It's 5.05 and welcome in to a Friday edition of the Carolina Journal News Hour News Talk 1110-993 WBT. I'm Nick Craig. Good morning to you. On Thursday, lawmakers in North Carolina, including North Carolina Speaker Destin Hall, as well as Senate leader Phil Berger, held a press conference at the General Assembly and announced plans to introduce legislation coming up later this month. Targeting crime in North Carolina.
This all coming after the recent murder of Irina Zaruska, a Ukrainian refugee who was living in Charlotte when she was brutally murdered back on August the 22nd. That press conference was opened by House Speaker Destin Hall. Another tragic time in our country with the murder of Charlie Kirk yesterday. And for us here in North Carolina, coming on the heels of a tragedy on the Charlotte transit system. Recently, with the murder of the Ukrainian refugee who was uh on the train that night and so Over the course of the past really couple of weeks, we at the General Assembly have been thinking about.
what we can do uh to prevent The tragedy that happened in Charlotte from ever happening again in this state. And so we're still in the homework stage finding out how this specific case happened. But from what we can tell so far, this was largely as a result of somebody being released from a jail. Who should not have been released from a jail? An individual who had a violent history, a convicted felon, had multiple charges.
Uh clearly had mental health issues had multiple interactions with Charlotte Mecklenburg Police Department. And somehow was allowed to walk out of the jail by a magistrate by simply signing a written promise to appear. Again, when all those facts. were known or certainly should have been known. at the time.
We've got to get to the bottom of how it happened in this case, and we're looking at a number of possible legislative actions to take. reforming various issues with with our magistrates, with pretrial conditions of release, which we'll talk about. Uh more in just a moment. That's how Speaker Destin Hall kind of do in the open there. He then turned it over to his colleague in the Senate, in the leader Phil Berger, who said that based on all of the facts available, Zaruska, well, she should still be alive.
Irina Zarutska. should still be alive today. But her life was tragically cut short because of the atrocious policies pushed by out-of-touch politicians and court officials that prioritize a perverted vision or version of equity and politicized social justice over real and tangible justice. the hardworking men and women in law enforcement. go after and catch violent criminals.
But all too often, as soon as the criminals are brought before a magistrate or a judge, their efforts to keep our communities safe go down the drain. We cannot stand by while our cities are held hostage by soft-owned crime policies. We must stop the ongoing violence from overtaking our state. uh and our country. That's Senate leader Phil Berger.
Lawmakers will be back in Raleigh coming up here later this month, and this is some of the impact and some of the pieces in that legislation that the Senate leader hopes to push forward. That means we will fight back against soft owned crime policies that permeate our judicial system. When the General Assembly returns on september twenty second, we're going to propose a package of commonsense policies to more effectively tackle crime in our state. We can start by ensuring that Governor Stein and other members of the executive branch cannot establish any future task forces like the one Roy Cooper created that advanced weak on crime policies that kept Irina's murderer on the streets. We cannot keep our citizens safe if our policies favor criminals over public safety.
I personally am looking into ways to restart the death penalty here in North Carolina. For far too long, there's been a judicially imposed moratorium on the death penalty by activist judges and doctors and attorneys general and governors. who are more interested in serving leftist political bosses than justice for victims and their families. and justice for the public as well. Republicans in the General Assembly have attempted to restart the death penalty over the past decade and a half.
but those efforts have been stymied at every turn. A couple of things to take away from Berger's commentary there, talking about some of the efforts that the General Assembly will likely go through at the end of this month. And one of the big things coming out of that, you just heard it at the end of his commentary, was the Republicans in the General Assembly trying to reinitiate the death penalty across North Carolina. In the aftermath of Irina Zaruska's killing, some have taken to social media and in their comments and talked about funding for law enforcement.
However, Phil Berger says, well, the law enforcement angle of this worked, it was a problem with the judiciary. Here's the thing, policing doesn't need to be reimagined. It needs to be respected. It needs to be funded. Our hardworking law enforcement officers are all too often villainized just for doing their jobs.
keeping us safe. It's time for that to end. If we do not respect those who keep us safe and run towards danger, Then we will descend into chaos.
