East Charlotte Area Patrol Statutory Authority to Apprehend Individuals Engaged in Criminal Activity

One of the most frequent questions we’re asked is “Can the East Charlotte Area Patrol “Arrest” individuals that are engaged in criminal activity?”

The answer is “technically” no. North Carolina law does not allow “citizens arrests”.

Instead, North Carolina General Statute (NCGS)15A-404, outlined below, allows private citizens to “detain” individuals engaged in criminal acts.

NCGS 15A-404. Detention of offenders by private persons

(a) No Arrest; Detention Permitted.

No private person may arrest another person except as provided in G.S. 15A-405 (Assistance to law-enforcement officers by private persons to effect arrest or prevent escape). A private person may detain another person as provided in this section.

(b) When Detention Permitted.

A private person may detain {an investigative detention  refers to the holding of a suspect without formal arrest during the investigation of his possible participation in criminal activity (See Dunaway v. New York, 442 U.S. 200 (1979))} another person when he has probable cause {probable cause is the knowledge of facts and circumstances based on reasonable, trustworthy information sufficient to warrant a prudent person to believe that the suspect has committed an offense (See State v. Beiber, 365 N.C. 162, 712 S.E. 2d 874 (2011))} to believe that the person detained has committed in his presence:

(1) A felony {a felony is an offense punishable by death or imprisonment for more than one year (See 180 So. 717, 718)},

(2) A breach of the peace {a breach of the peace is an offense  embracing a great variety of conduct disturbing, destroying,  or menacing public order and tranquility. It includes not only violent acts but acts and words likely to produce violence in others (See Cantwell v. State of Connecticut, 310 U.S. 296, 308 (1940)). In its broadest sense the term, breach of the peace, refers to any criminal offense (See Williamson v. U.S., 207 U.S. 425 (1908)). Today, the term, breach of the peace,  is generally used to describe conduct which unreasonably threatens the public peace and which lacks a specific criminal label; by statute such conduct is often called “disorderly conduct” as the specific criminal offense; The term has been defined by state courts as “disturbances of the public peace”, violative of order and decency or decorum (See Newby v. District Court of Woodbury County, 147 N.W. 2d 886, 892 (1967)); And, any violation of any law enacted to preserve peace and good order (See 236 P. 57, 59); It signifies disorderly, dangerous, conduct that is disruptive of public peace (See 150 A. 2d 731, 739)},

(3) A crime involving physical injury to another person, or

(4) A crime involving theft or destruction of property.

(C) Manner of Detention.

The detention must be in a reasonable manner considering the offense involved and the circumstances of the detention.

(d) Period of Detention.

The detention may be no longer than the time required for the earliest of the following:

(1) The determination that no offense has been committed.

(2) Surrender of the person detained  to a law-enforcement officer as provided in subsection (e).

(E) Surrender to Office

A private person who detains another must immediately notify a law-enforcement officer and must, unless he releases the person earlier as required by subsection (d), surrender the person detained to the law-enforcement officer.

What Are Our Constitutions?

By Brian K. Lutes

It is THE HARD TRUTH that most of the people I have met in my life, and especially most of our elected representatives at the local, state, and federal levels, do not truly understand what our constitutions are, why our founding fathers wrote them, or even what they say.

I was present for a conversation between a citizen and a County Commissioner in Pennsylvania several years ago in which the citizen was attempting to convince the Commissioner to propose a resolution in support of the 2nd Amendment. The Commissioner responded: “Oh, that’s that gun thing, that’s none of our business, call the NRA”. The Commissioner then walked away.

“That’s that gun thing, that’s none of our business…”? Are you kidding me? Unfortunately, it is not a joke and most people would be surprised to know just how often this is the case. Every elected official, and law enforcement officer, no matter the office, location, or political affiliation, prior to taking office, must put his hand on the bible and take an oath to “support, obey, and defend the Constitution of the USA and of the State of _____ from all enemies, foreign, and domestic”. Yet, most of them have never read or truly tried to understand what our most sacred documents represent.

In my opinion prior to taking the oath, elected officials and prospective law enforcement officers should be asked if they have ever read the constitutions and then be required to pass a test on the Bill of Rights. If they haven’t read the documents or can’t pass the test on the rights protected by them, they should not be sworn into office until they can do so.

In short, our Constitutions are the supreme laws with which all other laws must comply (140 F. Supp. 925)  Our courts have defined our constitutions in these terms:”A constitution represents a mandate to the various branches of government directly from the people acting in their sovereign capacity; the organic law framing a governmental system (229 A.2d 388, 394). And, the US Supreme Court, in one of the earliest cases to deal with the question of what power was the Constitution, Marbury v. Madison, 5 U.S. 137 (1803), said “If courts are to regard the Constitution, and the Constitution is superior to any ordinary act of the legislature, the Constitution, and not such ordinary act, must govern the case to which they both apply”. This cemented our Constitution as the Supreme law of the land.

