New charges for train stabber and new whining from the sheriff (12-12-2025--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 the links, become a patron, go to dpeakclendershow 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. All righty, so, yesterday after I got off the air, the US Attorney in the Western District of North Carolina, based out of Charlotte, made the announcement at a press conference that the Honduran man accused in Charlotte's latest light rail attack faces a rare federal charge which could lead to a lifetime prison sentence. Mark Price and Julia Coin at the Charlotte Observer reporting, federal prosecutors filed a complaint accusing thirty three year old Oscar Gerardo Solarzano Garcia of illegally re entering the country for the third time after being deported twice and committing a quote terrorist attack or other violence against a mass transportation system. That's the charge. He had already been banned from Charlotte's public transit system when he was arrested on December fifth and charged with stabbing another passenger in the chest with a twelve inch knife whilst drinking wine coolers. This occurred once again on the Lynx Blue Line, the Charlotte light rail system, the original light rail line. Solarzano Garcia is the second person to face this terrorism charge in Charlotte in the last four months. The man who murdered Arena Zerutzka on the same light rail line, also by stabbing her to Carlos Brown Junior, He is also facing this same charge, although for him, because his victim died, he is facing the death penalty as a potential sentence, whereas Salzano Garcia, he did not kill his victim, so that apparently is not on the table for him. Until this year, the US Attorney's Office for the Western District of North Carolina had never filed this charge against anybody. It stems from a law that was passed after the nine to eleven terrorism attacks. Spokesperson for US Attorney Russ Ferguson says that he first applied it to Carlos Brown Junior in the August light rail stabbing death of Zerutzka. If found guilty, Dollis Brown Junior could face the death penalty. As I said, the immigration charge that that Solarzano is facing, that carries because he's also looking at a illegal re entry charge that could be a ten year sentence for him. He has a lengthy criminal record, as I mentioned, he had been caught in the country illegally, he had been deported. He then tried to cross back in he was caught and he was arrested. Actually at that point. A twenty twelve robbery charge up in New Jersey, conviction a twenty sixteen battery with a deadly weapon charge in Florida. He stabbed a victim multiple times with a large knife. It's unclear if he was convicted for that. He was deported in twenty eighteen, so that would be in Trump's first term. Then about a year and a half later, December twenty nineteen, he comes into the country again. He gets caught, he serves an eighteen month prison sentence for that, and then he gets deported at the end of that of serving that sentence. James Barnacle Junior, the Special Agent in charge locally here at the FBI. He's quoted in the press release from the Department of Justice. On this quote, Oscar Solarzana Garcia should not have been on the Charlotte light rail last Friday. In fact, he should not have been in our country. He has a violent criminal history and was deported twice. These two recent attacks on the city's light rail system make one thing clear. Safety measures on public transportation in our city must be strengthened. People deserve a secure and reliable transit system where they make it to work and back home unharmed. The criminal complaint alleges that Solarzano Garcia, because these are federal charges now, they allege he is an alien unlawfully present in the United States. It further alleges that in twenty twelve, he was arrested in the Union County Police Department or by the Union County Police Department in New Jersey, not here in Charlotte, not Union County, North Carolina, but up in Jersey, convicted of robbery. He was then arrested in Florida for aggravated battery. He was removed. Nine months later, he was arrested by US Border Patrol convicted of illegal re entry. Did eighteen months in prison, and then he was removed from the US out of Alexandria, Louisiana on June ninth, twenty twenty one. Okay, so they've now hit him with not just the terrorism charge but also the re entry charge. Now that's in important. Keep that part in mind, because once again we have a statement, a very lengthy statement, a press release that I had to once again download and crop out the photo of the agency that issued the statement. That agency is the Mecclimber County Sheriff's Office, and for some reason that I cannot fathom. Well, that's not true. I actually can fathom a reason, but it's not it's not very charitable. This is a bit I know it's petty, but I don't care. It's annoying, and I think it speaks to something deeper. The press releases began about, i want to say, within the last year from the Mecklimburg County Sheriff's Office. They started including on like the top third of the page. So you get this press