Now is not the time to sit back and hope for the best. We need to take bold, decisive action. President Trump's vision to create a safer America. is something we can replicate here in North Carolina. I support the President's actions to keep American citizens safe and commend his leadership in that regard.
We need to lock up violent thugs who are terrorizing our citizens. We need to go after drug traffickers who are poisoning our children. We need to keep repeat offenders in jail. We need to end cashless bond. Win We need to hold or cashless bail.
We need to hold activist judges and magistrates accountable. We must deliver justice for Irina and the countless families across our state that have fallen victim to. a justice system that does not support them and does not keep them safe. And the bill we will bring forward later this month will play a vital role in that. But it's just a first step.
As you heard from Senate Leader Phil Berger, cashless bail has been a major discussion of topic after information has come out about the alleged Charlotte killer, the fact that he had been arrested a total of 14 times, released as early as January of this year before that fatal night in August on the Charlotte light rail. House Speaker Destin Hall also made some commentary on the cashless bail system that is playing out in some North Carolina cities. Touch on a few of the specifics that we're looking at as well, along with, as Senator Berger mentioned, ending cashless bail in this state. You know, what happened in this situation was an individual who could have been given a secured bond. I mean, they would have had to have paid some amount of money in order or get a bond to get out of jail.
And this person, instead of being required to do that, was allowed to sign a piece of paper and walk out of that jail. And again, we're talking about an individual who had a prior violent felony conviction who had served time in prison. Who had been charged at least 13 times before that latest charge when he was allowed to walk out, an individual who obviously had some form of mental health issues, again, allowed to walk out of that jail.
So when folks come in and before a magistrate and they've been charged with a serious crime, If they have a prior violent felony on their record, it simply should not even be an option to allow that person to have some sort of cashless bail. They should be held in the jail under a secured bond. And if that had happened here, then most likely the victim in Charlotte would still be alive today. That's how Speaker Destin Hall commenting at that press conference that took place in the General Assembly yesterday. A lot of focus also on the magistrate judges.
House Speaker Destin Hall had plenty to say about that as well. We've also got to look at the way that we handle magistrates in this state. Charlotte has had a problem, Ecklambroo County has had a problem with its magistrates for a long time now. And I'll remind most of you all that we had a bipartisan bill that I worked on personally dealing with the pretrial integrity, called it the Pretrial Integrity Act. And it basically said if you're out already on a you've got a charge already and you're out on bail and you get charged again, we're going to make it much more difficult for you to get out pretrial.
And you know, we work with the Mecklenburg County DA, we work with the city leaders in Charlotte. Worked with the chief of CMPD on that bill and they agreed with that. And we were able to get that built on. But it obviously was not enough. And so when we have magistrates who are asleep at the wheel, like this one obviously was, we've got to make a change.
And so we're going to be looking at some oversight of magistrates, looking at the way that we select magistrates, looking at ethical issues with magistrates. And making sure that the folks who are making these decisions are paying attention to what they're doing and that they're trying to serve the public safety and not some whatever left-wing interest or whatever other interest they have other than public safety. That's what a magistrate should be doing.
So we're going to look very closely at that. We're also going to look at dealing with issues when folks are charged with crimes who have obvious mental health issues. Making sure that magistrates are taking that into consideration. You know, in jails, we expanded Medicaid in this state, and one of the justifications for that that we heard from sheriffs was we have folks in the jails who need mental health care, or they need health care in general. And so we have options available under current law for these folks who were in jails to have some of that treatment.
In fact, we're told that CMPD apparently interacted with this guy four times in the prior year on well checks and that he was offered services. It's not been clear what services this person was actually offered. We've not been given the answers to those questions. We will find out and we'll get to the bottom of exactly what was going on there. But we're going to increase training for magistrates and make sure that they understand that their role, again, is to keep the public safe.