And, In American law, the word Constitution specifically refers to a written instrument which is the basic source from which government derives its power, but under which governmental powers are constrained. It is the emphasis on restrictions of governmental powers that distinguishes the American concept. (Schwartz, Constitutional Law, Ch. 1, p. 1 (1979))  It is the supreme law of the land and it cannot be abrogated even in part by statute. Like the federal constitution, a state constitution is the supreme law within the state. (140 F. Supp. 925, 928)

The Federal government that was created with the adoption of the Constitution was delegated (delegation of power is not to be confused with surrender of power, which implies abandonment or a yielding of power to another (2 So. 2d 11, 16) and is from a superior to an inferior) very few and well defined powers laid out in Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution of the United States.

Those that were in favor of adopting the Constitution and creating a more powerful Federal government thereby were called Federalists. They wrote a series of newspaper articles that have come to be known as The Federalist Papers stating the reasons they were in favor of adopting the proposed Constitution and the powers that the new government would have. The Federalists included, among many others, James Madison who is known as the Father of the Constitution, and Alexander Hamilton.

The people that were opposed to adopting the proposed Constitution were known as Anti-Federalists. They also wrote a series of newspaper articles that have come to be known as The Anti-Federalist Papers. They feared, rightly so, that the new government that would be created would eventually become tyrannical just like the King of England they had just escaped. They demanded that protections be written into the Constitution in an effort to guarantee that certain rights of the people could not be violated by the new government. The guarantees they demanded became known as The Bill of Rights, the first 10 amendments of the Constitution. One of the leading Anti-Federalists was Patrick Henry.

When the Anti-Federalists insisted upon the Bill of Rights, the Federalists said it was not necessary to protect rights such as freedom of the press, the right to bear arms, etc. since the new government would not be delegated any power to interfere with those rights as the new government would only be able to exercise the few powers specifically delegated to it and none that were not specifically delegated to it. Thankfully, the Anti-Federalists still insisted on the protections and were successful in having them adopted.

Let us be clear, James Madison, the father of the Constitution, wrote in the Federalist Papers that the new Federal government would only be able to exercise powers that were specifically delegated to it. And, as an added protection the 10th Amendment states: “ The powers not delegated to the United States (Federal government) by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States, respectively, or to the people.” 

The US Supreme Court has held that the Amendment expresses the original framers’ intent that the “central” government be a government of limited powers and was included in the Bill of Rights to prevent the federal government from attempting to exercise powers that were not specifically delegated to it. (426 U.S. 833, 851) (Schwartz, Constitutional Law 2.2 (2d ed. 1979))

In short, this Amendment clearly shows that it was the intent of our Founding Fathers that the Federal government would not be able to do whatever it wanted. If the Congress wanted to carry out a particular task it would have to point to a specific clause in the Constitution that allowed it to carry out that task. If there were no authorizing clause in the Constitution, the task could not be undertaken by the Federal government.

It can’t be stressed too strongly that our Founding Fathers had just escaped a tyrannical King that, as a supreme ruler, was virtually unlimited in his power over their lives. They knew they had to have some form of government, but they were extremely fearful that the government they were creating might someday become just as tyrannical as the King was, so in an effort to prevent this new creation, the Federal government, from ever becoming a threat to the liberty of the American people they delegated very few and well defined powers to it, and then added very specific denials of power (The Bill of Rights) to it.

After our Founding Fathers came to agreement on the wording of the Constitution and the powers the new government would exercise, they submitted it to the individual States for their ratification (approval). The Constitution would apply to and bind together only those States that approved it. Any state that did not approve the Constitution would be bound to other non approving States by the old Articles of Confederation. If only one State refused to ratify the new Constitution that State would stand as an independent “nation state”.

In fact, North Carolina did not ratify the Constitution for well over a year after the other States had ratified the document and joined the “union”. During the time that North Carolina had not ratified the Constitution it stood independently until it decided for itself whether or not it would join her sister States in the union. If North Carolina had never approved the Constitution it would still stand as an independent nation state.

Basically, The Constitution of the United States is a voluntary compact, a contract if you will, between sovereign (self determining) States with each deciding for itself, to create a common agent, the Federal government, in which each State would have representation, to carry out very few powers that were laid out in writing for their mutual benefit. The best analogy I can think of to explain the way the relationship between the States and Federal government is supposed to be is this: Think of the States as individual families that share a common problem. Mostly they need a solution to security issues. Each family picks representatives that get together (the Continental Congress) to discuss possible solutions to the problem. The family representatives hammer out an agreement and take it back home to discuss it with the whole family. Each family raises questions about & objections to the proposed solutions and orders their representatives to meet again and the process continues. Finally, the representatives decide that the solution is to get a very tough dog (Federal government) for all the families to share. However, some of the families have members that are afraid of dogs so the representatives craft a very strong collar & chain (the Constitution) to restrain the dog so it cannot harass or injure any innocent family members, but is loose enough so that the dog can patrol the perimeter and chew up trespassers. Each representative then takes the collar & chain home for every family member to inspect and after the families agree that the collar & chain are strong, yet loose, enough, they attach it to the dog and set him about his assigned duties

The Role and Purpose of Law Enforcement in a Free Society

By Brian K. Lutes

It is very easy for law enforcement officers to lose sight of their purpose; with 6 years of experience as a police officer and Deputy PA State Constable I know this to be true. We often get caught in the vicious trap of trying to do all we can to get the bad guys off of the streets while at the same time trying to protect the good guys in a politically correct manner.

It is nearly impossible, but somehow we must get the job done, and we do.

