Fighting against the rise of trash mobs | Hour 1

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 thepeakclendershow dot com. Make sure you hit the subscribe button, get every episode for free, write to your smartphone or tablet, and again, thank you so much for your support. Andrew Dunn. He is the publisher of long Leave Politics. Longleafpol dot com is the website and podcast you can subscribe to. He's also a contributing columnist over at The Charlotte Observer. Andrew, how are you, sir? I'm great, except I can't get that cars for Kids jingle out of my head. Now you're welcome, You're welcome for that. It's our uh, it's our public service to you. I appreciate it. Yeah. So you are apparently on a g had against the term teen takeover. I mean, according to this piece you wrote for The Charlotte Observer, not a fan of the teen takeover term? What's up with the what's up with this team takeover? Phobia? That you've got. Yeah, So if any of your listeners haven't heard it, A team takeover basically refers to a large, large group of mostly young people congregating in a certain area, whether it's downtown, Charlotte, University, City, boardwalk, et cetera, and generally causing some mayhem. There's been lots of fights, lots of even some shootings, and guns recovered from these events. Well, my problem with using the word teen takeover for that is that it makes it sound like it's like a nineteen fifties pop song or you know, the movie Footloose. These are just kids who want to go out and dance, and the adults want them to get them home before dark. But that's not really what's happening here. I mean, these are you know, you could call them riots, and in some cases, especially one in Raleigh, people did get arrested for rioting here. So I think it's it's well pastime to retire the name team takeover and use better terms for what's really happening. Have you been work shopping any replacement names? Anything strike your fancy? No? I mean, in some cases you should call them riots, but I think, you know, unlawful gatherings might be one. I don't know. You're you're the guy who comes up with all the good names. I saw the sign in your studio for votainer. Yes, which still hasn't that's that. I don't know if this is actually making your point. I've been lobbying for votainer to become a widespread term, and I've been doing that for like a decade, So I don't know if I'm actually the best standard bearer for this campaign. I mean, I like the word mob it kind of yeah, because I mean it is a it's a mob, so like, you know, don't don't let the mob rule, you don't follow the mob. But also mob is like a criminal enterprise as well, So mob sounds like a pretty good word. But there I feel like there should be something like a descriptor, you know, in front of the word mob, preferably that begins with the letter M, so so it can be alliterative. You know that those usually work best. Because I was thinking like, maybe, yeah, like an anti social mob. Yeah, I think that's a good idea because the other point is these aren't just teams necessarily, And the Raleigh event, I think nineteen adults ended up getting charged. Now maybe they're eighteen or nineteen, but still, you know, we're not talking about a bunch of young kids here. Right, So teen takeover not all teens, and it's not really a takeover when you get a bunch of shooting that occurs, so. Exactly right, And that's why I think that, you know, I think curfews are good. And you know, we talked months go about Charlotte needing to revive its curfew, and I'm glad that they're finally moving in that direction, and other cities are starting to adopt them. But I don't think a pure youth curfew is gonna be enough to disrupt these things. How about midnight pickleball? Now? I mean, yes, I mean that's kind of the standard response you get from folks who are more sympathetic to this is that, oh, well, you just need more places to hang out, they need a third space. But you know, my opinion is is that you know, a kid's place after dark is in the home, you know, or over at a friend's house having a sleepover. I mean, I never, as a teenager felt the need to spend all night cousin rucus. Yeah, maybe you did, all right, Like, Okay, look we are not here to dredge up like my record here, my past, I mean, but that didn't come and tell. I mean, I was in high school at the time, and the mob that I old with we were like three people, you know, four people, and I think the extent of our our mob activity was we would take bars of soap and right force sale on car windshields parked on the side of the road. So like that. Yeah, yeah, I mean that's I mean, it's kind of harmless pranks, that kind of stuff. And I do not endorse that these were grave mistakes I made as a child, that youthful indiscretions. People should not should not take that as advice, But I think it speaks to actually a larger issue with you know, this whole anti social mob activity is and the response I think really is and you mentioned this in your piece. You talk about prosecutors and judges also then have to follow through. And I think that is the real issue because we are we are in a world now, in a society I should say that is no longer a high trust society. We have lost some of that trust. I don't know if we are at you know, low trust status. Maybe we're like middle high status or something. But as we lose more and more of that social bond, that social trust, and we don't share some of the same ideas of what's acceptable behavior and what is not in public, then you're going to have to rely more and more on the carceral state, right like in all of its different permutations, whether it's you know, giving tickets or its arrests or whatever. Like you you have to rely more on the government interventions because people aren't self policing. And in your piece you call on you know, parents need to do more, but they but they don't, they are refusing to do so. Yeah, I think you're exactly right. And yes, this is fundamentally a parenting issue and parents should be able to put a stop