Democrats' decarceration project is a failure (12-09-2025--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 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. So we have a lot of different angles now that we've been covering in the wake of another stabbing on the Charlotte light rail line. Because you have obviously the attack, you have the connection with the previous attack of less than four months ago that left Arena Zarutzka murdered, which then prompted the state legislature to force local jurisdictions to get tougher on crime. That then pro did a reaction from local Democrats because the legislature is controlled by Republicans. Local Democrats then complained at a county commissioner's meeting a week or so ago. Sheriff was there at the meeting complaining about the quote unfunded mandate that now we're going to have to house more, you know, people waiting for their first appearance and waiting for trial and all of this because now it's not going to be a catch and release system so much, particularly for violent offenders. So woe is us. We can't just you know, release people back out onto the streets. I was actually on Twitter. I was accused of only caring about certain crimes because of racial components, to which I pointed out that the guy who was stabbed by the criminal illegal alien on Friday on the same light rail line the guy was stabbed, Kenyan Dobie, is a black guy who was defending elderly people on the train who were being accosted by this drunk illegal alien with a rap sheet, who had been deported two previous times. So and that is precisely the kind of person we want, right Not the drunk guy we want Kenyan Dobie. We want people like him in a high trust society, somebody who at twenty four years old, stands up and says, no, you cannot behave like this in a civil society. Back off, sit down, leave people alone, shut up. And for that he was stabbed in the chest. Oh and I should throw in that the guy The attacker is also homeless. He's been staying at a roof above, which is a low barrier homeless center. Low barrier means anybody can come in like it's very like you don't even need an ID. Another question was raised in the first hour by a caller named Jeff, who asked because the prosecution yesterday in court, the prosecutor said that the attacker had been banned from the Charlotte Area transit system. He was on their ban list. Okay, well, wait a minute, how did that happen? What did he do? What kind of interaction did he have that got him banned? Right, because that would indicate that there was some sort of interaction with either Cat's security or even CMPD. But the guy has been deported twice. Both times he had an order for his removal, and so when he re entered the country after both of those removals, those are felonies, and he has a criminal record. He has served time in prison. So what happened there? This ties into local policy decisions made by the Charlotte City Council telling CMPD do not participate in any kind of immigration enforcement. That's why our local police don't do anything like this. Right. They're always running around saying, we're not helping any kind of immigration enforcement. We're not pulling people over, we're not checking your citizenship status. You can trust us call police for your emergency services. Right. They make a big show of this all the time. It's the same reason why Mecklenburg County Sheriff's office doesn't do the cooperation with ICE. It's why they scraped the two eighty seven G program. They don't want to be associated with any kind of immigration enforcement. Well what about in this case, what about with this guy? This is the kind of people, this is the kind of case that we're talking about. You should be helping to get this guy out of the country. But they always turn it into the you know, oh, the law abiding except for obviously the crossing the border illegally, the law abiding nanny, the landscaper, right, not hurting anybody, not doing anything, just trying to make a better life for himself. They they always frame it like that when we are talking about this kind of a case. This guy should not have been here and somebody had some sort of interaction with him at some point that got him on the ban list. That happened, prosecutor said, it in court yesterday. What happened, who was involved and who looked the other way because of policy directives from elected officials in Charlotte and Mecklenburg. Because that's that's how that happens. Meanwhile, you have IRENA's law that just took effect December first. This was the law that was prompted by the murder of Arena Zarutzka. And the state legislature has basically told and I covered this back on December first, so over a week ago when the law took effect. What the legislature has told the local jurisdictions, which by the way, are creations of the state. Okay, the state government is the seminal authority. The cities don't create the state. The state creates the cities. In fact, the state can rescind to charter of a city if it wants to just completely unincorporate the city. So the state has told the locals, you guys need to be tougher on criminals. This little project that you guys have been embarking upon, on this idea that you know, everyone's in crisis and it's just poor people who have no other options. They're stealing a loaf of bread to feed their infant child. You know, this kind of mentality is getting people hurt and killed. And so we are going to tell you from now on, no more unsecured bonds. You're not going to be able to run the kind of turnstyle catch and release justice system that Mecklenberg County has been running for darn near three decades. Your project has failed. Okay, your criminal justice reform ideas suck. That's what they were told. That's what Arena's Law was communicating to these local jurisdictions. So the response now from our local officials who were all in on the decarceration. Let's thin out the jail population, save a bunch of money. This is what happened during the recession, the Great Recession two thousand and eight, two thousand and nine. Right, they scrap the plans for a new jail annex, They mothball Jail North, and now they complain they don't have the bedspace. But these were decisions that the local officials made to save money. They deprioritized