It is not easy enforcing laws in a free society; it is not supposed to be. It would be much easier enforcing laws in a society where the citizens have, what some would call a healthy, fearful respect, of men with badges on their chests. A society where the citizens know that you don’t dare step out of line or the police will show up and make an example of you for all to see. And, if you want to work in that type of society you only need to move to China, Cuba, or any one of several Eastern European countries where law enforcement officers are feared and the citizens step aside when they approach.

In those societies police officers are looked upon as overseers making sure no one steps outside of the boxes their government masters have drawn for them. Making sure that citizens who express displeasure with those same government masters are taken away for ‘re-education’ before they corrupt their neighbors with crazy notions of freedom of speech and assembly.

However, we can thank God, and our Founding Fathers, that we do not live in such a country; at least not yet, and a key determining factor in whether or not we ever will, falls on the shoulders of us, the law enforcers.

We are the individuals that are on the street, among the people, our neighbors and families, applying the rules of civil society as laid down by our fellow employees of the people, legislators. And it is us that decides whether or not to write the ticket or make the arrest for whatever violation of law we observe or discover; It is our discretion (The reasonable exercise of a power or right to act in an official capacity; involves the idea of choice, of an exercise of the will, 94 N.W. 2d 810, 811).

Our #1 job while serving our fellow citizens is to live up to our Oath of Office to “Support, Obey and Defend the Constitution of the state in which we serve and the Constitution of the United States of America against all enemies, foreign AND DOMESTIC; and that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same… and I do further solemnly swear that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of law enforcement officer with fidelity”. We have all taken this oath, or something very similar to it, before we ever pinned that precious badge on our chests. But, how many of us ever really thought about and realized the significance of that oath we so willingly took? I fear not enough of us have.

When we take the oath of office we swear before God that we will, above all else, support, obey, and defend our Constitutions, state and federal. We do not swear to get the bad guy at all costs. We do not swear to be creative, without technically lying, in our report writing to get the warrant (This amounts to “False Swearing which our courts have defined as a “willful and corrupt sworn statement made without sincere belief in its truthfulness” See Perkins & Boyce, Criminal Law 511 (3d ed. 1982)). We swear an oath to uphold our Constitutions and the protections of American freedom therein.

The Constitutions we have all sworn to uphold are the very foundation of our uniquely American lives. Our Constitutions are the only thing standing between our way of life and the subservient lives of Cubans or the Chinese. Every time our Constitutions are violated, be it by Legislators, Judges, or Executive Branch Agents, our American way of life suffers. It especially suffers when it is violated by those of us that have sworn to uphold it.

Our purpose as law enforcement officers, every time we put that badge on, is to go out and preserve our uniquely American way of life by enforcing, or not enforcing, our laws in accord with our oaths to our Constitutions.

We, I say we because those of us who are charged with enforcing the laws are subject to those same laws, as Americans, have a right to “Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness” and when those rights are violated by someone who murders, steals, assaults, or kidnaps one of our fellow citizens we show up and take action living up to our oaths by arresting the offending individual, depriving them of their liberty, pursuit of happiness, and possibly their life, for violating the rights of the victim(s); we do not technically arrest the offending individual for killing the victim, but for violating the victim’s right to life.

We also, as a result of our oaths to support, obey, and defend the Constitutions, have a responsibility to not enforce, by exercising our prosecutorial discretion (which our courts have defined as “The wide range of alternatives available to a prosecutor in criminal cases, including the decision to prosecute, the particular charges to be brought, etc… or not to prosecute (see Lafave, Arrest 72 (1965)), laws passed by the legislatures that violate our Constitutions (consider this: “The general rule is that an unconstitutional statute, whether federal or state, though having the form and name of law, is in reality no law, but is wholly void, and ineffective for any purpose, since unconstitutionality dates from the time of its enactment, and not merely from the date of the decision so branding it. No one is bound to obey an unconstitutional law and no courts are bound to enforce it” (16th American Jurisprudence, 256, 2nd edition).

For example, say the town council adopts an ordinance, which our courts have defined as “A local law that applies to persons and things subject to the local jurisdiction” (see 90 F. 2d 175, 177) that says no one in the town is allowed to possess a gun for any reason and that law is put on the books in the town. We as law enforcement officers have an obligation to refuse to enforce that law because it is in violation of the 2nd Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, “…The right of the people to keep & bear arms shall not be infringed” and Article 1 Section 21 of the Constitution of the Commonwealth of PA “The right of the citizens to bear arms in defense of themselves and the state shall not be questioned” that we took an oath to support, obey, and defend.

Mob Mentality in Charlotte

Special to The Pittsburgh Tribune Review by Pat Buchanan, September 27, 2016

Celebrating the racial diversity of the Charlotte protesters last week, William Barber II, chairman of the North Carolina NAACP, proudly proclaimed, “This is what democracy looks like.”

Well, if Barber is right, so, too, was John Adams, who warned us that “democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide.”

In the first two nights of rioting, the mob in Charlotte injured a dozen police officers, beat white people, looted stores, blocked traffic, shut down interstate highways, got one person shot and killed and forced the call-up of state troopers and National Guard to rescue an embattled police force.

This was mobocracy, a criminal takeover of Charlotte’s downtown by misfits hurling racist and obscene insults and epithets not only at the cops but also at bystanders and reporters sent to cover their antics.

