison at the Eastland Mall site, maybe we bring back Gary Sheriff Gary not my fault McFadden. He could rebuild the ice rink right in the prison, right because he's already got the recording studio for the quote residents aka inmates, So why not teach them ice skating or hockey. Actually that's probably not a good idea, not hockey, and probably not a good idea to give them bladed footwear. Okay, never mind, what was the ticket status? Don't know of the bus fare now, usually I don't think you can get on the buses without fare maybe, but I don't know. I'm not sure what the ticket status was. I haven't seen anybody reporting on that. Let me go to Brian. Hello, Brian, welcome to the show. Hey Pete, thanks for taking a call. Yes, I don't have all. The information directly in front of me. I'm in my car, but I want to just tell you kind of what I know. And that is like twenty three, North Carolina passed the lall that says magistrates must set fail We're one of the only states that do that. So here's a problem. If I have to set bail, fine, who you want to keep somebody in but I'm going to set it real high. But that's when you get into Fourth Amendment stuff. Now you get sued for that stuff. So if we want to keep people in jail, we got to go back to the legislature in North Carolina and allow the magistrates to have some authority to set bail. So they took away the ability to set bail on serious crimes and required them to go in front of judges right for like murder, rape, like that kind of stuff. That was the Pre Trial Integrity Act, which I suspect the lawmakers are going to be coming back and probably adding more categories into the into the exempted crimes. You know that that would be one expectation. Now, yes, you can set the bonds high. You absolutely could do that. And you could say that a two hundred thousand dollars bond for the guy who paralyzed a dude on the bus, Oh well two hundred grand for a homeless guy. That's pretty high, right, But it's unsecured. So oh yeah, like they do have they they do have discretion and they have the authority to do the bond amounts based on their uh you know, their ability or any the magistrates belief that they will appear, but also are they a danger to the public, And if they are a danger to the public, I think then that covers you for setting a very high bond amount. What do you think? Yeah, I absolutely agree. I think I mean, some of these folks should have bonds them mouths that are unbelievably high. But if I remember correctly, and this is again I apologize when I'm wrong. I thought that the law required the magistrates to set upond, that they did not have the authority to deny bond and therefore keep somebody in jail. Well that that would not surprise me. But even so, you still have the discretion, like we just went over to set the bond high, but you have magistrates that are not doing so. Yeah, I think when you go back and as well, not only they need to set high bonds, but also just give them the straight up authority of no, you are a threat to society and you're not going to show up. You are denied bond and you must stay in jail. So here's the thing. If they believe that the person is not going to show up for court, they can deny that bond, right, because that's one of the criteria. Is it okay? Then I must have misread that, right, I. Mean that's my understanding. I don't have the law in front of me either, so like I'm just going by memory. But those are the reasons why magistrates can they have to factor those things in. Now, maybe they are required to set a bond. And if they believe that somebody is not going to turn up for their court appearance, then like if they're a flight risk or something, then you give them a you know, a seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars bond. Maybe, Yeah, because they're a flight risk. Yeah, I'm not a lawyer, nor if I stayed the holiday in express lately. Those were just they use those questions to determine the bond, but they still had to set a bond. Yeah, but either way, we got to look at our magistrates operate in the law. Yeah, guiding that Yeah. No. I've said from the beginning that the legislature needs to fix the laws that allow this kind of this kind of crime to continue to occur. I appreciate the call, Brian. It's a good question. So the legislature has a has a very big role in this. I think they are taking it seriously. And I want to see more money for prosecutors as well, because that is part of this equation too, and North Carolina, in my opinion, has underfunded prosecutors' offices for two law So I appreciate the call, Brian. 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 the Pete Calender Show dot com. Again, thank you so much for listening, and don't break anything while I'm gone.