public safety funding. And then, of course you have the whole summer of fiery but mostly peaceful riots that defund the police movement. You have a very animated and activist base inside the Democrat Party that wants decarceration, and the county commissioners know that they need these people to vote for them in the primaries, so they comply and they abdicate their responsibility to the larger society. Crime goes up, people get hurt. Now they're going to have to surge a couple of cops into certain areas, right or, like they voted last night, the city council is going to spend three point four million dollars on an ad campaign to make people feel safer riding the train. Yeah. The problem isn't a perception of safety, Okay, it is your deprioritization of public safety that creates the perception. Because people are seeing this stuff. People are aware of this and it's not acceptable and so y'all need to change course. That's what the state told you to do with Arena's law. And in response, we have Mechlimber County Sheriff Gary not my fault McFadden saying this is an unfunded mandate. We need more money from the state if we're going to do this stuff. You have a jail. You have a jail. Here's a great idea, how about making an escape to a really special and secluded get away in western North Carolina, just a quick drive up the mountain and Cabins of Ashville 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, Cabins of Asheville has the ideal spot for you where you can reconnect with your loved ones and the things that truly matter. Nestled within the breath taking fourteen thousand acres of the Pisga National Forest, their cabins offer a serene escape in the heart of the Blue Ridge Mountains. Centrally located between Ashville and the entrance of the Great Smoky Mountain National Park. It's the perfect balance of seclusion and proximity to all the local attractions with hot tubs, fireplaces, air conditioning, smart TVs, Wi Fi, grills, outdoor tables, and your own private covered porch. Choose from thirteen cabins, six cottages, two villas, and a great lodge with eleven king sized bedrooms. Cabins of Ashville has the ideal spot for you for any occasion, and they have pet friendly accommodations. Call or text eight two eight three six seven seventy sixty eight or check out all there is to offer at cabins Offashville dot com and make memories that'll last a lifetime. A text from Dawn who says it just occurred to me that the problem with Sheriff Gary, not my fault McFadden, is that he's in the wrong job. He needs to be a social worker, not an enforcer of law. I agree. In fact, he agrees. He said in an interview a couple of weeks back, he said he doesn't even like being sheriff. He just likes being out in the community. He likes that part of it. So go do that. Go set up set up a nonprofit or something, you know, Go do the work in the community, do the thing that you like to do, and stop mucking around with the jail. Let other people run that better, because other people can run that better and have run that better. Let me go to Jack. Hello, Jack, Welcome to the show. Good afternoon. Hey, what's up. Here's my comment you had Andrew Dunn on earlier today, indeed talking about that this is not a partisan problem. In my opinion, it most certainly is because there are no checks and balances. The County Commission is totally dominated by one party, as is now the school board, as is the Charlotte City Council. For the most part, I think there's what one Republican left on there now. Yeah, just one out of eleven. They have no there's no alternative voices, there's no checks and balancers. They're all seeing from the same hymn book, and they're not really able to criticize each other because they've all allegiance to the party leaders such as mister stein by Liles, whoever the senior Democrat is in charge. Yeah, this is yeah, I agree, this is one of the that's one of the part. One of the problems with any kind of a political body that is completely dominated by one party to the exclusion of the other is that you have now hidden incentives from the public, Like we don't know what's going on behind, you know, party closed doors, you know, and the types of factions and personality conflicts that that exist inside the party apparatus we don't see from the public. We see like if we're watching a city council meeting and a Republican and Democrat are arguing, that's out front. We can see that that's a difference of opinion, right, But if it's all one party, right then, right then we're not seeing what is what may actually be motivating their disagreement, which could be petty personal conflicts, right, or could be like, oh, you know, you slighted me at some fundraiser that we were both at two years ago, or some stupid thing like that, and that actually does happen. It has happened. That is literally what happened. This was years and years ago, uh, with a couple of members in the local Democrat party. They didn't like each other because somebody didn't say hello to the other one at some church event, you know. And and now they're waging war against each other. But you don't know why. Well you think about Haiti. It's a one party sort of country too, isn't it. I do not. Yeah, I don't know anything about Haiti except you can't spell Haiti without hate. Hi. But any one, right, Jack, I appreciate the call. Here is what McFadden says from this press conference yesterday. I thought this was interesting. He was asked about the influx that he's expected to see. He's expecting to see this? You know, all these new people and arrest processing, we're going to be overwhelmed, overcrowded, all of this. And he said, anytime anybody comes to the jail, he panics. This is what he I'm not making this up, this is what he said. I wish I didn't have one hundred people here. You know, anything you think about it, anything is a crisis here, you know. I don't I don't want to say, well, when we get sixteen hundred, I'm going to panic. I panic every day when the numbers go up to five, because that's somebody else that we have to deal with. There's there's no magic number. Anytime anybody comes into the jail, he panics. This is not somebody who should be in charge of the jail, then, you know, I mean that's is that not obvious? Right? You asked for a job to run the jail, and anytime somebody comes into the jail, you are panicking and you don't want to even you don't want it. You don't even want one hundred people in the jail. He doesn't want people in the jail. Why are you running the jail? Then? Do you understand the purpose of the jail. It's to protect people from violent sociopaths. That's the point, you know. Stories are powerful. They help us make sense of things, to understand experiences. Stories connect us to the people of our past while transcending generations. They help us process the meaning of life and our stories are told through images and videos. Preserve your stories with Creative Video started in nineteen ninety seven and min Hill, North Carolina. It was the first company to provide this valuable service, converting images, photos and videos into high quality produced slide shows, videos and albums. 