to it. But you know, in the absence of that, I don't really see any other realistic option rather than relying on policing. Yeah. Well, and you say that in your piece, when parenting fails, policing must be the second line of defense. And yeah, and in a lot of case, I think more and more and more parenting is failing, and not just that you then have as this backstop when it gets to the policing stage. You don't have the follow through from courts and from prosecutors who oftentimes, you know, say we'll look at these kids and say, oh, well, you're the victim of whatever society, you know, the institutions or whatever. And so then they just they don't get any punishment, and so then they are free to go back out. They don't learn any lessons with that. So I, yeah, I don't know, because like you're asking people who have a political philosophy that doesn't allow for the second line to take effect either. And I don't know if there's a third Yeah. I'm not sure either. But you just gave me a great idea for my follow up column. I need to track what actually happens with these cases and see what kind of punishments they get. Yeah, that would be interesting. And I from what I understand, you can actually get the data. I had let's just say, a member of the local court system, well former member of the local court system, who showed me that they do track the data by judges as to the Yeah, how the I forget, I forget where it comes out of, but they do know the judges and like the kinds of sentences and stuff that they hand down. And this person again, this was a while ago, years ago, they said that that judges that get too harsh on crime get moved by the chief judge. They get moved out of the criminal divisions. So wow, yeah, yeah, and this person would know. That's all I'm gonna say. All right, let me move on to the next piece. You've got over it long. That was, by the way, a piece at the Charlotte Observer called Team Takeover is too cute a name for what NC faces. The second piece I wanted to ask you about was odd year elections? Is this idea dead man walking? Yeah? So what started this was yesterday State Auditor Dave Bollock put out a report, pretty simple report though it was lengthy, with a lot of spreadsheets and whatnot, basically asking the question how much do odd year elections cost municipalities in North Carolina. You know, Charlotte for a long time has done its city wise, you know, city elections in odd numbered years. A lot of towns around the state do it that way where your local government positions are really the only thing on the ballot. And you know, the answer is pretty straightforward. It was something like eight million dollars across the state, which you know, is a lot of money, but it's also not a lot of money, if you know what I'm saying. Yeah, But the more interesting question to me was, well, where does this come from? Why is the state auditor looking into this or writing about this? And my hunch is there may be a move afoot in North Carolina to move more cities to even year elections. And you know, that's debatable whether it's good or bad. I know that you and I may disagree. I'm not sure. I kind of like preserving odd year elections because it lets even though there's low, low turnout, it really lets local issues come to the forefront in a way that they just wouldn't in a midterm congressional election cycle. Yeah. No, I think there are pros and cons Like, I can see both sides of that argument. You get higher turnout in an even number year, but that local issues, local candidates, they get drowned out by all of the national and statewide stuff to a lesser degree, but still so, yeah, I can see both sides of that. I wonder if they, if the state legislature is going to if they are in fact going to make a push for the elimination of odd number of years do they also eliminate the non partisan status on some of these races. I know Charlotte has, you know, partisan elections for city council, a lot of other jurisdictions don't. And yeah, I just I wonder do. They has already been moving in that direction for a while. I mean, it's kind of piecemeal over the last couple of years, been moving more towns. The city of Monroe comes to mind, where it got moved from odd to even years and they went partisan. You know, most people when they look at this, they view it in terms of, well, who's going to get the advantage here? And I'm not discounting that that may weigh into the minds of the General Assembly. I'm more focused on what, you know, what what is the good government solution? And I think to your point, there are pros and cons to both ways. Yeah, all right. So, and also you say that this could have just been for informational purposes, but it's Dave Bullock and his name is being floated for a potential run for governor, and so people are obviously going to look at this in it through a political lens. Now. Exactly. I mean, I would even say that auditor Bollock is probably the most highly scrutinized public official in North Carolina, and I think that's fine to a large extent. I mean, he's a Council of State member and should be scrutinized. But I would just like to see Governor Josh Stein get that same level of scrutiny. You you think that's going to happen. That's so we have a submission for the name of the Team Takeovers to be changed to, Oh, we've got a couple here Mayhem meetups, minor Mayhem or motor Mayhem. So somebody's Michael's really keing on the mayhem component. I just don't want to make it sound too cool, you know. Yeah. That's the other thing too. You don't want to you don't want to name it something. So then the teens are like, oh, we like this name better, you know, like team Chaos. Yeah, and then they started like making T shirts or bumper stickers with Chaos ons. You gotta make it sound really lame, yes, workshop on. Yeah, there you go. All right, Andrew Dunn, thanks for your time, brother, appreciate it as always. You can read his work at long leafpol dot com and occasionally over at the Charlotte Observer as well. Thanks Andrew, thank you all right? See him? Oh boy, Yeah, try to stay with the alliterations. I'm a big fan of like the something mob and see if you can keep the word mob in it because it does convey the criminality involved. All right. For over a year now you've heard me talking about Create a Video. Great local company in mint Hill that has helped more than two million families preserve their memories by turning old photos, VHS tapes, film reels and slides into lasting keepsakes. Now creative videos helping families and groups create brand new memories while they're traveling. 