We have seen this before. It was a rerun of Ferguson, Baltimore and Manhattan after mobs in those cities concluded that innocent black men had been deliberately killed by “racist white cops.”

Yet, one week later, what do we know of the precipitating event in Charlotte?

Keith Scott, 43, a black father of seven, was shot and killed not by a white cop but by a black cop who shouted to him, along with others, almost 10 times — “Drop the gun!”

An ex-con whose convictions included assault with a deadly weapon, Scott was wearing an ankle holster and carrying a handgun.

Charlotte Police Chief Kerr Putney, also black, after viewing video from a dash-cam and a body-cam of the officers involved, recommended against filing any charges.

The chief concedes that he cannot, from the video, see a gun in Scott’s hands at the time he was shot.

But how is the legitimate investigation of Scott’s death advanced by a mob? And if mass civil disobedience is what “democracy looks like” in 2016, why are we surprised that other nations look less and less to American democracy as their model?

Moreover, if these reversions of the enraged to street action become the new normal, what do they portend for the country?

Blanket cable news coverage of the Ferguson riots split us along racial lines. But what purpose did they serve? Even Eric Holder’s Justice Department concluded that Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson should not be charged in the shooting death of Michael Brown, who tried to grab Officer Wilson’s gun.

In New York, the five cops who piled on Eric Garner to subdue him never intended to injure him, said an Investigating Grand Jury. Well over 300 pounds, Garner suffered from obesity, diabetes, asthma and hypertension, and he died not of a police choke-hold but a heart attack.

Yes, there have been incidents when cops made mistakes and cases where cops acted criminally. In Tulsa last week, after a white cop shot and killed an unarmed black man who appeared to offer no threat, she was charged with first-degree manslaughter. Is not this, rather than marching mobs, the way to handle such incidents?

If every collision between white cops and black men resulting in the death of a suspect is to be seen as grounds for mob action like Charlotte, we will never know racial peace.

The street action may be what “democracy looks like” to Barber’s NAACP. But to most Americans, it looks like a formula for endless racial conflict — and a touch of fascism in the night.

Charlotte’s Keith Lamont Scott: Armed and Dangerous

From The New American by C. Mitchell Shaw, September 29, 2016

The violent riots and looting in Charlotte, North Carolina, are — according to the Black Lives Matter (BLM) crowd — actions of “protest” over the officer-involved shooting death of Keith Lamont Scott (shown at right and below). The BLM crowd and Scott’s family — including, and especially, his wife — have said Scott was unarmed.

Police said he was armed and posed an imminent danger.

Who’s correct?

The evidence makes it clear that Scott was not only armed but dangerous — based on statements by Scott’s wife prior to the Charlotte shooting as well as the fact that the handgun recovered at the scene was ready to fire (more on both points below).

Yet despite the presence of the handgun, the family and the BLM “protesters” have denied, and continue to deny, that Scott had a gun. Of course, as The New American reported last week, it is an established fact that Scott has used guns and other weapons in previous violent crimes. In fact, Scott served several years in a Texas prison for firing two shots at police officers who were attempting to arrest him for shooting another man. In that incident, neither officer was hit, and Scott was apprehended without further trouble. Scott confessed to shooting and seriously injuring one Anthony Trinidad.

As we said in the article linked above:

Scott had a long and violent criminal record that included felony assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill, misdemeanor assault with a deadly weapon, and aggravated assault with a deadly weapon in an episode where — while evading arrest — Scott fired two shots at police officers before being apprehended by those officers.

But — even while reporting on Scott’s violent past and the recovery of the gun, mainstream media have largely ignored some key facts in this case. For instance, one of those charges against Scott was made by his wife, Rakeyia, less than a year ago. While making those charges on October 3, 2015, she also began the process of filing a restraining order and said Scott was “armed” and that officers needed to consider him a “danger.” That order was dated October 5, 2015. On the form she was asked the reason for officers to consider him dangerous. She wrote “he carries a 9mm” and described the handgun as “black.”

The gun recovered at the scene of Scott’s shooting (shown above and below) was a black handgun which appears to be a black subcompact. Police have said that the gun recovered at the scene was stolen in a burglary and later purchased by Scott.

On that same complaint form, Rakeyia wrote about Scott:

He hit my 8 year old in the head a total of three times with is [sic] fist. He kicked me and threaten [sic] to kill us last night with his gun. He said he is a “killer” and we should know that.

Rakeyia Scott dropped the charges and released the restraining order 11 days later and seems to have forgotten all about it, because in a video she released of the shooting, she can be heard to repeatedly tell officers that Scott does not have a weapon. She has continued to say that was the case. The officers, however are heard telling Scott at least 10 times to “drop the gun.” Rakeyia is heard at least four times warning Scott “Don’t you do it” before he was shot.

Even if Rakeyia’s memories of the most recent restraining order and assault charges she filed against her husband are a little foggy, it seems she would remember the time she filed charges against him in 2004 for stabbing her. Court documents reveal that she said Scott “assaulted me several times by stabbing me in the back, almost puncturing my lungs, he sliced me [sic] ear and bruised my body.”

