Thursday, June 2, 2011

Thursday Odds and Ends

Facts Continue To Emerge as CMPD and Council Go Into Full Spin Control

CMPD released a report to select media sources late Wednesday night.

According to the local paper, the report says the disturbances did not happen at the uptown Speed Street festival, but that police were concerned about surging crowds of youths between ages 10 and 25 outside the event as early as 6 p.m. Saturday. Trouble escalated shortly after the festival closed at 11 p.m., including the 11:30 p.m. confrontation outside the Ritz-Carlton hotel between officers and the charging crowd.

The report also contains a map showing many of the arrests were concentrated near the transit center, the EpiCentre and Time Warner Cable Arena. The arrests include two for assault on an officer.

"Though the Center City area experienced large crowds and several fights, the fights were limited to small groups of individuals," the report says. "Control of the Center City was maintained at all times."

Cedar Posts has learned that Civil Emergency Unit officers were not exactly "staged" as first reported, but according to CMPD sources were within 20 minutes from Uptown.

The report apparently conflicts with an earlier accounts that stated that the troubles didn't start until hours after the "Speed Street" event had ended. The most recent account squares better with eyewitness account of youth taunting and heckling "Speed Street" attendees.

5th Annual Shelton and Clark Memorial Benefit Softball Tournament

On Saturday, July 2, 2011 and Sunday July 3, 2011, a benefit softball tournament will be held at Idlewild Road Park to pay tribute and honor Jeff Shelton and Sean Clark. Home Run Derby Contest begins at 12:00, Saturday, July 2nd with Tournament Play beginning at 8:00am Sunday, July 3rd.

Team registration fee: 200.00 per team

Home Run Derby registration fee: 20.00 per person

Team Trophy for 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place finishes

There will be food and fun for a great cause! Any and all donations accepted!

The first (8) Co-Ed Teams will be accepted and the first (8) MENS teams will be accepted (USSSA RULES)

If interested in supporting this cause, please contact:
Detective Darryl Seegars
Matthews Police Department
704-847-4069(office)
dseegars@matthewspolice.org

Cedar Says: This a great event that needs your support and its a great way to spend the July 4th weekend.

Charlotte City Council Split On Uptown Melee

Councilman Warren Turner said he is already convinced the department took the proper steps. Turner suggested the media has mischaracterized what happened.

"I feel like the city handled it well, the police department, very well," Turner said.

Councilman David Howard said uptown is one of the safest areas of the city, but "we have some perception issues."

City council member Patrick Cannon, who chairs the council's community safety committee, said a large number of people were loitering at the transit center instead of using it to board buses.

"We have to get our minds around managing large numbers of people using the transit center," Cannon said. "That's why the transportation piece, in my mind, is more important than anything else."

Mecklenburg County Magistrate Sylvia Cherry returned to work this weekend.

Cherry was suspended last week when she granted an unsecured bond, allowing 23-year-old Martin Diamond to sign himself out of jail.

Diamond is accused of attempted murder, rape, kidnapping, breaking and entering, and first degree sex offense based on allegations that he broke into his ex-girlfriend’s home, attacked her, broke her jaw, and raped her.

Local media reports that Diamond continues to update his "FaceBook" page while being on the run.

CMPD investigators say the Violent Criminal Apprehension Team is continuing to look for Martin Diamond.

Diamond is 6’0” and 155 pounds with a cross tattoo on his shoulder. He is considered extremely dangerous. If you see him or know his whereabouts, call CMPD or 911.

17 comments:

Anonymous said...

It seems like the transit center is the biggest source of loitering and " hanging out"......so why not start there?
Increase police presence there and require people to have a ticket/legitimate reason for being there. Enforce the No Loitering law!
And, come on, CMPD, just tell the TRUTH when there' s a problem. People will respect that and forgive much sooner than a cover up and disinformation and minimizing. We aren't stupid.
It seems that people are more concerned about covering their butts than honestly addressing a problem and coming up with viable solutions.

Anonymous said...

Trust me. If you knew the truth you wouldn't believe it!!

Anonymous said...

Anon 2:35
Try us.

Anonymous said...

Contrary to what Cedar Posts has "learned", Civil Emergency Units were definitely not "staged 20 minutes from uptown". 1 platoon consisting of officers from all over the city was on stand-by and working normal patrol within the divisions. If you think about it, there aren't many places within city limits where you can't get to uptown within about 20 minutes on a Saturday evening.

Rea Road Neighborhood Coalition said...

Ha! Like I said "CEUs were not exactly "staged" as first reported"

I should have been more clear.

In other words a couple of my CMPD friends told me on Wednesday that CEU members were not stagged as Chief Monroe had said. They were simply "on call" workinng their regular shifts nearby.

Didn't we used to hold the CEU guys at the LEC?

Anonymous said...