That's wrapping up the press conference in the General Assembly on Thursday. Senate Leader Phil Berger Jr., House Speaker Destin Hall, talking about some of the legislative action that they are set to take later this month. We'll have some additional coverage on that coming up as we continue this morning. And we've got a full link and story over on our website this morning, CarolinaJournal.com. At Blinds.com, it's not just about window treatments.
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Rules and restrictions apply. It's 22 minutes past the hour. Welcome back to the Carolina Journal News Hour. News Talk 1110-993 WBT. As we get into the later parts of this month, a lot of attention will be focused on Western North Carolina.
As we approach the one-year anniversary of the unimaginable amount of devastation and destruction left in the western half of our state after Hurricane Helene last year, and as that one-year anniversary approaches, some great news coming out this morning. The United States Department of Homeland Security, DHS, has announced that Western North Carolina has been approved for an additional $12 million in FEMA grant disbursements. This comes just weeks after the federal government approved an additional $28 million in similar funding. DHS Secretary Christy Noam announced in a press release that the grants are for reimbursements for critical infrastructure repairs to restore essential services and fortify North Carolina and our cities and towns against future disasters, including millions of dollars in infrastructure and upgrades, as well as much-needed resources to replace and rebuild critical community projects across our state. United States Senator Ted Budd, who has over the last couple of weeks put some pressure on the President Christy Noam and others within the federal government about the timeline and the swiftness in reimbursing or allowing and allocating these funds, said on X that he was glad President Trump was able to fast-track this funding.
The senator wrote, quote, I'm grateful to At POTUS for weighing in to fast-track $12 million to reimburse Western North Carolina communities for cleanup and recovery efforts following Helene. I look forward to hearing from Secretary Noam on how we can work together to ensure that Western North Carolina projects quickly received promise federal funds. Noam said in the press release, quote, the American people deserve a government that fights for their survival and prosperity, not one that kneels to bureaucratic elites. With the leadership of President Trump, Senator Budd, and Chairman Michael Watley, DHS and FEMA are delivering for North Carolina. Under President Trump's leadership, DHS is not restoring our na is not only restoring our nation's strength and securing communities, but ensuring that no Americans are left behind.
DHS said that the disbursement of that money is a broader effort of more than $322 million worth of FEMA commitments to North Carolina from the Trump administration and brings that total amount of reimbursement and recovery to over $161 million since July the 14th. As we look at those, again, in some cases, very lengthy dollar amounts, that funding includes about $65 million to the North Carolina Department of Transportation. That's for vital road repair projects in Buncombe County, McDowell County, Mitchell, Wilkes, and Yancey County. About $6 million to the North Carolina Department of Cultural Resources to restore some of the Chimney Rock parks, bridges, and roads, and some other things in and around the Chimney Rock area and the state park area around there. $5.8 million to the town of Beach Mountain.
That for repairs to washed-out sections of Buckeye Creek Road and Charter Hill Road, as well as additional money for power grid distribution systems and fortifying that as well. Last month, it was announced that Renew NC, North Carolina's long-term disaster recovery initiative, finished making storm-related Repairs to the first home approved through assistance from a Renew NC's in North Carolina single-family home housing project. Melene Waters was the first applicant approved for assistance through that program. Renew NC is funded in part by a federal community development block grant for disaster recovery, also known as a CDBGDR. That money coming from the Department of Housing and Urban Development, or HUD.
And of the total $1.4 billion in that federal block grant, funding was allocated to the state for Western North Carolina recovery needs. And out of that, $807 million is allocated specifically for this single-family housing program. The program is the first of a series of recovery initiatives to be offered by the North Carolina Commerce Department's Division of Community Right Revitalization under the program name Renew NC. While it has not necessarily been as quick as everybody would have hoped in terms of some of that money being allocated and doled out from the federal government or even parts of the North Carolina General Assembly as we approach that one-year mark, it is remarkable to see that any significant amount of money has begun to flow from the federal government. And again, to this point, $161 million just from FEMA.