release and it's got this big thick green border around the image, and it's always in the form of like a PDF or yeah, like a PDF, or maybe it's a jpeg. It's a it's an image, And so you open the image up and the page is taken up by this like probably one to two inch thick green border around the edge of it, and then the top third of it is a picture of the sheriff. So if I want to print this thing out, like I don't care about the image of the sheriff, I don't care. In many ways, I don't, but I don't care about the seeing his big face on this piece of paper. I want. I want the words, like what is the press release saying? Right? What is the message you're trying to communicate? And when you put your own mug up on the top third of the press release, not only are you conveying the sentiment that you want me to look at you, that you're the top of the page. Look at my big picture standing in my uniform with all my metals and all this stuff, and look at me. I'm the top guy. I'm awesome. Look at me, Look at me, Look at me. But more importantly, it makes me wiste ink when I print this thing out or I have to go through all these steps to get the text off of the page. Right, I got it. It's just annoying, and then it never because, as you might imagine, when you issue a lengthy press release, they shrink the text down. So now like I'm looking at like a like a four point font because they have to squeeze all of this text, this wall of text, into only two thirds of the page because we have to see Sheriff Gary not my fault, McFadden. We got to see his big picture on every press release, every press release, well except the bad ones. Actually when someone dies in the jail, they don't put his face on those. We may never know why. 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. 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Call her 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. All right, So let me get to the incredibly ridiculously small text of the sheriff's press release. Here. If I read it in a halting fashion, unlike the normal, smooth, professional delivery that I normally do, it's because the text is so ridiculously small. Okay, headline, this one's pretty big. I can read this headline Sheriff McFadden, which Okay, of course it's gonna say Sheriff McFadden. It's a press release from the sheriff's office. You don't need to put your name in the title too. Oh my gosh, okay, Sheriff McFadden. If this is the worst first, I'd hate to see the second. Oh oh, my side, it's splitting. So here we go. As I have said repeatedly, the current immigration and civil deportation process as it is currently designed is not working well, Sheriff. It might not be working because you have been thwarting it. People like you have been standing in the way of federal immigration enforcement efforts. You refuse to help, right, You send out messages all the time about how you won't honor the detainer requests from ICE, and then you had to get state legislature approval for law changes, multiple law changes to drag you kicking and screaming and whining to assist in the immigration enforcement efforts. And now it's like, ah, man, this whole thing doesn't work. Yeah. I wonder why he says the process is unreliable, inconsistent, and deeply flawed, which, by the way, that is it's one of his patterns that he does in his speech as well as his writings. It's always in groups of three. He does the process is unreliable, inconsistent, and deeply flawed. Now, I will say I give them credit. They did use the Oxford comma in that list, so I do appreciate that these failures have led to actual United States US citizens and documented immigrants being detained, arrested, and terrorized. There it is again groups of three. The political slogan worst First appears to be nothing more than a talking point, much like making our city safe, because we have not seen evidence of either promise being fulfilled city after city, neighborhood after neighborhood. By the way, there was an analysis run I saw the other day that found two thirds of the people who have been picked up by Customs and Border Patrol agents during these sweeps throughout the country, two thirds of them have criminal records. Now, I guess unless for leftists like our sheriff, unless you have one hundred percent have criminal records. But CBP has said from the beginning, DHS, the Department of Homeland Security, has said that they are targeting the worst first. They're targeting those with that have criminal backgrounds. But if you are in their way, if you are present around these people whatever, and you are here illegally as well, they're not going to turn a blind eye. And that's what's really got McFadden upset. That's what he's arguing against, is deportation for anybody that's here illegally. They will use the cover of oh my gosh, a US citizen was detained. I have a story about one of these videos that went viral of this woman screaming and crying on the side of the road as they coffer, Yeah, because she refused to tell them who she was, and she was driving. Here's the key. She was driving a vehicle registered to her boyfriend, who is an