- “We've had the current attorney general (Stein) for eight years,” NC Police Benevolent Association (NCPBA) President David Rose said. “You have to ask yourself why not a single law enforcement organization is going to support him in his next endeavor.”
- Republican candidate for NC-13, Brad Knott said the district attorney system across the state is overwhelmed, and that there is no interaction between 800 lawyers and Stein.
Congressman Dan Bishop, R, NC-08, the Republican candidate for attorney general in November’s general election, made a stop at the Wake County Shrine Club in Raleigh Thursday as part of his Crime and Safety Listening Tour.
Bishop’s Democratic opponent is Congressman Jeff Jackson, NC-14.
The tour has made stops in Western North Carolina, the Charlotte area, and the Triad.
The tour’s focus is on hearing from law enforcement experts and crime victims about ways to restore law and order and make communities safer.
In addition to Bishop, those in attendance included former Wake County Sheriff Donnie Harrison, former NC Highway Patrol Col. Bill Grey, NC Police Benevolent Association (NCPBA) President David Rose, former federal prosecutor and Republican candidate for NC-13, Brad Knott, and two parents who lost their children to violent crimes, Clydia Davis, and Bernard Robinson.
Bishop, Harrison, Grey, Rose, and Knott all stressed that there needs to be a partnership between law enforcement and the attorney general’s office, something that they all agreed has been severely lacking under current Democrat Attorney General Josh Stein, the Democratic nominee for governor and even going back to when Democrat Gov. Roy Cooper was attorney general.
Bishop said many people on the left want people to believe that the US has “turned a corner” on crime, including violent acts like rape and murder, but the numbers continue to rise. He said between 2018 and 2022, rapes were up 34% in North Carolina, and murders were up 46%.
He mentioned Charlotte-Mecklenburg data released last month and Raleigh’s data, which shows that for the first six months of 2024, homicides were up 75% and rapes were up 17%. He also said that some of the media and government officials are inclined to hide the actual numbers.
Bishop said the Defund the Police was the worst policy idea ever to be articulated in American history and included woke crime policies like not cooperating with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detainers, open borders mass catch and release, liberalization of bail practices, reducing detentions of suspects who would be dangerous to the community, so-called restorative justice in some prosecutors’ offices and Soros style prosecutorial administration.
He said that law enforcement officers that are seen as nefarious bad actors need to stop and that robust law enforcement is the key to restoring law and order.
Bishop talked about the differences between him and Jackson.
“My opponent has marched with anti-police protesters in Charlotte, supports releasing dangerous criminal aliens as opposed to requiring sheriffs to work with ICE,” he said. “He voted against making it a felony to assault a police officer, he voted against making it a felony to assault a teacher, and he supported in previous campaigns the George Floyd Justice and Policing Act that was designed to eliminate qualified immunity that keeps cops able to function on the street and not be afraid of their own shadow.”
Bishop said if he is elected attorney general, he will keep listening to law enforcement officials and citizens and end woke crime policies in North Carolina.
Former Republican Wake County Sheriff Donnie Harrison told the audience that the media sometimes portrays law enforcement in a bad light. He said people need to support them and allow them to do their jobs, and he fully supports Bishop.
“We need the public on our side, and we need somebody like you working for us,” he said.
Rose told Bishop that the NCPBA and its 17,000 members across the state have endorsed him.
He said for the past 20 years, the cops have not had an engagement with the chief law enforcement official of the state of North Carolina (Cooper and Stein), calling it “bizarre and sad,” and that it has all been done by design.
“If you go back three years ago with the governor and the current attorney general, they put together the task force on race and equity,” Rose said. “Thirty-five people on this “blue-ribbon commission.” We asked for a seat so at least one cop could be on that commission and tell them how life really is. There was a sheriff or two there, but not a rank-and-file cop or anybody that could come and tell them what’s really going on today on the street. That was intentional.”
He said at the end of 2020, after the George Floyd protests, 12-14-year veterans were leaving the profession en masse despite getting close to receiving a pension.
“I’ll tell you why,” Rose stated. “For the first time in their careers, they were getting bludgeoned in the media.” There were also people protesting at their homes.
He added that many agencies in the state have a vacancy rate of 30-40%.
Rose ended with this point.
“We’ve had the current attorney general (Stein) for eight years,” he said. “You have to ask yourself why not a single law enforcement organization is going to support him in his next endeavor.”
Knott, a former federal prosecutor, said everything changed when President Joe Biden took office.
“In 2021, everything that we talked about ideology being appropriate to degrade police officers, sheriff’s offices and being appropriate to be hostile towards their efforts to being hostile towards the system, letting crimes go unchecked, being more sympathetic towards the criminal as opposed to the victim, but adding gasoline to the fire is the open border,” he said.
When Knott talked about hearing how many work hours people were actually working in the attorney general’s office, Bishop interjected that there is a report on the General Assembly’s website by the Department of Justice that of the 838 employees in the department, 699 are working from home.
Knott said the district attorney system across the state is overwhelmed, and that there is no interaction between 800 lawyers and Stein.
He called Jackson’s proposal on how to solve the border crisis, including drugs coming into the country “unserious” and displaying a complete lack of leadership.
Victims’ families brought to light their stories and how North Carolina’s justice system has failed them.
In 2019, Clydia Davis’ son, Donqwavias “Quay,” 22, was shot dead by Javier Concepcion-Perez, 20, at an apartment complex near UNC Charlotte.
She said that although they have been to two bond hearings, they haven’t been to court yet.
“They say that it’s because of funding,” Davis said. “If they don’t have enough resources to prosecute cases, but they can put a $10,000 electric car charger on Beatties Ford Road. I don’t know if y’all know what Beatties Ford Road is like in Charlotte, but I’m not gonna walk to the store down here, and I don’t think anybody is gonna sit there to charge a Tesla.”
She said that she can no longer work as a nurse specializing in Alzheimer’s care due to the trauma of her son’s death because she doesn’t have the confidence that she will not make a mistake with medications, etc.
Bernard Robinson lost his twenty-five-year-old daughter, Shanquella, while she was on vacation with friends in Mexico. Initial reports said that her death was first caused by alcohol intoxication, but later ruled that she died from a cracked spine and was visibly beaten. Mexican officials brought charges against one of the people involved but federal prosecutors announced that there wasn’t enough evidence to charge anyone with her death.
“They’re walking around here living their lives like nothing ever happened,” he said, crying, as he hugged a pillow with Shanquella’s picture on it. “You just can’t take a person’s life and walk away like it ain’t nothing. She shouldn’t die in vain.”