How many times can you go before the public and be untruthful before you have no credibility?
I have been told that it was indeed a scary situation for the Officers that were there.
And if Officers felt threatened and not safe, just what does that say?
And to keep on and on and on with the minimizing is insulting to the Officers and the publc.

Anon said...

Does video lie?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rTs54k3OOHQ&feature=digest

Imagine visiting beautiful Charlotte, NC and coming in contact with this mob of thugs?

Anonymous said...

CEU was not staged. The response to the public was staged. Notice no footage has been released. I have worked in riots uptown. That was a riot.

Anonymous said...

Anon 2:02
Right you are and well put!
And where is ANY footage?
The lies just represent the tip of the iceberg and represent the modus operandi of the department under rodney and the lack of integrity and transparency.

Anonymous said...

How about this gem of a story that seems to have slipped thru every media crack possible!

http://breckfield.wordpress.com/2011/06/04/why-did-judge-lane-williamson-give-a-convicted-murderer-probation/

Anonymous said...

PUKE!!

After learning of Thompkins' arrest, Mayor Anthony Foxx issued a statement:

"Thanks to the tireless work of Police Chief Rodney Monroe, our CMPD officers and community members who came forward to offer information, the suspect in last week's shooting has turned himself into police custody.

Anonymous said...

FYI:

CEU units were called into the city from their divisions starting at around 6:30PM or 7:00PM. They were staged at the LEC for awhile before deployed. Yes, they had been in standby in their divisions. Makes sense to me.

The city leadership does have a responsibility to maintain the image of Uptown. It is a huge tax base for us. So the mayor and the chief were doing their jobs. I don't think coverup. But they had better put their foot down going forward.

We had African-American kids, teenagers and young adults acting like thugs. Where were their parents? If we don't put a collective foot down, this could be our future uptown. Enforce curfew. Impose ordinance to detain and have parents pick them up. Taking a kid below 16 to his house is a taxi ride that we pay for.

Transit center needs to be moved or a major police presence on the weekends. I like one of the comments here, no ticket, no enter. This is thug central.

Last but not least, this isn't CMPD's fault, the city's fault nor the taxpayers. It is directly on these African-American thugs. They are perpetuating a sterotype that should be long gone. All the work those before them put into race relations is going down the toilet everytime they act like this. The African American community suffers everytime. Those responsible citizens in this community stay quiet for fear of being labeled an "Uncle Tom". Their are more of them then these thugs, stand up and end this. Make it unacceptable behavior. I'm tired of being labeled a racist because of the color of my skin.

This is what it is....let the heavy foot fall!

Anonymous said...

apperently there have been at least 6 shootings including 2 homicides from from people who keep retaliating on one another. The uptown incident stemmed from multiple shootings starting may 1 in hickory grove division.

Anonymous said...

Certainly it starts at home with the parents and the values and ethics that are being taught there.
But you cannot minimize the results of this lack of teaching and supervision by trying to coddle the public.
So, yes, I believe it is covering up and disinformation in an effort to present a happy face to the DNC and the public.
But it is a false sense of security.
We are not idiots, we can appreciate and understand the truth....and deserve to be told the truth and what corrective actions are being taken to actually make uptown more safe.
Presenting misleading stats and not being truthful is only going to bite you in the ass.
The Genie is out of the bottle, folks.
And if people at CMPD keep leaning on underlings to push false stories, they are going to get a lot more than they bargained for! From what I have heard, it's going to backfire.
Not everyone surrounding rodney is blinded by a loyalty born of "owing him" for their job, not yet anyhow from what I am told.
There are still those he has not quite managed to get rid of that are willing to do their jobs without their main concern being kissing butt. And you never know when he will push someone to take a public stand against what happens.

Anonymous said...

I also have heard that rodney and a certain DC may be "picking on" the wrong people...blatantly so.
Do they really believe that everyone so lacks integrity and a backbone that they have not been documenting what has been going on at CMPD?
If they continue down this road, they will most certainly push people to spill some beans!

Anonymous said...

With so much attention and people resources being diverted to prep for the DNC, just expect more and more bizarre behavior and illogical reactions from the "people" in charge.
You can bet that they will be covering their butts with everything they have.

Anonymous said...

Sgt. Pepper was doing his usual lying in front of the cameras and city council tonight!
Haven't found any film of what happened yet? Even HE didn't look like he believed that!
OMG, they are going to put a couple of extra school resource officers out there? Whoa, that will take care of it!
And lily livered city council doesn't blame the police? Puleeze, may I ask who else was in charge of serving and protecting that night? (rodney).
Seems like once again CC and cmpd got their stories straight! The inept supporting the inept!
And I am not talking about the OFFICERS, but their supposed "leadership", ( rodney). The Officers were just following orders from command staff!
What a dog and pony show once again!
Can someone please stop the madness? Real leadership is needed at cmpd.
And someone who is willing to tell the TRUTH!! Wouldn't that be a novelty?