When hundreds of anti-choice zealots marched outside a health clinic last month, Charlotte’s noise ordinance limited the harassment and heckling they could heap on women seeking care. The city’s code prevented protesters from using amplified sound too close to the facility and cordoned off certain areas in front of the doctor’s office to create room […]
Author: Michael F. Roessler
Charlotte citizen. Husband. Lawyer. Dog dad. Book worm.
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Media Help Cops Convict An Innocent Dead Man
Law enforcement recently accused a dead man of committing a string of decades-old sex crimes, and Charlotte’s media unthinkingly went along, declaring the cases closed and the suspect guilty. “Genetic genealogy helping solve cold cases tonight in Charlotte,” WCNC anchor Fred Shropshire intoned earlier this month during an evening broadcast. “Charlotte-Mecklenburg police detectives have ID’d […]
Maybe Patrick Cannon spoiled us when it comes to spotting municipal corruption in Charlotte. In 2014, investigators captured video of the disgraced former mayor taking cash bribes of about $50,000 in exchange for promises to do favors for federal agents posing as developers. So egregious was Cannon’s behavior, which resulted in a resignation, federal charges, […]
When a jury recently handed him defeat, Mecklenburg County District Attorney Spencer Merriweather nonetheless declared victory — with the help of local media. The D.A.’s self-serving announcement came in a tweet from his office, accompanied by a press release and a news story from WSOC. “Jury convicts domestic violence offender in car chase, shooting,” the […]
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More Immunity For Killer Cops
Ruben Galindo’s hands were up when a police officer shot him. Danquirs Franklin was putting his gun on the ground when a cop shot him. Both men died, and now two federal judges have said the shootings were reasonable and constitutional and that the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department and the City of Charlotte are not liable […]
The 2021 platform of the North Carolina Republican Party puts liberty first. “We are the party that stands strong against tyranny and will fight at home and abroad to protect the lives and fundamental liberties of all people,” it proclaims. “The fundamental role of government is to protect those inherent rights as recognized in our […]
In acquiescence to creeping authoritarianism, one of Charlotte’s premier corporate citizens recently bailed on an American employee wrongly convicted and imprisoned abroad. In May 2021, Charlotte-based Bank of America ended its eleven-year employment relationship with Samuel Bickett, a 37-year-old attorney who worked in Hong Kong for the bank’s Merrill Lynch operation. The move came a […]
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CMPD Targets People of Color
Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department detains, searches, and inflicts violence on people of color at higher rates than it does white people, according to a city-funded study. The report, which was completed by the research and analytics firm RAND Corporation as part of the city’s efforts to “reimagine” law enforcement, was presented to City Council this week. […]
Bryan Xavier Johnson immediately put his hands up when the cops pulled him over. Johnson, a Black man, was driving down Central Avenue in East Charlotte in the late-night hours of January 14, 2017, when the police pulled him over because his license plate didn’t match the vehicle he was operating. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department Officer […]
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COVID, Science, and Democracy
The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted a tension animating the work of self-government in our technologically complex society. We fancy ourselves believers in democracy — for present purposes, rule by lay people — but safely, successfully navigating the world in which we live requires no small amount of specialized, technical know-how. In such a world, how […]
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