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Check out group travel Videos dot com. That's group travel Videos dot com. Or call seven oh four eight four six seventy eight seventy extension two o six. And when you do that ask for Katie. But Pete, can I just email? Well, yes you can. You can email Katie Katie at group travel videos dot com. Group travel videos from old memories to new adventures, preserving life's moments for a lifetime. Some of you people are abusing the text line. Okay, if I can't say it on the radio, you should not be texting it to me. Okay, So let's just think that through. I appreciate. Look, there are no bad ideas under the cone of creativity. I always say that, and that is true. It is also true that saying some of these things will jeopardize the FCC license. So I'm not going to do it, Okay, thank you, Okay, not going to read that one. A lot of people king on the word mayhem. I've noticed mayhem mobs or rambling riots. That one comes from Paul. This one I do like from nine to eight zero number instead of calling them teen takeovers. How about puberty parties. I do like that one because it is kind of insulting too, you know, it's not cool. Sticking with the mob theme, how about a motley mob? Says Todd Alex called in earlier during the break, suggested menacing mob. Mike says, unsupervised daycare, but it would be nightcare. Unsupervised nightcare. Juvenile mayhem, immature adolescence, juvenile foolishness. That's from John Minor mobs their kids, but they're not all teenagers. That's the problem. Makeshift mobsters, h the mob of dumb assery. That's a good one. Who are just dumb asses? You know? How about moron minor modulation? That's too much, too much, he went too far, But I did like one of the words, and I'm going to incorporate it for my own, which would be a moron mob. How about that? Because obviously y'all are morons, and you're a mob of morons, so that might work. I do like this idea from Kevin on the text line who called it a trash mob, which is not alliterative, but it does play off of the flash mob. This would be trash mob and it's insulting, so it's a twofer, you know. I like it trash mob. Marie says, can we call it mob fatigue? Uh? Yeah, uh, thug throwdowns or mob meles? It's another idea. MM again FCC people. Gary in Salisbury says the new name for teen Takeover must include an indication of being organized. These are obviously not spontaneous in nature, but highly organized, and they are. They are organized on social media. So somebody says we're going to meet up here, and that's what that's what they call them meetups or something like that. Ooh, mob meetups anyway, so they they send out the location and then you know, thousands of people show up and just start shooting each other. So it's sort of Darwinian. Maybe we could work that in. Yeah, I'm reminded. I think it was the Far Side cartoon comic strip where it's like a guy peering over the edge of a cliff and then they and there's a sign and it says like Darwin's Cliff and there's an arrow pointing down and there's a guy like leaning over peering over it. You know. So Gary proposes mobile organized bedlam or mob. See, the thing is if you make it too cool, I know, like that we're walking a line not to be all don Draper here, but we're like walking a line here where we don't want to make it too cool where they then merchandise the smear to channel Nancy Pelosi there. We don't want to merchandise the smear. We don't want them to be able to be like, oh that sounds cool. So we're gonna we're gonna start calling ourselves this thing, and they're gonna make T shirts, they're gonna make stickers and put them on their cars. Decal like you don't want you don't want to make it too although maybe there's something there like the like Andrew mentioned, you know, when you're talking about these teen takeovers that they're not they're not some quaint footloose kind of like the movie Footloose where you know, we just want to dance, you know, and the parents don't want any music or dancing in the town and that sort of thing. What was the guy's name, John Liftgow. Maybe we just call them liftgows. That's the gathering. It's called a lift gow mm hmm. Yeah. Chris, the troll on the text line says, can you mentioned? What is? Wait? Okay? Sorry? Can you? So he messed up on the I guess this is voice to text again. People. I I beg of you. Please proofread the text before you send it to me. Okay. So Chris, who is a troll, says you mentioned? Can you mention what is wrong with the teen takeovers? Yeah? Mainly it's the shooting, you know, like these these trash mobs that all gather by the thousands, and as Andrew Dunn wrote about in the piece at the Charlotte Observer. He talked about several of these takeovers. For example, in Raleigh July fourth weekend, police Chief Rico Boyce estimated that eight thousand young people eventually crowded into downtown. Six shootings connected to the unrest nine people wounded, Police recovered eleven firearms. Twenty nine adults were arrested, alongside several juveniles. Multiple defendants now face felony riot charges. At that point, the term teen takeover collapses under the weight of its own facts. How much of a teen event is it when dozens of the people arrested are adults, And how much does takeover sanitize a night featuring six shootings and nearly a dozen recovered guns right when the takeover and we've seen these up in Birkdale Village, right, Remember a couple of months ago we got the viral