Getting mad at people who notice who is to blame for another Charlotte train stabbing (12-08-2025--Hour2)

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So WSOCTV reporting that Oscar Solarzano accused of stabbing a twenty four year old man in the chest on Friday near North Brevard Street and East twenty second Street on the light rail train. Investigators say he was drunk. He was yelling at people, threatening behavior. The twenty four year old victim told him to stop, shut up, sit down, leave people alone. In other words, to do the thing that you would want somebody to do. If some drunk, homeless guy is screaming at you your teenage daughter riding the train, you know you would want some guy to step in and say, dude, back off, sit down, you're annoying everybody. You're drunk, right, and so he then starts threatening the twenty four year old victim. The victim pushes uh Solarzano away from him because he said he he was in according to the DA that he had fear for his safety, so he pushes the guy off him. Solarzano falls over a chair one of the seats. He falls over it onto the ground, gets up, pulls out a knife and stabs the guy in the chest. He is reportedly in critical but stable condition according to Homeland Security. This guy, Solarzano, from Honduras, was deported in twenty eighteen. He was then arrested attempting to cross the border again in twenty twenty one, and then he entered illegally a for a third time, but we don't know when and at what location. Bill Malugin from Fox News. He said. Do Oscar Gerardo Solarzano, Garcia's full name. He was deported by the Biden administration and illegally re entered the US after that in an unknown time and location as a got away. He has prior convictions in the US for robbery and illegal re entry. He has had prior arrests in the US for aggravated battery with a deadly weapon, resisting arrest, and false ID. He's now charged with attempted murder for the stabbing and Demmigration Customs Enforcement has placed a detainer on him with local law enforcement in Charlotte. Katz Interim CEO Brent Cagel released a statement saying we are disappointed that a verbal altercation escalated to the point of a stabbing incident on the Blue Line train Friday evening. Through close collaboration with Kat's private security team PSS, as well as Charlotte Mclamurg Police, a suspect was apprehended swiftly following the incident. Since August, KATS, together with our partners, have taken a proactive and robust approach to keep employees and passengers as safe as possible by deploying additional off duty CMPD officers, private security personnel, new technology, and safety reporting tools. By the way, this attacker illegal criminal alien, repeat offender, repeat enterer into the country illegally twice deported, also did not pay the fare, so a fair jumper. Once again. Violence has no place in our community, Cagle says, including on public transit. Individuals who believe public transit can be used as an area to settle grievances through violent altercations are not welcome on our system. Oh oh, well, that explains it. Why didn't we say this earlier? Now, this makes sense. Wait, you're not supposed to use the trains to settle our beefs oh man, We should have, man, we should have publicized that a long time ago. That would have that would have probably prevented all of the attacks. Right, the bus attack that left a veteran paralyzed, the other bus attack, the murder of Arena Zarutska, right, all of the remember the guy that shot into the into the bus against the bus driver. Maybe we need more advertising for this cats. It's not for settling beefs something like that, like a big marketing campaign painted on the side of the buses and everything, have signs. Leave your beef at the door, something like that. We will continue to work with our partners at CMPD as well as our private security team to ensure everyone rides appropriately on public transit. We will not compromise on the safety of our customers and employees. I got on the text line here, which is seven oh four five seven eleven ten text line driven by Liberty Buick GMC. Was Yeah, Stan. Pete, wouldn't it be interesting to discover that the illegal immigrant who committed the recent stabbing was on the list of criminals to be apprehended by border patrol when they were here in Charlotte, but may have been able to escape detection because of the anti ICE protesters who had alerted him that federal agents were in the area. See here's the thing when democrats and media, but I repeat myself, when they were out there, you know, standing with immigrants, opposing ICE, opposing customs and border patrol opposing Charlotte's Web the operation, right, they think of what they were doing only in terms of the peaceful you know, gardener or or housekeeper or nanny. Right, and she's living in the shadows, and she's an illegal immigrant, but she came here for a better life than all of that. Right, That's who they pictured themselves protecting. That's the only image that they have in their minds. They don't realize, or they choose to ignore, that they are also protecting some pretty nasty people because they are under your umbrella of whatever protection you're providing. When you're sending out alerts to the neighborhood saying, oh, I see ice in the neighborhood. You know, bad guys also see that, and now they can evade capture. The Charlotte Observer editorial board another rail stabbing in Charlotte. Did our leaders learn from the last? No? Okay, no, that's the answer to your headline question. No. But they start their editorial who's to blame for the latest stabbing on a Charlotte light rail train. As you might imagine, it's not difficult to find pointed fingers. So here's the Observer asking who's to blame and then sort of dismissing people's answer for who to blame? Okay, now, the person to blame