That does not include the $1.4 billion from HUD, the more than almost over a billion dollars, $2 billion, I should say, that has been allocated by the North Carolina General Assembly, adding all of that up. It is serious dollars that are making a serious impact in trying to get the western half of our state recovered and reopened after the devastation from Hurricane Helene in September of 2024. We've got some additional coverage on some of those monies, where it is being spent. It's available over on our website this morning, CarolinaJournal.com. That headline story, another.
$12 million plus dollars in federal recovery funds headed to Western North Carolina after Helene. You can read those details at CarolinaJournal.com. It's 5:35. Welcome back to the Carolina Journal News Hour, News Talk 11:10, 99.3 WBT turning our attention back to Utah this morning and the assassination of Charlie Kirk earlier in the week. Law enforcement officials, both local, state, and federal, continued the manhunt this morning as they are still working to track down the shooter that they believe is responsible for shooting Kirk in the neck Wednesday afternoon while he was hosting one of his Turning Point USA college tour events leading to his death.
And as of last night, a late-night press conference, the FBI, alongside state and local officials, released new photos. Of a person of interest in the assassination of Kirk. The images show a male wearing jeans, a long-sleeved black shirt with an American flag, black sunglasses, and a hat. The FBI also noted that they are offering $100,000 bounty for information that helps crack that case. They also did release some surveillance footage in that press conference last night showing the said individual running off of a roof and jumping off of a rooftop before escaping into a wooded area near the campus of Utah Valley University.
Yesterday, we did learn that law enforcement officials, I'm not immediately clear which entities, but they did recover a firearm that they did believe was used in that attack. As that manhunt intensifies, they are asking the public or anybody in the area that might have ring doorbell cameras or any other sort of surveillance cameras outside of their property to provide that. Information and noted that they have gotten more than 7,000 tips, digital photos and videos submitted to the FBI, the largest since the Boston bombing, the Boston Marathon bombing, which, of course, you had tens of thousands of people in the vicinity of that event. As that manhunt does continue, we'll continue to keep our eyes on the details. Again, a horrific situation unfolding earlier this week in Utah, where conservative commentator Charlie Kirk was assassinated in cold blood while doing a college tour event, having a free-spirited debate with college students and others at Utah Valley University.
We'll continue the coverage right here on the Carolina Journal News Hour. With that, a member of the Carolina Panthers team, not a player, but somebody in the back office, has been fired after remarks made on social media in the wake of Kirk's assassination. Football communication, a football community. Communications coordinator for the Panthers reportedly wrote just hours after the assassination: Why are you sad? Your man said it was worth it, including photos of Kirk.
Those details coming in from the Charlotte Observer, a source familiar with the team's decision told the post-millennial that an individual by the name of Charlie Rock was fired Thursday morning. He had interned with the team's communication department in 2024 and had recently been promoted to a full-time job in the department. This caused the Carolina Panthers to put out a public statement on their X account yesterday saying, quote, the views expressed by our employees are their own and do not represent those of the Carolina Panthers. We do not condone violence of any kind, and we are taking this matter very seriously and have accordingly addressed it with the individual. As the reports are this morning, that that individual by the name of Charlie Rock has been fired from his position at the Carolina Panthers.
Other individuals being put under the spotlight as well for some of their really what only can be described as evil comments after Kirk was gunned down Wednesday afternoon in Utah. Interesting to see the Panthers. They did come out, come forward and speak about it publicly, posting that on their X account yesterday afternoon. Turning our attention back to North Carolina this morning and some of the ongoings in the General Assembly, a press conference taking place yesterday in Raleigh, House Speaker Destin Hall, Senate Leader Phil Berger announced that later this month, when the General Assembly will be back in Raleigh, that they plan to introduce legislation targeting crime in North Carolina in light of the recent murder of Irina Zaruska, a Ukrainian immigrant from Charlotte who was killed while riding the Charlotte light rail back on August the 22nd. Senate Leader Phil Berger described what some of that legislation could in fact look like.