All of this indicates that this was not Scott’s first rodeo. He was a dangerous man with a past of violent assaults involving weapons. And — though the mainstream media seem to have completely overlooked this fact — the picture of the gun above shows something interesting. The gun is cocked (the hammer can be seen in the fully cocked position, and the safety (located just above the grip and toward the rear of the gun) is off. This gun is in the firing position. All that was left was for Scott to pull the trigger, as he had done in the past. An ankle holster was recovered at the scene, indicating that Scott had certainly drawn the weapon, since the holster was unsnapped and the gun — ready to fire — was found lying beside him where he fell after being shot.

So, even as the BLM crowd and mainstream media have made much of the fact that none of the available videos shows Scott pointing a weapon (in fact, because of the angles of the videos, his hands cannot be seen), it is clear from just what is known so far that Scott was armed and dangerous and — judging from his past and the fact that the stolen gun he was carrying was cocked and the safety was off — was prepared to shoot police officers.

Of course, none of that will matter to the radicalized BLM “protesters” who have exploited this as a rationale to loot, burn, and terrorize the city of Charlotte.

Blame for Charlotte Riots Goes to BLM

Third Night of Riots in Charlotte: Two Officers Sprayed With “Chemical Agent”

From The New American by C. Mitchell Shaw, September 23, 2016

In the wake of a police-involved shooting of a black man Tuesday in Charlotte, North Carolina, angry mobs of vandals and looters have taken to the streets under the banner of Black Lives Matter (BLM). More than 20 police officers and many more civilians have been attacked and injured. Vehicles — including police cars, civilian cars, buses, and semi-trucks — have been damaged or destroyed. Stores have been damaged and looted. At least one civilian has been killed. All of this has been done in the name of “protesting” perceived “social injustice.”

As The New American reported previously, “protests” which were marked by looting and violence in Charlotte began within three hours of the police shooting of Keith Lamont Scott. The violence and looting ran into the wee hours of the morning and then — predictably — started back up again the next night, after the criminal element had had a good day’s sleep.

North Carolina Governor Pat McCrory declared a state of emergency and called up both the State Highway Patrol and the National Guard to enforce a curfew and keep the peace. As we reported then:

In the second night of pillaging and marauding, police made 44 arrests, more property was destroyed, nine civilians, five police officers, and at least two journalists were injured, and one young man was shot. Many businesses in uptown Charlotte — where most of the violence has occurred — have told employees to stay home. Before the tumult died down, Governor Pat McCrory declared a state of emergency and called in the State Police and the North Carolina National Guard.

In spite of these efforts to keep the peace, Thursday night saw the third night in a row of what the mainstream media prefers to describe as “unrest.” While those “protests” did not reach the level of destruction and violence seen the two previous nights, it was still reported that two Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department (CMPD) officers were treated for injuries resulting from being sprayed with “a chemical agent” by rioters.

In all so far, more two dozen police officers have been injured, scores of rioters have been arrested (with reports claiming that 70 percent of them are from out of state), scores of residents have been injured — one, who had been shot in the head during the second night of the tumult and had been reported in critical condition, has now died of his injuries — buildings have been damaged and looted, and vehicles, including several city buses, several police cars, and several privately owned vehicles, have been damaged or destroyed.

An increasing number of businesses have told employees not to report to work, but to stay home for their own safety.

All of this violence and destruction has been instigated by the lies and hateful rhetoric of the BLM crowd as a “protest” of what they say is police violence targeted at black residents of the city. Of course, the idea of fighting perceived violence by indiscriminately attacking others (mostly police officers and white people), stealing, and destroying property, is — on its very face — ridiculous. As the National Guard patrols the streets of Charlotte, North Carolina, the violence seems to be diminishing. This provides evidence of a basic principle of liberty: Those who will not govern themselves must — and will — be governed by others. The current state of destruction and heavy police and military presence in Charlotte is laid squarely at the feet of the BLM crowd. Just don’t hold your breath waiting for them to take responsibility or to stop blaming everyone else.

The War on Cops, How It Makes Everyone Less Safe

From The New American by Bob Adelmann, September 13, 2016

There were so many shootings over the weekend in Chicago that the city’s CBS affiliate didn’t have all the particulars until after 8:00 a.m. on Monday morning. The station then added another shooting to the list just before going online with the depressing news: Eight people were killed and at least 33 others were wounded in Chicago between Friday evening and Monday morning.

The first homicide occurred at about 11:30 p.m. Friday night with the shooting death of 18-year-old Louis Rodriguez; the last shooting occurred at 4:30 a.m. Monday morning when a man standing on a sidewalk in Chicago’s West Side was shot by someone cruising by in a vehicle. At press time the victim was listed in serious condition.

One of the many weekend shootings involved the death of a man attending a vigil for another who was shot the day before. He was killed by two men in a grey minivan who then sped away. The case is under investigation.

Heather Mac Donald, author of The War on Cops: How the New Attack on Law and Order Makes Everyone Less Safe, explained the reason why: the “Ferguson Effect.” First coined by Sam Dotson, chief of the St. Louis Police Department in 2014, the term describes the increasing reluctance of officers on the beat to confront criminals owing to fears that they might be charged themselves with criminal activity. As a result, wrote Dotson, “The criminal element is feeling empowered.”

