Light rail attacker was previously found with a knife... and let go (12-10-2025--Hour1)

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 vpeaklendershow 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 righty, so we have some more details in the latest stabbing on Charlotte's light rail train. And I was thinking about this because the story has gotten now some national attention, not as much as the Arena Zarutzka murder did, but there has been national attention once again on Charlotte for another act of violence on the light rail line. And there really are so much any different aspects to the story. It's a confluence of Joe Biden's immigration policies, this radical open borders belief among a lot of the radical left, soft on crime policies at the local level, but also espoused by the radical left, and not even the radical left, a lot of just quote unquote moderate or you know, mainstream Democrat politicians, maybe because they're too afraid to cross that radical left base. I don't know all of the you know, quote unquote reforms since the summer of fiery but mostly peaceful riots. There's the confluence of budget prioritization, right, that's part of this story. We talked about that yesterday with the you know, the Mechlenberg Can Sheriff Gary not my fault McFadden crying about how Arena's law is going to put all sorts of pressure on the jail because he's going to have all you know, more people waiting for their court appearances because they're not going to be able to just release them back out in their catch and release turnstile system of justice that they have been meeting out for about twenty years. Which is another angle, right, single party control. Oh but one last thing on the budget angle, which is that you know, whatever staffing and capacity issues the jail has, the sheriff has, it's because of budget decisions and prioritization that county commissioners have made and the sheriff has made. That's on them. They've been going down this path for twenty years. They don't want to build new jails, right, they close jail North, they mothballed expansion of the jail. So these are their priorities. I keep hammering away. They spend more money out of their budget at the county level on parks and rec than they do public safety. That's a budget priority for them. And now they're going to have to be forced to re examine their priorities, as they should, you know, because when conservatives and Republicans pointed out that your primary role as a government is to provide public safety, have an operational and legitimate court system, right, that's the core service, that's the highest priority. That is, that is the primary reason for government to exist in the first place. Everything else is secondary, because otherwise there's no reason why I would trade all the liberty and money that I trade. I don't trade that for parks. I don't trade liberty for maintaining government facilities. I don't trade it for education funding. I don't. Right, all of those things can be taken care of in the private sector. And indeed, there are you know, some anarchists out there, And I don't mean like violent Antifah type people. I'm saying, like, you know people who are like no, no, no, like radical libertarian anarchists kind of folks who who think we should just get rid of all of the police force all together and just have private security. That is, and that is the most radical position. Obviously I don't adhere to that, but that's the reason why societies order themselves. It's to provide for the common defense, primarily first and foremost. And if you can't fulfill your end of this contract, then the contract is null and your tyranny. So they've lost sight of that. Another angle, single party control of a local government. Right. This is also what happens when you don't have any of the voices expressing what I just expressed. You have nobody else making that argument. In these rooms, it's a blind spot. They are working off of certain ideological and partisan assumptions and they're never challenged on them. And as I always say, unchallenged ideas are easy to hold. And there's also you know, part of the problem is the fact that they are democrats, and their response when it comes to budgets is, you know, see a penny, spend a penny, But it's also to throw more money at a problem rather than fix the actual problem. And I'm going to get into this hopefully later in the show. With regard to Obamacare, their answer is always just more money, even when there's waste, fraud, and abuse. And you would think that the people who espouse these programs to help the least among us, you would think they would be the biggest hawks for every single penny spin because every penny that's diverted to waste or fraud is a penny that doesn't go to the least among us, the very people that the Left claims to care about, but they don't seem to care when the money gets siphoned off. So that's another angle, is a single party control. And then of course there is the local efforts at nullification of federal law. And that's what this story is about. Headline in the Charlotte Observer, Charlotte light rail suspect had knife on platform months earlier. Records say so. The man who is accused of stabbing another man on a Charlotte light rail train on Friday had been previously charged but not jailed, back in October, so that would be two months after the murder of Arena Zerutzka. He had a large knife on katz property, according to your records, raising