That means we will fight back against soft-owned crime policies that permeate our judicial system. When the General Assembly returns on september twenty second, we're going to propose a package of commonsense policies to more effectively tackle crime in our state. We can start by ensuring that Governor Stein and other members of the executive branch cannot establish any future task forces like the one Roy Cooper created that advanced weak-on-crime policies that kept Irino's murderer on the streets. We cannot keep our citizens safe if our policies favor criminals over public safety. I personally am looking into ways to restart the death penalty here in North Carolina.
For far too long, there's been a judicially imposed moratorium on the death penalty by activist judges and doctors and attorneys general and governors. who are more interested in serving leftist political bosses than justice for victims and their families. and justice for the public as well. Republicans in the General Assembly have attempted to restart the death penalty over the past decade and a half. but those efforts have been stymied at every turn.
Some interesting commentary there from Senate leader Phil Berger talking about the death penalty, trying to reinstate that. That will be an interesting process to watch unfold coming up here in just a couple of weeks. House Speaker Destin Hall talked about one of the big discussions in this case, the rampant use of cashless bail in major metropolitan areas across the country. Touch on a few of the specifics that we're looking at as well, along with, as Senator Berger mentioned, ending cashless bail in this state. You know, uh what happened in this situation was a an individual who could have been given a secured bond.
I mean, they would have had to have have paid some amount of money in order or get a bond to get out of jail. And this person, instead of being required to do that, was allowed to sign a piece of paper and walk out of that jail. And again, we're talking about an individual who had a prior violent felony conviction who had served time in prison. Who had been charged at least 13 times before that latest charge when he was allowed to walk out, an individual who obviously had some form of mental health issues, again, allowed to walk out of that jail.
So when folks come in and before a magistrate and they've been charged with a serious crime, If they have a prior violent felony on their record, it simply should not even be an option to allow that person to have some sort of cashless bail. They should be held in the jail under a secured bond. And if that had happened here, then most likely the victim in Charlotte would still be alive today. A lot of other issues also talked about and could be potential legislation coming up later in the month of September, discussion about magistrates and some of the policies that they use to allow people, especially those that are struggling with a mental health issue, have multiple run-ins and multiple convictions throughout the judicial system, putting some accountability on them. And also talked about the budget in Charlotte and digging into that as well.
The other thing that I think is critical that we look into is the budget in Mackenburgh County and Charlotte and to see what kind, where are they spending money at, where they maybe shouldn't be. I've seen some reports about some grants that they receive from groups that their purpose is to keep people out of jail or they're opposed to requiring cash bail. We're going to look at some of those grants and see if maybe that played a role in this case in Mecklenburg County. And again, we're going to go through the entire budget for the City of Charlotte and Mecklenburg County to see where these funds are going. Because ultimately, we're dealing with a local government, really Mecklenburg County and City of Charlotte, two local governments that, in my opinion, have lost institutional control of their areas.
Some very strong words there from House Speaker Destin Hall. They appear to be looking at everything. There was a quick question and answer period that took place after the two leaders of both chambers of the General Assembly introduced or really talked about what they will be introducing over the next couple of weeks. Indications are that both Phil Berger and Destin Hall have been in conversation and in contact with Governor Josh Stein. It's not immediately clear whether this will work through the General Assembly on a bipartisan nature, but I'm sure that's something that lawmakers are looking at.
As the schedule looks right now, lawmakers will be back on Monday the 22nd or the week of the 22nd in Raleigh for another at least a couple of days as there are still some veto overrides that continue to be discussed. And now some of these pieces of legislation trying to crack down on repeat offender criminals, cashless bail, accountability for magistrates, and even some discussions about potentially revitalizing. The death penalty here in the state of North Carolina. We will be watching everything out of the General Assembly very closely, and we'll continue that coverage. We've got a full story this morning over on our website, CarolinaJournal.com, the headline, NCGA to introduce crime legislation in the wake of recent murders.