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So instead of one guy being arrested and processed three times and released, he'll be held in prison after the first arrest. So the population of residents aka inmates, it won't grow, but rather the deputies in charge of intake will have less work to do because they're not pss the same person over and over again. John I was told that there would be no logic applied to any of this discussion. Over on the text line, Norcott says about this illegal criminal alien that did the stabbing on Friday that he was banned from the transit system. He says, if there's no effort to enforce paying fares to ride the train, what moron thinks a ban would be enforced. That's I've seen. There are a lot of texts saying the same thing. I completely agree. This text from someone who has a last name. That's French. The three million dollars that the city is going to use to advertise and falsely advertise for the transit system I was approved by the city council last night. A PR firm hiring for three point four million dollars for a PR effort to make people feel safe on the T I guess the safety of the light rail could easily for Instead of that using that money for a PR effort, it could be used to reopen the North End Sheriff's prison right jail North. It makes you wonder why they're not doing that instead of wasting the three million to try to convince people to ride an unsafe light rail. Robert says a plus plus plus plus plus plus segment on social worker McFadden, Thank you. Robert the Hellion says, yeah, he's a caretaker basically. Oh, and Gad said, evolutionary behavioral scientists. That's what Gad says. And then he says, for the overcrowding of the jail, stack them on top of each other in the jail and then let it get out how crowded and awful it is. That would be another deterrent the victim on the light rail line. Kenyon Dobe is a hero, says Victoria, praying for his recovery. It's clear the Mayor of Charlotte, the shrif and city council are unfit for office and are interested in protecting criminals, not in protecting citizens. Authorities should be celebrating Arena's law, not criticizing it, which is what McFadden has been doing. He said, get this, that the law is going the Arena's Law is going to hurt the poor, that's what he says. I think that it will. It will significantly harm the people who are less fortunate because of funding fine in fees, because we don't even think about when a person is here, they still have to pay a lawyer, and they still have to go to court. And you take when a parent comes to court, she's gonna he or she's going to lose time from work if you. Yes, So hey, how about how about we tell people that committing crimes actually is a drain on your bank account. See that's what I mean. They they they have this inversion going where it's it's like, oh, you know, the poverty is driving the crime, when in fact, the crime creates poverty. So flip it. He's almost there in what he's describing, and then he starts talking about like a really large commissary bill. I mean, with our commissary mothers come here and go to a machine and daily put what they call money on their books. So if family may put two hundred dollars a week because their loved one said I need this or I need that, and so all of that. Creates a deeper pocket for poverty. And then when you're talking about poverty, they still have to go to court, they still have to pay a lawyer, and all of these fundings, and so this is the revolving door that nobody knows how to fix. Okay, I'm going to spit ball an idea here, because you know me, I am all about solutions. How about this one way to avoid all of these expenses of the lawyers and eight hundred dollars a month commissary bill. But you don't break the law. How about that? How about you don't steal the cars, you don't stab people, don't rob them, don't murder them like that would seem to be a good way to avoid all of these costs. Maybe we should, I don't know, maybe emphasize that message a little bit instead of just saying, oh, sorry, you were in crisis because you had a high commissary bill. So go ahead and go back out. We'll go ahead and release you again. At this news conference, McFadden was asked about this latest attack on the light rail line, allegedly committed by a guy who was, you know, deported twice. As we know, immigration is the federal federal boy's issue, federal boy's issue. Why don't we ask them he's been deported twice under the civil I guess deportation process. You probably need to ask them. Why haven't they charged him with a criminal aspect of this offense. He's here now. They didn't know he was back. They sent him home twice. They didn't know he was back. They just found out. But Katz knew who he was because they banned him from the system. But see here's McFadden again trying to blame somebody else. Why don't they start the proceeding of I can't tell them what to do. I know people say, well, sure, if you can't tell them what to do, I can't. I can only suggest what they do. A detainer through house built HP thirteen versus a criminal charge of re entry after deportation which would be my best choice if you had to. Ask them that. Am I concerned about that? You know, we're still looking into that. I don't know if the person would actually on the light rail or off the light rail. He was simply just mentioning the light rail. Make it to be national news