for the stabbing is the stabber, Okay, it's it's the illegal immigrant, the illegal alien Salarzano. He's to blame, but he was aided and debeted by a whole lot of other people. Right they are, they may share some blame, but I detect a sense of like, we shouldn't be casting blame at these people, and then kind of like denigrating anybody who is assigning any modicum of blame to anybody other than the attacker. Which is interesting because the question of who's to blame this was the guiding question for the. Charlotte Observer for years. The Charlotte Observer news department ordered and all of their coverage around this question of who's to blame, Who's to blame, Who's to blame. I'd be surprised if they still aren't doing that. Everything gets filtered through that lens Who's to blame for this thing? US Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy wasted little time assigning responsibility for the incident, and it was into thirty three year old undocumented immigrant Oscar Solarzano of Honduras, who was arrested and charged with attempted first degree murder and other offenses. No, Duffy wrote on Twitter, what is it going to take for Charlotte Mayer to remove violent criminals off the streets and protect her constituents? The time to act is now. Yeah. Well, are you. Saying that elected leadership bears no responsibility for policies that allow criminals to constantly go through our catch and release turnstile criminal justice system. Of course they do, of course they do. Look, I know also that the mayor doesn't have any direct authority over the court system. No. However, she has the bully pulpit. She has not utilized that against this catch and release turnstile system. So yeah, there's a little bit of blame to go around for her, absolutely, But there are a lot of others too. I don't want to restrict it just to the mayor. There's a lot of other people that are to blame. 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 Mint 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. The trusted, talented and dedicated team at Creative Video will go over all of the details with you to create a perfect project. Satisfaction guaranteed. Drop them off in person or mail them. They'll be ready in a week or two. Memorial videos for your loved ones, videos for rehearsal, dinners, weddings, graduations, Christmas, family vacations, birthdays, or just your family stories, all told through images. That's what your photos and videos are. 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. Let me get Richard on the program. Hello Richard, welcome to the show. Hey, how you going? Hey good? This is so frustrating, I mean coming, I grew up in the Bronx, was a cop in the Bronx, and. I would have never guessed you came from the Bronx. Let me tell you no, my dad's from the Bronx. I recognize that accent anywhere. I'm very acquainted with the Boogeyman. Now, people in the military that've seen action, they've seen the Boogeyman too. These people in power, they live in a goblin the gook fantasy world of having a rail system that anybody, anybody with a pulse, can get on, and the poor people who are actually paying paying taxes become the collateral damage of these people who have never seen the Boogeyman. They don't understand the boogeyman is the guy with the knife. They don't and he gets on, and there's nobody in government to protect the innocent girl who's coming from work or that guy who's coming from work, and they have to They don't have a choice, and. They don't have any means to will, and they don't have any means to defend themselves, right because they're not allowed to carry, they're not allowed to conceal carry on the train exactly. So if the government is not capable of protecting you on this rail system, then you have no choice but to save yourself. And that's the way we're going here. So who do I blame. I blame everybody that keeps voting for these people who live in the fantasy world and make these crazy policies and build a rail system that anybody can get onto. That's a fair point, Richard. I appreciate the call, sir, good hear from you. Thank you also for your service too. I got a message from Mark Garrison, the news director here at WBT. He finally got a response from CATS. He was asking Charlotte Area Transit whether security was on the train or not, and the response from CATS is quote that is part of the ongoing investigation between cat's Security and CMPD, as we shared over the weekend. CMPD and CAT security responded swiftly and the suspect was taken into custody nearby. End quote. Okay, so the question is was there any security or police on the train? And that's their response, which is obviously no. No, there wasn't any security on the train. You know how I know that. Because there wasn't any security that intervened in the behavior of the suspect. The guy was drunk and walking all around and accosting people, threatening people and all of this, and nobody intervened, prompting this citizen to have to intervene and get stabbed in the chest for his efforts. That's how I know there's no security on there. Although actually, now that I'm seeing this man, that would be even worse if there was security on the train, wouldn't it. That would be even worse, because then what's the point if you've actually got a security guard on the train. And this happened, as we are told it happened, this. Argument and. The physical nature of the argument as it escalates and gets out of control and like, and if there was a security guard on the train, then that would be way worse, because that then makes you wonder, well, what's the point of having security on the trains if they're not even going to intervene in this stuff? See cats, This is like, this should be a pretty easy thing to decipher. Whether there was somebody on the train. Was there a security guard on the train? Did anybody anybody in your employment say, hey, I saw the whole thing, let me give you a statement. No, probably not, or else you probably would have already released that information, I would assume. So I'm guessing there wasn't security on the train, as indicated by the fact that they say they swiftly responded and take and the guy was taken into custody nearby. Why nearby? Because he got off the train, which once again I would think a security officer would have prevented that from occurring, or would have arrested him immediately as he's running around drunk, yelling at people, and definitely after stabbing somebody, unless, of course, we're paying for ineffectual security on the trains, which that. Would be worse. 