illegal alien, and when the tag hit they pulled her over. She refused to cooperate, so they took her out of the car, and she made a big deal. They made videos, it went viral, and then we find out later on, oh, actually she was released because she is a US citizen. She happened to be driving her boyfriend's car, who is an illegal alien, but is somehow able to register a car. Yeah, this is the problem with the system. Back to McFadden's press release, and this part is rich and so the blame game continues. Yeah, there's a reason I call our sheriff not my fault, McFadden, because all he does is blame other people, other agencies, laws, other officials. He blames everybody else for any problems that fall at his feet. When he is caught on tape using racial slurs, he blames his command staff. He says they made him so fluss his word, so frustrated that he just he used these words. Now let's move on. It's always somebody else's fault. The guy does not take responsibility for anything. Instead of addressing these systemic failures, he says, federal agencies attempt to shift responsibility. Coming from him, which is all he ever does, and he's doing it in this press release, which, by the way, this press release comes what three days after his news. Conference where he said all of this already, but now he's saying it in a statement, in a written statement, press release, because at the press conference when he was asked about the stabbing and he was asked about Arena's law, that now it's going to oh my gosh, we're not gonna have enough jail bedspace, and woe is me. It's not my fault, it is your fault closed down Jail North. You shut down a facility, so now you complain you don't have the bedspace that was your choice. You did that. Oh, I can't hire enough staff your fault. People don't want to work for you. You have a terrible reputation as an employer. You've got multiple chief deputies that have quit very publicly in scathing letters calling you a micromanaging, narcissistic tyrant, like this is all your fault. Man. 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. 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He says, I think a big flaw in the light rail line is the wide open honor system rather than having closed entry points like most other light rail lines and subway systems. Indeed poor design at the very beginning, it's sort of an honor system. Also, the short distance between all of the stops means that you can jump on and jump off, like in the rare event somebody is actually coming through to check your ticket. You're able to just jump off at the next stop because it doesn't take very long for it to get to the next stop. Jamie texts Pete, the word you're looking for is tacky. Yes, tacky with regard to not my fault McFadden for a four numbers, suggesting that I use shift windows s I believe that is for the snipping tool. And when I try to do the snipping tool, the brightness of the thing, it doesn't work. So like it, you know, like it makes the page darker, and then you highlight the part you want to snip, and when it highlights that part, it makes it bright and then you can't read it. See these are my frustrat I have tried all sorts of ways to get the text out of these press releases. This is from Eric. You have to copy and paste just the text out, and you can't. That's what I'm saying. It's it's a JPEG file. It's an image. Like I can't highlight the I cannot highlight the words and bring them over. I've even tried the word extractor, but it just it doesn't. It doesn't do a good job. I get crazy misspellings and different words in place. But yes, I am trying to avoid the headshot. Jeff says, the sheriff is giving off Ted Baxter vibes from the Mary Tyler Moore Show. In regards to the sheriff, the dude had framed portraits of himself in his apartment, and then Chris asks, can you copy the file to a word processing program. No, no, I can't. Like I said, it's an image. It's so annoying. I think they're doing it now just because they know I hate it. I think that's what's happening. Alan says. Shirley McFadden is not happy that Russ Ferguson, the US Attorney, is bringing federal charges. After all, he wants the jails vacant at all times. That's the thing this if so dever says, take a screenshot. I do that, but then the text becomes so light against the brighterer white background. It's trust me. This has been going on for almost a year. I have attempted all sorts of ways to get this image off of this stupid press release format. I'm just joining. But if you hit print screen then open it up, it'll give you an option. Yep, I've done that too. Doesn't work. Use that yeah again with the snip tool. I have tried it. It doesn't work. You can take an image put it in an AI engine. Oh all right, well that's what I will try next. Stephen, thank you. I will try to use AI. I'm going to try to use AI. Let me go back to the Sheriff's very ridiculously small text press release. He says, instead of addressing these systemic failures, federal agencies attempt to shift responsibility like I do on everything, using selective language and political distractions in their own