Saturday, January 23, 2010

Nightmare on Eastway Drive

Surreal is the word that comes to mind reading the complaint filed on behalf of Jorge Mota Quiroz and Esmeyda Chavez Matias against Charlotte Police Officer Marcus Jackson and the City of Charlotte.

The young couple were returning from a night of dancing at the Club Kalypso on North Tryon Street when what should have been an enjoyable evening turned into a nightmare.



The story line is of course as familiar as a B horror movie. Psycho killer dressed as a cop stops young couple on a lonely stretch of highway. They pull into a deserted gas station, it is cold outside and a thick fog has rolled in, shrouding the lights in a suddenly eerie glow.

Inexplicably, the couple agree to follow the creepy cop to a dark parking lot way from the lights and presumed safety of the service station, as we watch we beg them not to go deeper into the darkness.

We know the routine, boyfriend stands by helplessly as his girlfriend is attacked, the cell phone doesn’t work, the car won’t start no one hears their pleas for help. The cops shines his flash light into the face of the young man who is terrified as his girlfriend pleads for her life, just before....

Of course it is only a really bad movie, but in this case it was real and it happened in our city, on our street and in our back yard.

The complaints filed this week at the Mecklenurg County Court House detail a perverse and violent encounter with Officer Marcus Jackson. Reading is not easy and one can only imagine the fear, rage and frustration Jorge Ouiroz must have felt while he tried in vain to get help via 911. A transcript of the 3 calls to 911 are here.

The copy of the complaints filed with the Clerk of Court are here and here, and graphically show a side of law enforcement that few imagined could ever occur in our city.

It is doubtful the real truth will ever come out. Charlotte city manager Curt "The Clown" Walton and CMPD Chief Rodney "RoMo" Monroe have deflected blame to hiring practices in place before Monroe's tenure began.

But Neal Rodgers the attorney acting of behalf of the victims is on to the fact that the failures at the CMPD continued long after Jackson rolled on his first call.

Monroe and Walton are clearly playing catch up. When the 911 tapes were released both Monroe and Walton added that a review of 911 operations are also underway.

But it is evident that problems with the 911 operations and how they interact with Latinos is something that the city should have addressed long ago and in depth.

Charlotte City Council needs to dig deeper into operations at CMPD and explore not only the hiring of Marcus Jackson but how Jackson was supervised.

If coucil simply looks the other way, this nightmare will be swept under the already dirty rug that has become the Charlotte Police Department under Rodney Monroe.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Well said. I don't know Neal Rogers but I can only hope he puts a Smack Down on Romo in his opening statement for all to hear. I also noticed in today's paper how Curt Walton doesn't want Jackson's file to made public. Hmmmmm, wonder why? I guess it will show that Romo reduced Jackson's suspension which hurts Romo's appearance. Then hurts Curt Waltons image, since he hired him.
God, we can only hope.
How can sooooooo many issues with this Department since Romo's hiring not have people asking WTF? I mean damn, the mans a screw-up and he was hired by a screw-up. A survey was completed and it all came out, but no, it went away like everything else....

Anonymous said...

Of course Curt Walton doesn't want Jackson's file made public, of course romo doesn't want it made public.
Because it will clearly show what is going on and what has gone on at CMPD.
And now romo is trying to convince people that he didn't reduce the suspension...Bullshit, plain and simple.
If those files are intact as they should be, I am told they will clearly show the reduction in suspension, and the only person at CMPD that has the "power" to do that is romo....and he and ray/ray macro manage everything, so I am SURE they knew about Marcus Jackson and his suspensions..please.The truth is going to come out about this, no MATTER HOW HARD RODNEY AND CURT TRY TO SUPPRESS IT AND COVER UP!!
The issues in romo's regime are HUGE and are pretty much becoming the big pink elephant in the middle of the room...City Council won't be ABLE to ignore them much longer.
I mean, come on, does anyone REALLY think Curt Walton CARES about Jackson's PRIVACY? He doesn't give a rats ass about Jackson's privacy. He does care about saving his own ass.
It's all so tawdry and trashy, what's going on.
Rodney, Curt and Ray/Ray are RUINING the CMPD.
And it goes like this: City Council hires Curt, Curt hires rodney, rodney is a total embarrassment from the get go with his lack of a legitimate college degree. But they try to save face and don't do the right thing and let rodney go. And they had every right, as he was HIRED UNDER FALSE CIRCUMSTANCES.
So rodney showed his true colors and red flags from the beginning, and, unfortunately, so did City Council and Curt Walton, in NOT sAYING THEY MADE A MISTAKE, APOLOGIZING AND HIRING SOMEONE ELSE, THAT WAS QUALIFIED.

Anonymous said...

Cedar u got that right! Yank the rug out from under RoMo! How does that man sleep at night?

ThaQueenCity said...

RoMo MUST GO! I am going to put this on my backshield :-) Bet I will get stopped a million times and handshake from the ones out there who are suffering at the dictatorhip of RuttMutt and tons of bogus tickets from his cronies...watcha bet RuttMut will attempt to block my freedom of speech?? And my car as you know from my blog is hard to miss...LOL

Rea Road Neighborhood Coalition said...

"RoMo Must Go!"

Major Props to you! The Brave Girl that you are!