more questions about how the city is ensuring that its train system is safe. So think about this, right, Zerutska is murdered on the train, and then six weeks later, and by this point, the story's gone viral, the video is out, International news is covering this story. Even the mayor is forced to finally give some sort of a statement that's not you know, how did we fail the attacker? Six weeks after Arena Zerutzka's murder, this guy is on a platform on the light rail line with a large knife. What would you do in that situation? It wasn't a cop that responded no, no, This was just Katz's private security firm pss Oscar Solarzano, thirty three years old, was arrested on October eighth at six oh four pm on light rail property at eighty three twelve North Trion Street the mccaullis station, charged with misdemeanor carrying a concealed weapon. That's according to a police report and a citation filed in court. Now I'm unclear because it says here in the Charlotte Observer story that Solarzano was arrested. There was a police report, there was a citation filed in court. The charge was issued by a security guard, not a Charlotte police officer. So when you say he was arrested, does that just mean like a citation technically counts as an arrest, that he was never taken into custody. We heard from the sheriff that they have no record of him ever going through Mecklenburg County Detention Center, So he was not taken into custody. That's what it seems like. And it seems like the citation that he got was technically an arrest, but not an arrest in the way that we all think of it as in, put the cuffs on them, take them downtown, book them, dan oh kind of a thing. So this is part of the other problem. We don't check immigration status during these types of interactions. And this has been going on for twenty plus years. Right, local politicians and police authorities, they all say, we are not here to enforce immigration law. We're not checking to see if you're an illegal immigrant. If we pull you over, if you get a tick, you're not being taken in because you came into the country illegally. We're not checking any of that. Please keep reporting crime to us. We don't want to cause the illegal alien community not to work with police, So we're going to look the other way. And that's what this is. This is local officials, local law enforcers. Whether it's the private security firm or local police or the sheriff's department, regardless, they all take the same approach, which is that's not our purview. We're not going to check on immigration status. Don't worry. And that's why this guy was free to be on the train two months later drunk and stab a guy. I don't even know if they took the guy's knife from him. 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 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. 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I agree, Yeah, did they take possession of the knife? It's just a citation for carrying a concealed weapon. It's just a citation, that's it. Do you pay a fine or something? And that's what supposedly got him banned from the light rail line from the transit system. I assume it was for the buses. Also, the charge was issued by a security guard, not a Charlotte mcklenburg police officer. Now at the time, again, this is October eighth. October eighth, Oscar Salarzano is found to be in possession of a knife at a light rail platform. He has issued a citation by the security guard that is contracted with the city with the Charlotte Area Area Transit System. The company is called PSS Professional Security Services and at the time, Salarzano had been convicted of crimes and had illegally re entered the country after being removed in twenty eighteen, as well as twenty twenty one. He had been convicted of numerous crimes in New Jersey and in Florida. But when you don't check a person's immigration status, because that's not our job, that's federal law enforcement, we refuse to assist because we are you know, we're in the community. We want to build trust, we are inclusive. We have to maintain our criteria checklist to be to be a certified welcoming city, so we don't ask these questions which means that a twice deported, multiple times convicted criminal illegal alien was confronted on the light rail line, found to have a knife and was given a citation until now don't you come back here, which you know this guy isn't going to listen to because he didn't listen to the federal authorities when they deported him twice and convicted him of illegal re entry, which was what Sheriff McFadden was saying at his press conference on Monday. You know, maybe you should ask them why they don't, you know, charge him criminally with re entry. They did, he was convicted, but your President Joe Biden kept letting everybody back in, So we don't know when the guy came back across the border. He crossed illegally, but we wouldn't know any of this. The security guard wouldn't know any of this information. The citation was written by a security guard with Professional Security Services, the private company contracted by CATS. The security guard citation described the weapon as a quote large red knife. CMPD has an incident report about this interaction and the citation, and it describes the weapon as a knife with a red handle. Don't know if that's the same weapon used in the attack on Friday. It was not clear if the security guard seized the knife on October eighth, or if Solizano was allowed to leave with it along with his written citation. He was not taken to jail, but ordered to show up in court October thirtieth on the misdemeanor charge. See, this is what we're talking about when we say it's a catch and release system, and the message you are sending is that this kind of behavior is totally acceptable. It's not that bad. See, oh you got a nay if you're drunk on the platform, what evs? It's just a misdemeanor. Show up in court, which, oh, by the way, he did not. He did not show up for court. I wonder if that's one of the warrants, one of the bench warrants that McFadden was saying, they got hundreds of warrants in the repository. I wonder if that was one of them. 