video footage of hundreds of people that were just like pouring out into the streets. They stop traffic, they jump on cars, right, they scare people. That's what they're doing. They are they are, they are intimidating. That's the point. The point is to induce intimidation, fear in uh in the people around the businesses around these where these mobs assemble. That's the point. So if you're going to behave in a manner that is specifically designed to induce a reaction, I'm not going to apologize for having the reaction you induced. That's the point. Right. So this is again once again people on the left, this is Chris on the text line pretending not to understand the thing that you're talking about. In order to avoid having to discuss any solutions or the merits of it, like the this is so so much of the problem is that we waste so much time with people on the left that pretend not to know what we're talking about. And that's what Chris just did. But thank you for the example. Bain suggests future inmates. Oh, there was another idea, a pre trial party. Maybe we could call them that pre trial parties, because that's probably what's happening. I mean for some of the people, that is what's happening. Speaking of these puberty parties, have you seen this new thing, this new viral sensation that the utes are doing where they ride their bicycles with their their they pop a wheelie and they ride and they they swerve through crowds and they like almost hit pedestrians trying to like scare everybody and almost hit them and stuff. I'm thinking about carrying a cane. They're just not going to carry a cane from now on, just in case I walk, Like if I'm walking around uptown, especially like not my neighborhood, It's not going to happen in my neighborhood because you know, there's lots of room to ride around. They tend to do it in like urban core business districts and stuff where you get a lot of foot traffic, and so they can scare a lot of people and almost you know, injure a lot of people. So with this like riding around on the wheelie and like swerving into people and cars and stuff. If I'm carrying a cane, I have I have this idea that maybe like as they approach, I just stick the cane out. I could just like point it forward and that would clear the distance from their bike and it would like it would stick them and knock them off the bike. And then I can just go like all you know, you know, nineteen hundred or eighteen hundred's US senator just just beat them like I'm on the floor of the US Senate during a Civil War debate something like that. I'm not recommending people do this. I'm just pointing out that in a lower trust society, these types of measures become more prevalent because we are no longer sharing a common set of norms. Tony, Welcome to the program. Hello, Tony, Hey Pete. How are you. I know we're spoken quite a few times in the past. My priors are experience in law enforcement and dealing with these types of situations, and I appreciate your addresses like you are. You know, the teens takeover thing is as a sanitation danatization of what really takes place a lot of the times. And yeah, they may be teen in name, but a lot of them are eighteen nineteen, almost twenty years old. Caused these problems. Yeah, and once, anytime you have a large crowd of people, regardless of age, you know, there is always going to be potential for violence there. And back quite a bit, you know, when we had to disperse crowds like this for the most part of it, but it was starting to disperse, you'd have a handful of mouth. Sometimes we'd want to get a little pushy, you know, and have something to say to you. But quite often those back in ten years fifteen years ago, the crowds sometimes would police themselves and be like, hey, we're getting out of here. Just shut your mouth and let's go. Now. With how prevalent they are to just fight anything, the increased opportunity for violence there, especially when laur En posment shows up, it makes you situations that much worse and not much more dangerous. Not only for responding officers, but also for the general public. Like you said, yeah, and you've introduced, you know, all of the cell phone cameras into the situation and the desire to be famous and go viral and get a lot of likes and get the dopamine hits in the brain for your video of you trash talk and a cop and look at me. I'm so tough in all of this. Or maybe the cop you know, arrests you and maybe you kind of resist just a teenc ween see bit, Now the cop has to use force to bring you into custody, and now you can sue because I got a viral video out of it. Yeah, there are all sorts of perverse incentives at play in this situation. And then they want to emphasize on maybe counting the number of punches or something strikes that take place in order to subduce somebody. You have a duty to. Oblige. What law will gives you a lawful orders? Well, have you heard state law? Have you heard of the thing that there's a belief that you have a right to resist? Have you heard this? Yes? I have, yeah law. Every law enforcement officer I've ever spoken with, they all know exactly what I'm talking about when I say that is that there is a belief that people have the quote right to resist, and that's why you see so much of it. It's becoming more and more prevalent because this idea has spread that any kind of interaction with law enforcement, I have a quote right to resist. And that's what escalates a lot of this stuff, unfortunately. And you see it all the time with these videos that pop up when simple car traffic stops. Yeah, you know where. Just maybe starts out at a simple traffic stop, yet the person chooses to escalate it to the point where com physical confrontation takes place. Yeah, hey, Tony, appreciate the call, buddy. I didn't start my whole career for that, you know, No, I. Got you, I understand. I appreciate your service too, Thanks Tony Man sia uh. We got to do news next. Then I'm going to move to another round of the Fauci Diaries. 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.