statement. And I read this statement the other day came from the Department of Homeland Security and said the heinous stabbing by this twice removed illegal alien should have never happened. End quote. On this point, DHS is correct, he says, it should never have happened. But that is precisely because the same agency, DHS Immigration and Customs Enforcement, relied twice on the civil detainer process to remove Oscar Girardo Sarlezano and wrong Gary. Wrong dude went to jail, Sir, he was criminally charged on the second time he crossed into the country, went to jail eighteen months, then was deported. That was a criminal charge against him. So this whole press release is based on a misunderstanding of the facts of this case. DHS Immigration, Oh sorry, he says. The civil process is the very mechanism that allowed him to be deported twice without judicial oversight, only for him to return, and there was judicial oversight. He was tried, he was convicted, he went to prison. Solarzano was never held accountable for his past crimes because of the civil deportation process, and he was held responsible. He was criminally charged in New Jersey and in Florida. He was deported on the second re entry. He then snuck back in. Therein lies the problem. Let me see here the stabbing arrest. It was his first arrest of Mecklinberg County. If deporting Solarzano twice did not work, then blame for this broken system belongs where it should with dhs ICE and their continued reliance on a process that has repeatedly failed. He made it fail. He made it fail in Mecklenburg County. He has been working since twenty eighteen to make the process fail. Number one. Number two, No, the process failed because our border was not secure, which allowed him to come into the country twice, sorry three times. That was the problem. This guy McFadden like either he believes that this is bad for him, but I don't think that's the case. Like he cannot help himself to just shift the blame. He thinks this is the pr win for him. He thinks this is the way. Oh yeah, here we go. This is a perfect example of why the process that I have been thwarting, that I've been working against, that I have been criticizing, that I've been letting criminal, illegal aliens out of my jail, not holding them for Ice to deport. This proves that the whole system doesn't work. The real question, he says, the public and the media should be asking, is why did Ice use Why didn't Ice use federal criminal law to begin with, specifically eight US Code thirteen twenty six re entry after deportation. This federal law would have brought on judicial oversight and real consequences. He was convicted, he was imprisoned. There were in fact criminal charges he was charged under this for re entry. That's why they held him for eighteen months in prison and then deported him after that. But again, the real issue is how did he get into the country three times? See McFadden never addresses the open border, never talks about that. That's how the guy got in? Why? Oh and by the way, the other layer in all of this is that local law enforcement never asks anybody when they make a traffic stop or would they have any kind of an interaction with potential suspect, and they're talking to the person, they never ask about immigration status, and so they blind themselves. And that's a policy decision that McFadden has opted for as has Charlotte Mecklenburg Police the city. They do not ask anybody's immigration status. They say that this is the humane thing and it builds trust to not ask anybody if they're here illegally, which, by the way, had they asked Solarzano back in October? On October eighth when he was first sighted on the Cat's line for having a big blade, and then the next day when he was cited for being drunk on the train. Both of those times they had an opportunity to identify him as an illegal criminal alien twice deported, but they did not because that's federal immigration, that's their job. We are not going to participate in any kind of enforcement against this kind of suspect. Why is this federal law not being used in countless other cases? Almost no media outlet has asked this question. Well, because we're trying to get rid of like ten million illegal aliens that came over during the Biden administration. The focus has been to round up as many people as possible and deport them. That's been the focus very little, if any at all. Media have challenged ICE on why it chooses a civil process. Again, like he's hammering away. This is what is argument has been. And I've dissected this over the last five years. Okay, McFadden has been trying to make this argument that it's a civil thing and you need to get a warrant from a judge and then I will hold him. Otherwise I'm gonna get sued. Nobody's ever been sued. Nobody's ever been sued for this right. The constitutional scholars and the experts, they're like, no, you can do this. You can hold somebody with an ICE detainer. They're in the country illegally, and ICE is like, we're gonna come pick them up, so don't release them. Mcfaddin's like, I have to let them go. I don't have a bench warrant for them. Yeah, you don't actually need that. They're in the country illegally, and the law is it's a civil process. But so, McFadden, what you want criminal You want the immigration laws to be criminal laws. I'm okay with that. I am totally fine with that. I don't actually think you are. He's making this argument because it allows him to shift the blame away from himself, because it's never Gary's fault, hence the nickname. 