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 could check it out at check dot ground, dot news slash pete. I put the link in the podcast to screw 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. Let me read a couple of the messages that I have received on the WBT text line driven by Liberty Buick. Gmc stan says, if we've got a problem with people carrying knives in public, maybe we need to have knife control, including background checks. And permits for purchasing them. I'm sure this will solve the problem. Yes, And of course, make the trains a knife zone with signs. Gotta have signs, make sure everybody is aware that nobody on the train has a knife. Chris says, uh. Last week I got the impression City council member dimple ash Miro was skeptical about the council spending money on promoting a safe light rail for the public, But last night she seems to be all in on the blatant deception of the issue. Your thoughts, well, I mean, I look, I don't think you're gonna okay, let me say it this way. Mmm. At the city council level, it is a staff driven process, has been for decades, okay, because it's a council manager form of government. And so what that means is, despite the fact that the city council members gave themselves full time pay for a part time job because they said it was more than a part time job, they have offloaded and they're not the first council to do so. They've offloaded a lot of the critical thinking and examination and the exploration of issues. They've offloaded a lot of that stuff. To the staff. They are reliant on staff, and staff is always protected by the city manager. And so what happens and the city manager is hired by and works at the pleasure of the city council. Okay, so council hires manager. Manager protects staff, but council relies on staff. So you see what happens here is that then the manager, by being seen as the protector of the staff, they have the allegiance and loyalty of the staff. And so then the manager can direct staff or help guide them or shade issues in ways that direct the council to arrive at a particular decision. Not to mention the fact that the manager is empowered to do certain things. One of the first things Marcus Jones did when he became manager was to get the council to raise the cap, for example, on contracts that he can sign off on that do not require city council approval. I believe they took that cap up to five hundred thousand dollars. So they've empowered the council, or sorry, the council has empowered the manager over years and years to be the person that runs the city. This actually ties into another topic that I've got lined up and now I'm thinking, I mean, I get to but I'm going to try. Is the oral arguments that were made and heard at the Supreme Court in the case about whether Trump can fire an FTC commissioner, Because in the progressive philosophy, their worldview, or i should say, their view of governance, they want technocrats, bureau, they want a professional class of experts to set policy to run the government. Right. This is a very Wilsonian from Woodrow Wilson, a Wilsonian view, a progressive view of the way GOV co operates. And so that's what the city council manager form of government leans on, is that kind of a worldview. And so with a city council that's completely packed with Democrats who generally share that worldview, they're happy to offload a lot of that responsibility onto the manager and staff and then rely on staff to answer questions if they've got a more some resident comes to the council member with a complaint. The council member then takes the complaint to staff. And if you don't have if you're a council member and you don't have a good relationship with staff, you're not going to get stuff done for your constituents and you're going to lose. So that's the dynamic going on there. So you do not want to cross the manager very often, and you don't want to cross city staff, and you don't want to be seen as antagonistic towards staff or the manager. And I suspect that's what we're seeing here. And I mentioned this yesterday, the contract approval for the three million dollars for a PR firm run by some woke lefty social justice warrior type that firm, that contract that was put on that agenda before the stabbing. It's just, you know, it's not great timing for the city council. They are facing mockery for it, of course, but they didn't know that this maniac would stab somebody on a train on Friday. That that agenda was built prior to Friday, so they were going to get they were going to do the contract anyway, right. 