Stop Complaining About CMPD

Nothing grinds my gears more than the endless whining about CMPD Officers.

I get it you called and it took CMPD 40 mins to respond to your traffic accident in the Walmart parking lot. 

Or the bike nerds who are always complaining about a CMPD Ford Explorer parked in the bike lane Uptown. As if there is some mythical Kraken that prevents cyclists from going around?

The endless crying about speed enforcement and the claim about quotas and the department needing more revenue.

Not to mention the really bizarre stuff that shows up on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram every night.

So, yesterday @Summer_McAlpine aka "Motivum" on Twitter had a nutty over a couple of CMPD Officers:

"Tonight, around 8:30 pm 2 CMPD officers who were sitting at a construction site on W Rocky River Rd. went from 0-60 mph in the matter of seconds with no lights or sirens. In an area where there are pedestrian cross-walks and children at play, that should be absolutely mandatory!"

Summer continues:

"The story gets better. My boyfriend and I were taking a walk and put our hands up in confusion like so (🤷🏻‍♀️) because it literally looked as if the 2 cops were racing. There was a (another) couple walking not too far behind us that responded the same after first cop flew by...

The second cop who took off seconds after the first slammed on his brakes and proceeded to roll down the window and yell with attitude that they had a 911 call - which I find interesting because don’t you think if there’s a dire 911 call that you’d… 

1. Turn on your lights and sirens to alert people and cars in the surrounding area that you’re coming through and 

2. Maybe not take the extra time to stop and be an asshole to people walking on the sidewalk. 

Law-enforcement entitlement at its finest."

OK I understand couple of CMPD Officers were having a little down time or maybe even talking over the latest B&E around the corner and for whatever reason they decided to move out in a hurry.

Summer has some certainly valid points - but lights and siren are not mandatory for fast starts and in many cases either optional or avoided for a reason. 

I have too many family members and friends with CMPD to go into the details and reasons for not lighting up the neighborhood. Bacilly I'm not busting a red light so don't mind me.

However, the perception of speed from a driver vs pedestrian point of view offers a huge difference. If you're walking close to the road 35 looks like 70.

I drive crazy slow in my neighborhood when I see people walking because I understand this fact. Plus I've spent much of my life going better than 250 knots in the air and still for some reason 18 knots in an 80 foot motor yacht seems like I'm living on the edge.

That said my grandfather once told me that if I wanted my adult neighbors to respect me more than my fellow teenagers, I'd drive through the neighborhood with the radio down low and the speed lower. Yep it works like that.

But Summer if you are in a habit of throwing up your hands whenever you get confused I’m not sure if any explanation they’d offer will appease you. Don't be tossing up your hands a CMPD Officers that's not respectful and it looks like you're flipping them off. 

Finally the boots on the street are all we have and CMPD Boots are down by crazy numbers how about cutting the uniforms some slack?

Another Young Homicide Victim

CMPD says a 12-year-old boy died after being shot at a north Charlotte home Thursday night

Ahmad Wrighten’s death is being investigated as a homicide, according to the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department. 

Anthony Rashad Wigfall, 34, and Demetria Robinson, 32, were arrested and charged with murder, CMPD said. Police said the boy had “sustained apparent trauma” when paramedics responded to a home in the 5600 block of Sunwalk Court at about 11:30 p.m. 

They took him from the residential neighborhood off Statesville Road to Atrium Health hospital, where he died, police said. 

Emergency dispatch radio obtained via Broadcastify revealed officers were called to the scene at about 11:30 p.m. after someone “shot an 11-year-old.” CMPD confirmed police were responding to an assault with a deadly weapon call for service and later said the victim was 12.

Charloot's Got A Lot Of Shootings

Once again a person has been shot in uptown during the small hours of the morning.

According to CMPD this was the fifth uptown shooting in past two months.

Witnesses said they heard up to five gunshots, then saw a man get shot in the back at about 4 a.m., according to a local television news station.

The shooting happened on North College Street near Sixth Street, in an area with hotels, restaurants and nightclubs. 

Paramedics said the victim had life-threatening injuries. The Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department has not publicly identified a victim or suspect in this case. 

Earlier this month, officers found a man shot in a parking lot near the Spectrum Center — a couple blocks over from Thursday’s shooting. 

He died at the hospital more than a week later. Police have charged a suspect with murder, intent to kill inflicting serious injury, and discharging a firearm in the city limits.

Another man was shot in the leg near the VUE apartments on West Fifth Street in uptown at about 7:30 a.m. on June 5.  