In an article in the Wall Street Journal in May of 2015, Mac Donald claimed that, thanks to the “Ferguson Effect” — named for the 2014 police shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri — “cops are disengaging from discretionary enforcement activity,” leading inevitably to that criminal “empowerment.”

In the Journal on Sunday, Mac Donald expanded on her theme, claiming that “Chicago officers have cut back drastically on proactive policing under the onslaught of criticism from the Black Lives Matter movement and its political and media enablers.” As a result, she wrote, “criminals are back in control and black lives are being lost at a rate not seen for decades.”

By September 8 nearly 3,000 people had been shot in Chicago since the first of the year — an average of one shooting victim every two hours. A total of 516 people have been murdered while gun homicides and non-fatal shootings jumped by half from the same period a year earlier.

Mac Donald claims that the media blames poverty, racism, and lack of government services as the cause behind the Chicago horror, while Police Superintendent Eddie Johnson blames lenient prison sentences that release violent criminals back on the street. Any attempt by the state’s legislature to impose stricter sentencing is successfully blocked by the legislature’s Black Caucus.

In April Mac Donald spoke at Hillsdale College, blaming the Movement for Black Lives (50 organizations including Black Lives Matter) as the primary driver behind the anti-police movement. The group, according to Mac Donald, promotes the lie that racist police officers represent the greatest threat to young black men today. This has led to riots, murder, and attempted murder of police officers and a campaign to eliminate traditional grand jury proceedings when police use lethal force.

This lie has led to the spreading of the Ferguson Effect, where “police officers are backing off of proactive policing in the face of the relentless venom directed at them on the street and in the media.”

What Mac Donald failed to tell her Hillsdale audience about is far more sinister: the agenda and the forces behind the BLM. Founded by Marxist revolutionaries in 2013, BLM is closely affiliated with a vicious hard-left communist revolutionary outfit called the Freedom Road Socialist Organization (FRSO). This is a Marxist-Leninist organization that calls for the overthrow of capitalism, to be replaced by a communist dictatorship. The BLM is informed by the FRSO’s view of America as an inherently and irredeemably racist nation where “white privilege” is ubiquitous and “national oppression [of blacks] is at the heart of [the nation’s] economic, political and ideological traditions, and the oppression of the African American people in particular have been central to the U.S. class struggle.”

The FRSO calls for “a social system where … wealth is not in the hands of a few billionaires, but is controlled by the people.” Of course, the FRSO intends that, following the destruction of capitalism, it will represent “the people” in setting up the new dictatorship.

To get there, however, local police must be replaced by federal police, and the best way to do that is to create distrust among the citizenry over local police, leaving the way open for a federal “gestapo” in charge of keeping the peace and removing recalcitrants and other anti-communists in the process.

Making the point, Illinois Senator Dick Durbin announced last week that the Chicago Police Department will be receiving more than $2.3 million in taxpayer funds that will, he said, “help equip those officers with the best, most up-to-date tools to do their jobs effectively and keep residents safe.” It will also come with the inevitable strings which, over time, become ropes and then hawsers, turning the CPD into a mere substation of the national police force in the making.

Mac Donald expressed dismay and frustration at the success of the BLM to create the vacuum to be filled by federal intrusions and eventually the takeovers of local police. She closed her speech at Hillsdale with this observation: “I don’t know what will end the current frenzy against the police. What I do know is that we are playing with fire, and if it keeps spreading, it will be hard to put out.”

“We” are not playing with fire, Ms. Mac Donald. “We” are the target of the revolutionaries, as are our local police. “We” will keep our freedoms only to the extent that we truly understand the war against those freedoms, who its enemies are, what their intentions are, and then take action. For 50 years The John Birch Society has been in the forefront of that battle, forming its first “Support Your Local Police” committees in the late 1950s and early 1960s.

Unless and until awareness and understanding is sufficient to expose, neuter, and then eliminate that threat, it will indeed “keep spreading.”

Is It a Crime for a Transgendered Person to Use the “Wrong” Bathroom?

From North Carolina Criminal Law, a UNC School of Governemnt Blog, April 4, 2016

The General Assembly recently passed, and the Governor recently signed, HB 2 (S.L. 2016-3), popularly known as “the bathroom bill.” This post considers whether it is now a crime for a transgendered person to use the bathroom of the sex with which he or she identifies.

More than bathrooms. The bill is about more than bathrooms, as discussed in detail in this blog post by my colleague Trey Allen. But it does include provisions about bathrooms, and those provisions are the focus of this post.

No effect on private businesses’ bathrooms. The bill concerns only bathrooms operated by school boards and other state and local government entities. It doesn’t prevent private businesses from making multiple occupancy bathrooms available by gender identity.

Focus on multiple occupancy bathrooms. The focus of the bill is multiple occupancy bathrooms. Although some of the language isn’t perfectly clear — at least to me — it seems that government entities have greater discretion in determining access to single occupancy bathrooms.

Government entities must establish single-sex bathrooms, with sex determined by birth certificate. The pertinent language for school boards is in Section 1.1 of the bill: they “shall establish single-sex multiple occupancy bathroom and changing facilities.” Additional provisions in Section 1.2 of the bill clarify that “sex” means biological sex as stated on a person’s birth certificate. The language for other public agencies is in Section 1.3 of the bill: they “shall require every multiple occupancy bathroom or changing facility to be designated for and only used by persons based on their biological sex,” again as stated on a person’s birth certificate.