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 Minhill, 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 jump over to the phone lines here chat with Michael. Hello Michael, welcome to the show. Hey, good afternoon. Hey, what's up? One question, As you said, the agenda was said for them for the million dollars being sent out in Dallas, Texas. Why couldn't they have changed the menu and the the agenda? Why couldn't they have canceled that part of it. Well, they could have, yeah, they could have. It was put right. It was so on the agenda. There's a portion called the consent agenda where they pack a whole bunch of supposedly non controversial items into one big consent agenda and then you vote on all of those at the same time. Just a motion to approve the consent agenda, and then they vote, and then everything gets passed unless a city council member goes through that consent agenda that's got you know, thirty forty fifty sixty items in it. You go through the agen which you're supposed to you're the city council member. You're supposed to read through that, and they can pull an item out of the consent agenda for discussion or even a separate vote and going back and watching the consent agenda approval From Monday night, there was a council member, the new member jd Arias I believe is his name, the one who were not really sure if he got married in order to get his green card, but whatever, he pulled for discussion part of the cats items. But he did not discuss the three point four million dollar pr contract. He did not he didn't pull it for that reason, and nobody talked about it at all. So when they approved the consent agenda, that's how they approved that contract. There was no debate that I saw. So that's in other words, in other words, you know, just like Washington had it somewhere and nobody will notice. Well, yeah, I mean, that's the thing. These council members are supposed to read through their agenda. They're suppose to read through all of this stuff. And if they all did, not a single one of them saw a problem with hiring a PR firm to convince people that the light rail line is safe. And maybe they are on board with that. Maybe they think that that's necessary in the wake of the Zarutzka murder, and then in the wake of this stabbing, maybe they thought, hey, you know what, we should do a PR campaign. But nobody pulled it for a separate vote or discussion. But they could have. Yeah, Michael, I appreciate the call, sir, Thank you. One last part here from the Charlotte Observer story by Jeff chamber Solarzano. The attacker from Friday had been banned from Cats property. Bret Baldeck, a spokesperson for Cats, declined to answer on Monday why Solarzano was banned. Okay, kats and city leadership have come on scrutiny about what security measures have been taken to keep train safe for the public, especially since Zarutzka's death and violence this year at the Uptown Transit Center, as well as I would add other attacks that have occurred along the rail trail along the light rail system. KATZ is currently led by interim CEO Brent Kagel. It has declined and he has declined to comment on security staffing levels and declined to say how many security guards were working on the day of Friday stabbing or where they were. And Katz has declined to share any details about efforts to enforce the requirement that all light rail passengers purchase a ticket. Right. So when they said we're rolling out all of these improvements ahead of the referendum, right, they were asking all of us in early November to approve the sales tax. But people were kind of worried because, man, there's a lot of violence happening on the light rail line and the bus system, so maybe we should shouldn't be throwing a whole bunch more money at Cats City leaders got very worried. Right. The whole ad campaign for the sales tax focused on road improvements, convincing people lying to them, I would submit that this is going to improve traffic. We're going to build more roads. It gave this impression that if you vote for the sales tax increase, it'll make your commute shorter, and that's I believe that's a lie. Most of the money is going to transit. That was the whole point of the referendum. So it got them all worried, and so they rolled out the security plan. We're going to have more personnel, right, and we're going to do We're going to step up fair enforcement, make sure people are paying to get on the trains and the buses. Well, what was implemented before Friday? Right? This guy got popped with a knife on a platform in early October, a full month before the referendum, while you were talking about rolling out all of these improvements. What improvements actually were implemented? How did this guy without paying the fare? How did he get on the train? What's been implemented so far? Salizano, by the way, is currently being held without bond at the Mecklenburg County jail, which is a good thing. Otherwise, you know, Gary, not my fault. Macfatten may very well release the guy, but he's he's being held without bond. But once again, there is a confluence of all of these different issues that are coming together. They come together in this story, specifically because the fact that this guy was a twice deported criminal, illegal alien with multiple convictions, a rap sheet across two different states at least, and we don't know did they take the knife from him when they first encountered him back in October. They gave him a citation and that was it. He never showed for court. That was it, right, A lot of different angles to this story. 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 dpetecallanershow dot com. Again, thank you so much for listening, and don't break anything while I'm gone.