You can read some additional coverage of that. And of course, as lawmakers make their way back to Raleigh, we'll keep you up to date with all of the coverage right here on the Carolina Journal News Hour. Good morning again. It's 552. Welcome back to the Carolina Journal News Hour, News Talk 10993 WBT.
As we were talking about a little bit earlier this morning, some additional federal funds coming to the state of North Carolina dealing with Hurricane Helene as we approach the one year of that devastation and destruction. But one of the under-reported stories earlier this year was Tropical Storm Chantal. We talked about it. That storm affected the central part of our state back in July in days after an announcement that Western North Carolina would be receiving more money. President Donald Trump announced yesterday on Truth Social that he has approved $32 million for damage caused in the central part of North Carolina.
The president writing on Truth Social: I am proud to approve nearly $32 million in assistance for the great state of North Carolina, which I won big all six times, including primaries. In response to their recent flooding events in July, Senator Ted Budd and future Senator Michael Watley and all of our incredible North Carolina Republicans have asked for this, and I'm happy to do it. North Carolinians deserve it. I just notified Governor Stein, and I fully expect that he will make sure that the funds are used to help the state recover quickly. He then went into talking about some of the struggles that the state of North Carolina has dealt with in the past with hurricane recovery, including some of the disastrous response from former Democrat Governor Roy Cooper, who, of course, is the leading Democrat candidate in that Senate race that will be taking place late next year, a primary coming up in March of 2026.
Just in case you are not familiar with Chantal, back in early July, that storm unloaded more than 10 inches of rain in some counties in the central part of our state, including Alamance, Orange, Chatham, more counties. And others. In the Piedmont area, rivers swelled to record or near record levels. The Haw River crested at 32.5 feet. The Eno River set a new crest at 25.63 feet.
And in several areas, 100-year flood levels were well overtaken by the amount of water inundation from that storm. Right in the immediate aftermath, NCDOT closed more than 120 roads. Major arteries, such as Interstate 40 and Interstate 85 in Alamance County, were closed in the immediate days following. And the Chantal did lead to five deaths across the state of North Carolina. More than 80 water rescues completed in both Chapel Hill and Durham.
While it was just a tropical storm, and many folks kind of brush those off as not having major impacts when we look at Chantal. It did, in fact, that storm did in fact leave some major impacts across the state.
Soon after, the governor and Stein did declare a state of emergency, which did enable emergency operations across the affected regions and put North Carolina in the possibility of receiving some of those federal funds and some of those federal dollars. The governor posting on his X account yesterday afternoon, quote, Great news. I just got off the phone with President Trump, who pledged his support for Tropical Storm Chantal and Hurricane Helene recovery. It's all hands on deck and I thank him for helping North Carolina rebuild. I look forward to working with the administration to deliver critical resources to North Carolina.
Let's get this work done. U.S. Senator Ted Budd also commented on this as well, saying, quote, I'm deeply grateful to AP POTUS for clearing the deck of $32 million in public assistance grant reimbursement for Helene cleanup and recovery and Tropical Storm Chantal. Dramatically addressing the backlog of projects waiting to be funded is great news for North Carolina and especially in the western North Carolina as those communities approach this storm's one-year anniversary. Homeowners, renters, and business owners affected by that tropical storm in July are now also eligible to apply for low-interest disaster loans through the U.S.
Small Business Administration.
Some of the counties included there: Alamance, Caswell, Chatham, Durham, Granville, Orange Person, and Wake counties. We've got some additional coverage on this story and all of the other stories out of Western North Carolina as those relief and recovery efforts do continue. You can read that coverage over on our website, CarolinaJournal.com. That's going to do it for a Friday edition. WBT News is next.
Followed by Good Morning, BT. We're back with you Monday morning, 5 to 6, right here on News Talk 11.10 and 99.3 WBT.
