Apr 29 2008
100 City Residents March on Charlotte City Hall Over Crime
About 100 city residents paraded from the Dilworth Neighborhood Grille on Morehead Street to city headquarters downtown, about a mile away. They were protesting the city’s rising crime rate and what some feel is a failure by leaders to address it.
This was long overdue. I am really surprised it took this long to get people upset enough to head to the City Council and am actually disappointed that it was only 100 people. Violent crime is up in Charlotte by double digits and there is plenty of blame to go around: a weak Chief of Police, and understaffed DA’s office, weak-kneed judges and prosecutors, and a City Council that has been complacent.
“One of the reasons they are able to prey on the community is the lack of any real consequences,” he said.
He offered examples: James Jacobs, who’s been arrested 52 times, 14 in the past 22 months, and David Cousart, a 17-year-old whom police arrested April 9 and who has been arrested 15 times since December 2005 for property crimes.
Councilman John Lassiter asked Sennett why the department arrests so many of the same people over and over. Sennett said it takes too long for cases to reach trial, and other sectors of the criminal justice system are underfunded and overburdened.
Lassiter said officials at all levels should discuss how to accelerate the process.
Actually this is something that Lassiter and his compatriots should have been doing months ago. This is not a recent event. There has been outcry building over this problem for a long, long time and the City Council has put their fingers in their ears. The Observer has a few other quotes from citizens at last night’s meeting:
“What does it take to get a person off the street? How many felonies does a person have to have?”
COURTNEY JAMES who said four people, including one who was convicted of 17 misdemeanors and 5 felonies, tried to break into his home two weeks ago
Read more at the Charlotte Observer…..
Update: Here is a link to the taping of last night’s meeting that was emailed to me.