Another man was shot and killed in uptown near Truist Field in late May. 

Officers chased the suspect to Charlotte Douglas International Airport, where police said he was arrested and charged with 1st-degree murder and possession of a firearm by a convicted felon. 

In April, two people were injured after a mid-day shooting in uptown’s Romare Bearden Park. Police quickly detained a suspect. 

As of May 31, CMPD had recorded a total of 31 homicides in Charlotte this year.

Sure takes the bang out of going Uptown in Charloot.

Charlotte Mayor Pro Tem Winston Claims 20 Somethings Our Nation's Founding Fathers

Cedar Posts is thrilled to see Charlotte's Mayor Pro-Tem Braxton Winston embracing our Colonial past and history. 

Sadly it seems that math and history are not required proficiencies at his alma mater Davidson College.

Winston's tweet which is clearly pandering to the new Democratic Party Chair Anderson Clayton (who happens to be 25) claims that "the founders of our nation were mostly 20-30 somethings". 

In reality - only South Carolina’s Lynch and Rutledge were in their 20s and while Jefferson who drafted the document was just 33 more than 1/2 of those signing the Declaration of Independence were 40 years old or older.

Funny things happen when a theater grip like Winston, embraces history since the "mostly 20-30 somethings" exclude Franklin who was 70, Hopkins 69, Lewis 63, and Sherman 55, which made them by 1776 standards old and well past the average life expectancy of 35.

Samuel Adams of the beer fame was 54, John Adams, 40 as was John Hancock.

Of the 56 signers of the Declaration of Independence 37 were 40 or older and 17 were 50 or older. The complete list of these patriots is here. 

Winston never one to accurately understand facts or figures might want to ask a couple of old (over 40) democrats for advice before tweeting about the value of "young voices" and miligning older Tar Heel voters and our nation's founding "fathers".

Also: Before someone says what about George Washington? No he did not sign the Declaration of Indepence. I'm always surprised at the number of people who assume he did. The truth his George was with his "well armed militia" in New York ready to kick some Red Coat butt!

Charlotte's Gun Problem

According to the local paper approximately 1 in 5 of Charlotte’s shooting victims were children, police statistics from the first half of the year show. 

The Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department announced shooting statistics on Friday as part of National Gun Violence Awareness Day. These statistics paint a grim picture, but are still better than last year’s, according to officials. 

In the first six months of 2023, there have been 2,359 victims of firearm-related crime in Charlotte, according to CMPD. This number is down approximately 4% from the same period last year. 

These shootings killed 27 people, including three children, according to CMPD. Another 426 juveniles were victims of a shooting and 90 juveniles were suspects in shootings. In the first half of last year, 482 juveniles were shooting victims and 118 were suspects.

And the local paper goes further:

A series of stories this year found that shootings involving kids and teens are on the rise over the past few years and have a devastating impact on families and communities. As of 2020, shootings surpassed car accidents as the the leading cause of death in children under 18 in the U.S., according to a CNN analysis of CDC data. 

Curbing these shootings is CMPD’s top priority, Chief Johnny Jennings said Friday. “There is no one who is unaffected by the public health crisis that is gun violence,” Jennings said. “Victims result from every pull of the trigger in our city. 

We need community involvement from every corner and from every walk of life, for the good of Charlotte.”

There were 342 shootings into homes, cars and other occupied property this year, according to CMPD. 

This includes the shooting into a home that seriously injured an 8-year-old girl in April. A total of 1,392 guns have been seized as evidence in these shootings and other Charlotte crimes, and 679 guns have been reported stolen, according to the data. There is no acceptable level of gun violence, CMPD officials say.

Cedar's Take: CMPD Press Release from which much of the local paper's story was produced is located here and opens in a new tab or window.

What the local paper and the CMPD press release doesn't say is that everyone of these homicide victims are African American or hispanic (2) with the expcetion of Jaxon Zane Truitt, age 3 

Jaxon Zane Truitt

Those arrested are almost always African American. In nearly every drive by shooting the shooter and the targeted victim were African American.

Despite the endless anti gun hysterics, the dramatic ortations of Joe Biden and others no one is willing to address the fact that the African American Community has become a culture of violence embracing criminality and gun play. 

Until we address the catch and release liberal policies implemented by Mecklenburg County's chief judge and increase the penalties on illegal firearm possession and begin to incarcerate violent offenders on the first violent crime conviction this problem will continue to be an accepted way of life and it will just get worse.