when anyone is stabbed in my city, hurt, shot killed. Yes, I'm concerned. I have to be concerned because it's in the city that you know, I am a part of. We are concerned about it, but we also need to be honest about the immigration part of it. You know, we want to blame the sheriff. Yes, well you deported this person twice. Does that really work or has it work? And what would you do after that? I saw all of the newscast this weekend about this incident, and so we're prepared to listen and we're prepared to receive any documentation that DHS and ICE presents to us. But I would recommend them to look at it from a criminal aspect instead of the civil aspect, because we can see that it causes us issues if it's. Only a civil aspect. On deportation. As Oscar Solorzano ever been an inmate, in your dale before in the sentence, and. I believe that is no. He was asked, has this guy ever been an inmate in your jail? And he said that that answer is no. 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 the media landscape more transparent. Message from Rodney who says, Pete, maybe the local CMPD should not follow illegal orders? Eh what we call it callback in the biz? Okay, one last clip here real quick before I get to some calls. Sheriff Gary not my fault. McFadden criticized Customs and Border Patrol for their recent operation Charlotte's Web during his newscout. A lot of these people being picked up do not have a criminal record. If they want to make Mecnberg County safer, we have Whitney call a repository of warrants and they may show you that today a hundreds of warrants. If you want to say, let's take your first one hundred most violent criminals that are wanted and we search for them in a combined effort with DHS and ICE, that would have been a better move simply coming to terrorize the city and taken away people that we don't even know who they are. We don't know anything about the numbers, but we always shift the sheriff about the sheriff well I think this is the time to you, as ICE, can you provide us who was arrested and provide us if they had a criminal history or if there are targeted. When they say targeted, it is very clever by using they have targeted. They have target areas. That means Central Avenue and South Boulevard. Let's make no mistake about it. Those our heavily Hispanic areas. So South Boulevard and Central Avenue. They targeted those areas. Who they took away We do not know to this day. They did not bring anybody to the Meccanberg County Detention Center. Solarzano, the attacker on the Friday incident on the light rail line. He came back at at an unknown time. Right. I don't even know if Customs and Border Patrol knew that this guy was back in the country. Cats did right, Cats knew his name right. And by the way, after this, the COMMS person said, no more questions about the attack, just focus on Arena's law. That's what we're talking about. That's what the point of this is. But did you catch what he said at the beginning there? They have hundreds of warrants, hundreds of outstanding warrants and in true form, not my fault. McFadden right says Customs and Border Patrol could have asked to work with us to clear out some of these warrants. Okay, well, are you saying that you have hundreds of warrants for criminal illegal aliens? Is that what you're saying? That you've released that many people out of the jail. Why do you have so many outstanding warrants? Do not have personnel to go get them to go serve these warrants? What are these warrants for? I don't think they're all for crimes. They could be civil warrants as well, right, I don't know, I have no idea. That's quite the admission there. And by the way, you could ask CBP and ICE to work with you on clearing out the warrants as well. You could try to initiate some sort of a joint task force or something to go out and serve the warrants. You could do that, but then you would be working with immigration officials and you've said you're not going to do that. Jennifer, Welcome to the show. Hello Jennifer, Hi. How are you hey? I'm good. What's going on? Okay? What's going on is this morning, I'm driving and I hear that these terrible stewards of money three point four million are going to make an AD camper. Correct, you know that's not going to make me feel safe. However, if you tell me that three point four million is going towards hiring security people who can use a gun on the trains, then I'd be riding the trail quicker than anything. But an AD campaign is not going to do it for me and probably nobody else. Yeah, that's I mean. And look, this is quite the unfortunate timing for the City Council to have this on their agenda. Their agendas are drawn up prior to Fridays, before the Monday meetings, so this was this contract was already up for their approval before the attack on the light rail. But yes, very unfortunate timing for them that now this is on their agenda and they approved it. It was part of the consent agenda three point four million for an AD campaign to make people feel safe on the transit line. So yeah, now, and the money could have been used for or could be used for other stuff. Jennifer, I appreciate the call. Let me get Richard on, Hey, Richard, I have about thirty five forty seconds for you. Richard, okay, compelling, and rich Ed says longtime listener. Okay, I'm not going to read that. Not going to read that. Yes, and poor taste. Can the service guy kind of a curious question about not my fault. Mcfatten just said that he's very concerned about anything that happens in his city, so much so he doesn't even know whether the guy was on the rail or not. Yes, he's very concerned about the things that he's not following very closely. Let me see here, twenty six stations on the Blue Line, seventeen active stations. How many stops? Okay, so I'm not sure why. I'm not sure why you sent me the image there, Chris, three million dollars divided by seventy five thousand equals forty armed trained guards slash officers, ticket collectors at all the stops. Oh, that's why he sent me the details. Yeah. So again, it's about prioritization and the local officials control that. 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 thepetecleanershow dot com. Again, thank you so much for listening, and don't break anything while I'm gone.