The objective of the bill appears to be to establish a policy that, for multiple occupancy bathrooms run by government entities, a transgendered person whose birth certificate does not match his or her gender identity should use the bathroom designated for the sex listed on his or her birth certificate. The merits of this rule are beyond the scope of this post.

Is it a crime for a transgendered person to use the “wrong” bathroom? Almost a year ago, I posted about whether it is a crime for a man to use the ladies’ room. I suggested that a man using the ladies’ room might well be trespassing, or breaking and entering. At that time, I didn’t address bathroom usage by transgendered people. I’ll tackle that issue now.

In general, before HB 2 and for bathrooms not affected by the law, I doubt that a sign on a bathroom door showing a stick figure in a skirt would render criminal the use of such a bathroom by a transgendered female, whether or not she has undergone sex reassignment surgery. Even if the sign includes the word “women” or a synonym, I doubt that a transgendered female would be trespassing or breaking and entering by using the bathroom in question. Such a person identifies as a woman, typically dresses as a woman, and is recognized as a woman by many members of the public. As to her, the sign is ambiguous at best.

After HB 2, however, the situation may be different for the bathrooms covered by the bill. The bill is plainly intended to require that each person use the bathroom designated for the sex listed on his or her birth certificate, and the provisions of the bill arguably reduce the ambiguity associated with typical bathroom signage. Therefore, there is an argument that a transgendered person using the “wrong” bathroom would be doing so “without authorization,” which is the key to the first-degree trespass statute, G.S. 14-159.12, or even “wrongfully,” which is the key to misdemeanor breaking or entering, G.S. 14-54.

A possible counterargument would be that HB 2 mandates that various government entities limit the use of their multiple occupancy bathrooms by biological sex, but that HB 2 itself does not directly govern the use of bathrooms. In other words, the bill states that school boards “shall establish” bathrooms compliant with the bill, and that school boards and public agencies “shall require” that multiple occupancy bathrooms be used only by a single biological sex, but arguably leaves the actual establishing and requiring to the government entities mentioned in the bill. On this view, a transgendered person using the “wrong” bathroom would not be violating any criminal law unless and until the entity in control of the bathroom in question adopts a policy implementing HB 2.

I don’t know whether HB 2 was intended to criminalize the use of the “wrong” bathroom by transgendered people. It may be worth noting that HB 2 itself contains no criminal penalties.

Constitutional and other issues. HB 2 has been challenged in court. Opponents of the bill argue that it violates the Equal Protection Clause as well as federal statutory law. Whether the bathroom-related provisions of the bill will survive remains to be seen.

Investigative issues. Finally, I have been asked how a law enforcement officer might investigate an allegation that a transgendered person is using, or has used, the “wrong” bathroom. My impression is that most officers will want nothing to do with such an investigation, unless there is some suggestion of inappropriate activity in the bathroom. Attempting to determine the biological sex of a bathroom patron may be difficult and will certainly be intrusive. Most people don’t carry their birth certificates around, nor would an officer normally have any authority to require a person to present his or her birth certificate. And the idea of an officer seeking to inspect the physical characteristics of a bathroom patron rings all sorts of legal alarm bells. So even if use of the “wrong” bathroom is a crime in theory, it may be difficult to investigate and charge in practice.

Is It Illegal for a Man to Use the Ladies Room?

From North Carolina Criminal Law, a UNC School of Government Blog, by Jeff Welty, May 6, 2015

In Charlotte, there is a controversy over whether a transgendered person should use the bathroom assigned to his or her biological sex or to the sex with which he or she identifies. The Charlotte Observer has the story here. This post doesn’t address that issue directly, but instead concerns a related question that the story prompted me to ponder: Is it illegal for a man to use the ladies’ room?

There doesn’t seem to be much law directly addressing this topic, or the similar if not identical issue of whether it is illegal for a woman to use the men’s room. A few states have considered enacting specific crimes targeting restroom usage by the opposite sex, as noted by the Huffington Post here and here. But it doesn’t sound as though any of them have passed, leaving me to consider more generally-applicable crimes.

Here are the main possibilities:

Trespass.

There’s a strong argument that a man entering a ladies’ room is a person who has, without authorization, entered a building of another and so is guilty of First-Degree Trespass, NCGS 14-159.12. One might argue that a restroom is not a building but a room within a building. However, it may qualify as a building under NCGS 14-159.11, which defines the term as “any structure or part of a structure . . . enclosed so as to permit reasonable entry only through a door.” Supporting that interpretation is Com. v. White, 538 A.2d 887 (Pa. Super. Ct. 1988), where the court affirmed a conviction for criminal trespass after the male defendant entered the women’s restroom of an athletic club. The court ruled that the restroom was a “separately secured or occupied portion” of the building that was reserved for women’s use. Update: See also In re S.M.S., 196 N.C. App. 170 (2009) (affirming an adjudication of second-degree trespass after a boy entered a girls’ locker room, and stating that “[t]he sign marked ‘Girl’s Locker Room’ was reasonably likely to give respondent notice that he was not authorized to go into the girls’ locker room”).