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. So I think, really. The scandal after the latest stabbing on a light rail car in Charlotte, the Blue Line once again, just what three and a half months after the murder of Arena Zarutzka, I think the real scandal here is the Republicans who are noticing that there's a problem. That's really who's to blame for all of this attention? I think that's really the story. Who's to blame the Charlotte Observer editorial board. Who's to blame for the latest stab Well, the mayor, the council, city manager, the county commissioners, county manager, Democrat voters, the interim chief of cats PSS security firm, the courts, all the judges and magistrates, the sheriff definitely, Gary not my fault, McFadden. They all bear some responsibility here. People who have been arguing against their policies. We do not bear any blame here. We have been saying, you guys are doing this wrong, your policies and your turnstile catch and release system at the courthouse. It's not making anybody safer. In fact, it's doing the opposite. But the real problem here, according to the Observer Editorial Board, is that Republicans have noticed that Democrat runs cities don't do a particularly good job of keeping their citizens safe. They prioritize different things if they're not outright defunding the police departments and such, they point out. Donald Trump quickly joined in a Saturday statement issued by the White House included this from the President quote another stabbing by an illegal migrant in Charlotte. What's going on in Charlotte. Democrats are destroying it like everything else. Peace by peace. A US Department of Homeland Security statement Saturday confirmed that the attacker on the train had prior arrests for aggravated battery with a deadly weapon, destroying evidence, resisting arrest, and using a false ID. He had been convicted of robbery and illegal re entry as well. He's been deported twice. Don't know when he came in the third time. Don't know if he's if he was ever arrested after that third re entry. Mayor Lyles, for her part, did a bit of redirecting after reminding Charlotte tians that the city recently has quote invested heavily in increasing security on our transit system and CMPD has been proactive in increasing its presence across our city. She noted that there are several aspects of public policy that are outside of the city's jurisdiction, including immigration policy and enforcement, and technically. That is true. However, the mayor has the bully pulpit. The mayor can call out judges. They would be of her own political party, so that might explain why she has refused to do so. But that's one way that she could help is to publicly name and shame judges the sheriff right for doing things that undermine public safety. The editorial Board says, had Lyles wanted to lean in on that. She also could have noted that Trump's reckless Operation Charlotte's Web might have snagged more criminals like this attacker, but only had Border Patrol and ICE agents not spent their time haphazardly grabbing non criminals off our city streets. Okay, let's run this through. Let's game this one out, shall we. Okay? All right? Where would you have found this guy? He did not have a house. His address is listed as a roof above a homeless center. So what would your coverage have looked like? What would your social media feeds have looked like? Had Customs and Border Patrol agents raided a homeless shelter? Am I to believe that you would have no problem with them doing that if they even were permitted to actually go on to the premises in the first place, which I don't believe they. Are allowed to do that. So you want me to believe that after witnessing the coverage, the tone of the coverage, the story selection that I saw during Operation Charlotte's Web, you expect me to believe that this kind of an operation where they would have like gone into a homeless center or hung around outside of a homeless center waiting for this guy to come out so they could pick him up. You want me to believe that you would have treated that as a completely appropriate op. I don't believe you. I do not believe you, observer, Sorry, I don't You guys would have lamented, Oh my gosh, these are most vulnerable people in the community. They're unhoused, they're experiencing unhousedness or whatever phrase you want to use, instead of saying homeless. Now, that's the way you guys would have covered this. You would have had protesters out at the homeless center, you know, creating a human wall around the doors or something to prevent anybody from getting deported. Ultimately, the editorial board says, Ultimately, the finger pointing avoids a larger truth about Friday's stabbing. The finger pointing avoids a larger truth. What's the larger truth? Let's see, it was a crime committed on a transit system with persistent safety problems, in a city with continuing crime issues, in a country that faces complicated challenges involving illegal immigration. Yes, that is what Republicans have been saying for darn near three decades. Yes, this is what we have been saying you sound you guys are sounding kind of trumpion right there. That's the larger issue. This is the larger truth that the transit system has persistent safety problems, the city has crime issues, the country faces complicated challenges involving illegal immigration. Yeah. Yes, and the way you guys have the way you guys have been handling these challenges has been lacking, shall we say, they say? What we can best hope for moving forward is that there will be lessons learned. I'm not really sure what those lessons are, but they are actually more troubled by the response from the Cat's interim CEO, Brent Kagel. 