Award-winning columnist, writer, speaker and editor
After the school shooting in Georgia last week, charges were brought against the 14-year-old alleged gunman—and also against his father. Who’s really responsible?
Guest: Josie Duffy Rice, journalist focused on prosecutors, prisons, and other criminal justice issues and host of What A Day.
On the next Charlotte Talks Local News Roundup …
Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police are investigating a deadly 24 hours after multiple shootings occurred between Monday and Tuesday. It’s part of a rise in homicides in Charlotte this year, which is bucking the national trend in other cities, where homicides are going down. We’ll discuss the latest, including the capture of two teen suspects.
City Manager Marcus Jones is optimistic about our region’s mobility plan, but he also predicts that the price tag for transit and roads will change from its original proposal. We hear more.
Although City Council didn’t meet this week, Malcolm Graham says it’s time for the council to decide the fate of the Eastland Yards proposal. We’ll talk about the latest proposal and the timing of a likely decision.
And an international soccer tournament, the Copa America, comes to Charlotte this week. What is it, and why is it a big deal? We’ll fill you in on Wednesday night’s contest between Colombia and Uruguay and the brawl that followed, and preview Saturday’s match.
Mike Collins and our roundtable of reporters delve into those stories and more, on the Charlotte Talks local news roundup.
GUESTS:
Erik Spanberg, managing editor for the Charlotte Business Journal
Mary C. Curtis, columnist for Rollcall.com, host of the Rollcall podcast “Equal Time.” Mary is also a contributor to a new book “We Refuse to Be Silent: Women’s Voices on Justice for Black Men”
Mary Ramsey, local government accountability reporter for the Charlotte Observer
Joe Bruno, WSOC-TV Reporter and host of The Political Beat
Shotspotter lost a huge contract and some face when Chicago opted out of its partnership with the gunfire-identification tech company.
Why can’t new policing tech seem to break the old patterns and problems?
Guest: Jim Daley, investigations editor at South Side Weekly
Carolina Panther’s owner David Tepper is fined $300,000 and issues a non-apology statement for throwing a drink on fans during last week’s loss to the Jacksonville Jaguars.
The adult website Pornhub has shut down access in North Carolina in response to a new age-verification law that went into effect on January 1.
A mass shooting in Romare Bearden Park on New Year’s Eve left five people injured. It’s the latest subject in the ongoing conversation about safety in Charlotte.
And the man who grew Charlotte’s First Union into one of the largest banks in the country has died. Ed Crutchfield was 82.
Those stories and more on the Charlotte Talks local news roundup.
GUESTS:
Joe Bruno, WSOC-TV reporter
Nick Carboni, WCNC sports director
Mary C. Curtis, columnist for Rollcall.com, host of the Rollcall podcast “Equal Time”
Nick Ochsner, WBTV chief investigative reporter
Ely Portillo, senior editor at WFAE News
When the Supreme Court struck down New York’s concealed carry law last year, it set a precedent that gun control laws should be judged against “historical tradition.” But judged against actual American history, it’s the on-going repeal of gun control laws that’s an anomaly.
Guest: Robert J Spitzer, professor emeritus at SUNY Cortland, author of The Gun Dilemma.
Does this mean Democrats don’t have to be afraid anymore?
You know what I mean. Though Democratic politicians and the party itself stand for certain values and policies, sometimes, when they promote and defend them in the public square, well, they do it in a whisper. This is despite the popularity of many of these views, and despite the fact that the folks they are trying to persuade with cautious hedging were never going to vote for them in the first place.
It’s a problem Republicans traditionally have not had. No matter how extreme or unpopular the opinion, you have known exactly where they stand. Hit them with truth or logic, science or math, and you could bet they would double down. And it has worked; bluster and browbeating have the ability to drown out most everything else.
All that may be changing.
We have a lot to talk about at the Reporters’ Roundtable as we examine the top stories of the week. We have another building explosion in Montgomery County. Former President Trump runs again. Democrats keep control of The Senate… but Republicans have control of The House. The University of Virginia mourns the deadly shooting of members of its football team. HBCU bomb threats and the juvenile suspect and a Black man beaten by sheriff’s deputies in a Georgia jail.
Why do I know that Highland Park, Ill., was the backdrop for “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off,” a 1986 John Hughes movie starring a young Matthew Broderick as a cheeky teenage suburbanite who misbehaves? It’s because so many articles recounting the horrific Fourth of July shooting at the town’s annual holiday parade mentioned it.
The reference was used as an emblematic totem, shorthand that tracked the comments sprinkled through the articles and tweets launched that day: “probably the last place we would expect this” or “just inconceivable in a community like Highland Park.”
I mourned along with the country at the heartbreaking details, the child left without parents, the grandfather in an extended family, now left without its patriarch, the mother hit as she ran with the daughter who saw her go down but who kept running to save her own life.
Will this country ever be rid of the senseless gun violence that stains a quintessential Independence Day celebration, with marching bands, floats and children toted in strollers and wagons? Will there ever be a consensus that pushes politicians to change laws that allowed a 21-year-old suspect to obtain authorization to purchase weapons at an even younger age, with a co-sign by dad, even after incidents that drew law enforcement to the home?
Apparently not until America decides enough is enough and makes elected leaders pay a political price, which has not yet happened.
But while I mourned, I also realized, and not for the first time, that Americans mark tragedies in different ways, with wide-ranging levels of empathy, that deeply felt emotion that allows you to look into the faces of those whose lives are forever changed by violence and feel the same pain, maybe because those people remind you of you.
One tragedy replaces another in the headlines—that’s just how things go.
The Texas state Legislature isn’t scheduled to convene until January 2023, when the shooting at Robb Elementary in Uvalde will no longer be fresh in people’s minds, and the momentum for changing Texas’ gun laws will be long gone. One state senator, however, won’t accept that.
Guest: Roland Gutierrez, Democratic Texas state Senator for District 19, which includes Uvalde.
COVID-19 vaccines are now available in Charlotte for children 6 months to 5 years old for the first time. We’ll talk about where you can get them.
This week marks two years since a shooting on Beatties Ford Road, with still very few answers.
NASCAR Hall of Famer and founder of Charlotte Motor Speedway Bruton Smith died this week at the age of 95. We’ll talk about his long and sometimes controversial life in motorsports.
At this week’s City Council meeting, south Charlotte residents spoke out about a plan for developveloping apartments in their neighborhood.
The NBA draft starts Thursday. What are the Hornets’ prospects? We’ll get a rundown on that and what the organization plans to do after their anticipated new head coach backed out of the job.
And North Carolina sees its first documented case of monkeypox.
Mike Collins and our roundtable of reporters delve into those stories and all the week’s top local and regional news on the Charlotte Talks local news roundup.
GUESTS:
Erik Spanberg, managing editor for the Charlotte Business Journal
Mary C. Curtis, columnist for Rollcall.com, host of the Rollcall podcast “Equal Time”
Claire Donnelly, WFAE health reporter
Seema Iyer, chief legal correspondent WJZY Queen City News