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. All right back to McFadden's press release. Because that really is the point of my ire today, well one of them. I don't limit myself to one single point of ire, he goes on to say. And this gets to I think the reason why he put out this lengthy, but ridiculously small typed press release. He says, the Meckelberg County Sheriff's Office is routinely positioned as the scapegoat. Yes, because you refuse to cooperate with ICE to the point where the state had to pass multiple laws to force you to do so. Anyway, a convenient distraction from federal agency's own failures. Why it's again, these aren't agency failures, if anything. You're talking about a failure in the way Congress constructed the law, the immigration law, if anything. He says, Why has the media not pressed this issue? Why is the Sheriff's office the only agency asked to explain to decisions we did not make. Nobody has asked you to explain anything with regard to this latest stabbing. When when it was discovered that this individual, the attacker, had never been through the Mecklelberg County Jail. Then there was nothing. There was no connection to your office. So why do you think people are scapegoating you in this scenario? They're not. Nobody is except here's the key one, two, three, four or five paragraphs in I think we get to the crux. DHS's recent statements clearly show a misunderstanding of North Carolina House Bill three eighteen. Under House Built three eighteen, sheriffs must hold undocumented individuals for forty eight hours after they would otherwise be released so ICE can assume custody. Right, this is Gary's law, as I called it Gary's law because Gary kept finding ways to release criminal illegal aliens and ignore the detainer requests from Ice. He says the law is explicit. So now he's claiming, like I'm following the law. Look at me. You don't understand the law. Ice does understand the law. They lobbied for the General Assembly to pass it because of you. For DHS to suggest the sheriff's office won't hold them is simply inaccurate. Inaccurate now, see because DHS put out a statement that said, like now that he's being charged by the Feds, like luckily now we won't be there's no possibility for him to be released as has been going on, and that's what stuck in his craw that's what got him. He's so thin skinned, that's what got him riled up to put out this massive press release to claim nothing is his fault here. It's inaccurate to suggest that I want don't hold them. You haven't been holding them for eight years. That's been your policy. You ran on a platform in twenty eighteen saying you were going to scrap the two eighty seven g program, which identifies illegal aliens that get processed into the jail. You chose to blind yourself to immigration status. You did that, you ran on that, you won reelection on it. This is this is all you're doing, the lack of cooperation, that's all you're doing. But in this case, no was there's no connection to the county jail. There's no connection to McFadden. But DHS took a swipe at him, noting that well, at least he's now going to be held. He's not going to be released out into the community to terrorize people. No, No, that's too much for Gary to He's got to put out the press release to defend him himself. I'm the victim here. See, he's always the victim or the hero. He's never the villain, he says. It's another effort to mislead the public and divert attention away from a broken federal process that DHS continues to defend rather than fix. I don't know. They seem to have fixed it pretty well now, but you don't like the way it's being used, which is the way the law was intended to be used. The consequences of this broken civil deportation process are real now again, if you would like to turn this from a civil process into a criminal process, I mean, I guess I'm open to that. You can start laying all sorts of charges on people, but I suspect that he's just doing that to blow smoke, to deflect away from his argument that you know, oh, I need a judicial warrant. It brings violence, fear, mistrust, and instability into our communities. It results in the arrest of individuals, and then here you go, this is just the same all about opt Charlotte's Web and they shouldn't be running around picking up people. But that's the law. Gary, That's what the law calls for so this is why I keep saying this is nullification. You have local and state officials who are attempting to nullify federal law. And we do have examples of this in American history. The Civil War comes to mind. That was a big one. All right, that'll do it for this episode. Thank you so much for listening. 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