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 pod cast 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. Got a message on the WBT text line from Robert who says a church I used to work for told us that if ICE came looking for undocumented employees, to take the illegal aliens, to take them to the tunnel under the church and hide them. Right. See, this is what I mean the observed now making these calls for you know you need to only be going after the criminal illegal aliens. Those are the targeted ones that we totally support you doing something about now right. These are the same people that you know vilified the two eighty seven g program, which simply identified people that came to the jail, so you already had to have done something to get yourself arrested. Then you get into the jail and the two eighty seven G program allows the jail to identify who you actually are, and then if you are in the country illegally, then they could turn you over to ICE for deportation. But you guys didn't want to do that. Gary McFadden ran a campaign in twenty eighteen, as did other sheriffs around the state. They ran a campaign saying they don't want to cooperate with ICE on this stuff. They scrapped their two eighty seven G participation. They said they don't have to tell ICE who who's in their jail. They're not going to notify ICE to come get somebody who bails out. They're not going to help. And everybody seemed to think that was a perfectly acceptable way to govern. But the editorial board at The Observer says we are more troubled by the response from the Charlotte Area Transit Authority. While kat's interim CEO Brent Kagel noted that KATZ has taken substantial measures on safety since August, including deploying additional CMPD officers and Private Security spokesperson Bret Baldick did not directly answer observer questions Saturday about how many security staff were on board the Blue Line at the time of the stabbing, nor about system wide staffing levels. A similar lack of transparency dogged Cats and the city after Arena Zurutzka's murder in August. It is quite simply not how you restore public trust. Well, well, that's because we already voted for their sales tax you see. It doesn't now it's not They don't feel quite the same amount of pressure, you know, because in August they were looking at this referendum that they needed to pass to raise everybody's sales taxes. And now they won the tax increase. So now they'll just keep behaving in ways that you know, shut you out and are not transparent and all of that. It's almost like, maybe we shouldn't have rewarded them for their past performance with more revenue. But whatever, I lost that fight. They then conclude their peace because they've got to I mean, because it's got to be about Trump. This is the problem. See, when when you allow Donald Trump to be the lens through which you view all things, right, You make this story about something other than what it is. This is local failure, Okay, these are local policies, and you want to bring Trump into it because he tweeted something, because that's how you view all of the stories is through Trump. And you know your audience in the observer, you know, subscriber base, what's left of it. You know they want the anti Trump stuff. That's the only explanation I can figure out for why you would pull Trump into this issue just because he sent out a tweet saying, what the hell is happening in Charlotte? Another light rail stabbing? They say, as for the Trump administration, we're under no illusion that the stabbing will be a reminder of illegal immigration's complexities, or that Solarzano, the suspect, will be a reminder of whom his administration should actually be targeting. They are actually targeting criminal illegal aliens. But here's the thing. There are a lot of illegal aliens. There's like millions of them, literally millions of them. Okay, so yes, they are targeting criminal illegal aliens, and if they find others, then they're gonna get scooped up to That's what they're gonna do. That's what they're doing, and you guys are complaining about that too. Trump wants to deliver blame and he will do so at every opportunity in blue cities like Charlotte. But Charlotte Teans don't want or need blame in the wake of this latest transit incident. We want accountability from all. Okay, how about y'all start with yourselves? How about that? Why not start with yourselves? How about y'all look in the mirror and think about what role you may have played in creating the environment that we are now in. Right, surely the paper of record, right, the voice of the Charlotte community. Surely you guys have exerted influence in public debate about transit and about policing safety. Right, do y'all bear any responsibility? Do you have any accountability for any roles you may have played? All right, that'll do it for this episode. Thank you so much for listening. I could not do the show without your support and the support of the businesses that advertise on the podcast, So if you'd like, please support them too and tell them you heard it here. You can also become a patron at my Patreon page or go to dpetecleanershow dot com again, thank you so much for listening, and don't break anything while I'm gone.