Breaking or entering. There’s also a reasonable argument that a man entering a ladies’ room has wrongfully entered a building and so is guilty of misdemeanor breaking or entering under G.S. 14-54. Whether the bathroom is a building itself or is instead a part of a building may be irrelevant under State v. Perkins, 181 N.C. App. 209 (2007) (affirming a conviction of breaking or entering after a defendant entered the public reception area of a law firm, then entered “nonpublic space reserved for firm employees”; the entry into the nonpublic space rendered his entry into the building as a whole unlawful).

Disorderly conduct. In some states, incidents of this kind may be charged as disorderly conduct. See Com. v. Young, 535 A.2d 1141 (Pa. Super. Ct. 1987) (affirming a conviction for disorderly conduct after a male defendant entered a women’s restroom and opened a toilet stall being used by a female). But North Carolina’s disorderly conduct statute, G.S. 14-288.4, is limited to specific types of disruptive behavior, and I don’t see anything in the statute that would cover inappropriate bathroom usage.

Indecent exposure. Although indecent exposure might be applicable in some circumstances, most instances of a person of one sex using a restroom assigned to the other sex probably do not involve the showing of private parts required by the indecent exposure statute, G.S. 14-190.9.

Peeping. Although peeping might be applicable in some circumstances, most instances of a person of one sex using a restroom assigned to the other sex probably do not involve sufficient secrecy on the part of the person to implicate the peeping statute, G.S. 14-202.

Common sense. All of the analysis above should be considered alongside a bit of common sense. If a janitor of one sex cleans an empty restroom assigned to the opposite sex, or if a child of one sex accompanies a parent of another sex into a restroom assigned to the parent’s sex, neither the janitor nor the child should be hauled into court. If one bathroom at a gas station is out of order and patrons of both sexes take turns using the remaining bathroom, I can’t imagine a criminal charge resulting. But if a man waltzes into a ladies’ room, for no good reason, my guess is that a charge of trespass, or perhaps breaking or entering, could stick.

Charlotte Police: How We Fight Gangs in Charlotte

From http://www.wbtv.com, November 3, 2015

Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police say  the number of gang members in Charlotte is down, but the problems they cause are up.

Anchor Molly Grantham sat down to talk one-on-one with Captain Mike Harris, who is over the unit in Charlotte Mecklenburg Police that fights gangs in Charlotte.

“Gangs are smarter than they were three or four years ago,” he said. “Not all gangs show colors. Not all gangs show hand signs and gestures. A lot of times, it’s Facebook and Instagram and Snapchat. That’s how they now communicate.”

Captain Harris also says Charlotte is a city of transportation ease. Great for many of us who can get across the county in 20 minutes, but that same fact makes fighting gangs difficult.

“It’s easy to get from Point A to Point B,” he said. “City buses, rental cars, personal cars gang members own… they can get places fast. It’s not as much about turf. So you have people who live in, gang members who live in the east side of Charlotte, who don’t commit any crime in east Charlotte. They commit it all in west Charlotte or northwest Charlotte.”

Captain Harris says that means there aren’t as many neighborhood gangs in Charlotte. They’re more mobile and less organized than traditional gangs.

It was 2010 the last time WBTV had asked CMPD for statistics on how many documented – or, known – gangs and gang members were in Mecklenburg County. At that time we had been told there were about 2,000 known gang members and about 150 known gangs.

Now? 

“Approximately 75 documented gangs,” Captain Harris said.  “And roughly 800 documented gang members.”

Captain Harris says there’s a variety of reasons for the drop – gangs merge and people are deported and fall off the local lists – but the main reason, he says, is if gang members are no longer flashing signs or wearing certain colors, they’re not as easy to document.

He also gave us the seven gangs causing the most problems for his officers in Charlotte-Mecklenburg.

• MS-13
• SUR-13
• Crips
• Bloods
• Hidden Valley Kings
• The Jack Boys
• Kut Throat Killers

Those final three area all gangs specific to Charlotte. Police say the Hidden Valley Kings are mostly located in the Hidden Valley neighborhood of northeast Charlotte, and The Jack Boys and Kut Throat Killers are located mostly in the northeast part of Mecklenburg County.

Captain Harris also said The Jack Boys and the Kut Throat Killers are big into local narcotics, violent criminal acts and property crimes.

“When we put pressure through our investigations on these gangs,” he said, “it pushes a lot of them back into the shadows and to stop committing crimes.”

Captain Harris also says its “gang unit” is no longer using that name.

“We’re the anti-crime unit,” he said. “We have a division called ‘Covert Operations’. That’s my division. Within that division we have three functions – our local version of ABC that deals with clubs and ABC violations – traditional vice and narcotics and the third part of covert operations is not the ‘anti-crime unit’. That’s what gangs fall under.”

Captain Harris says they combined what used to be separate units into this one division to go after a broader spectrum of violent offenders.

“We didn’t want to be pigeon-holed, so to speak, into only going after gangs,” he said. “We didn’t want to forget a group of people committing crimes that might not fit ‘gangs’ but are still doing criminal activity and committing violent offenses.”

He says there are three sergeants in this division and approximately 30 detectives and two analysts.  All, he says, are trained on knowing what to look for and how to combat gangs.

“Bottom line,” Captain Harris said, “we’re going after violent offenders and violent groups regardless of their title.”