August 26, 2025 • 13 mins
Bo and Beth welcome Charlotte City Council candidate Edwin Peacock to discuss the latest incident on Charlotte transit and how it added to the fear surrounding public transit travel. Also, the new era of campaigning.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
All right, ladies, so tell them a live here on
(00:01):
Sharloman from news talkie leven Ted at ninety nine three
double e BT.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
Strange things are a foot at the Circle case.
Speaker 3 (00:09):
This is Good Morning Beat with Bo Thompson at Beth
trout Bat.
Speaker 1 (00:14):
Watch me for the changes and try to keep up okay,
coming out right now.
Speaker 3 (00:24):
Eight o seven on WBT on this Tuesday morning, Bo Thompson,
Beth Troutman here in the Tyboid studio and a lot
of news to tell you about today. And we're still
learning more about a story, a tragic story heading into
the weekend last week. Uh Arena Zurutzka, twenty three years old,
police say was stabbed to death on Friday night on
(00:45):
the light rail in Charlotte. We now know she had
recently fled war torn Ukraine. That's according to a GoFundMe
page that was set up by some of her friends.
Ten point thirty on Friday night is when this happened
at the East West State in South End. Before I
bring on our next guest, I want to go to
some audio from last night's city council meeting. From that guest,
(01:08):
Edwin Peacock.
Speaker 4 (01:09):
Why I'm underscoring this and why I think it's so
important is the very reason that Ashmira and all of
us here who know what is on the ballot this November,
which is the continued continuance of the expansion of our
transit system, and the transit system that we have all
put so much energy and effort into that we feel
is one of the best in the country. And all
I know from my experience of living in Washington, d C.
(01:30):
And having a lot of friends in Atlanta, is that
the moment that the transit system starts to become something
where it's not considered to be safe is the moment
in which you begin to lose writers, You begin to
lose the momentum that you want to keep. And I
don't want to see our community. I know our council
doesn't want to see that as well too, And that's
why I want to request, do we have a trend,
mister manager, Do we have something that we need to
respond to? We are in a gap period right now.
(01:53):
We do not have a police chief that is coming in,
he is going out. Is that the cause of this?
I don't so I'm not pointing a finger at CMPD,
but what I do want is I want us to
be proactive and not be reactive to this. And most importantly,
I want our public to know that we care about
citizens that are being harmed, and especially at such an
egregious nature on a public transit system that we have
(02:16):
direct authority.
Speaker 3 (02:17):
Ever, that was at last night's City Council meeting. We
now welcome on the WBT Hotline live with us here
on Good Morning BT. Edwin Peacock, the representative from District
number six on City Council. Edwin, good morning to.
Speaker 5 (02:29):
You, Good morning going to Beck.
Speaker 3 (02:32):
Appreciate you being on with us, and you know, first
here before we talk about big picture, obviously, the tragic
nature of what happened on Friday night at a place
where you know, in this city, South End, where so
many people are and so many young people at that
are using that system. Just an amazing story to hear
about and just a terrible one to talk about well.
Speaker 6 (02:55):
And to think that she fled a war torn country
and then was killed in an active violces here.
Speaker 5 (03:03):
Yeah, my heart goes out to this victim. Clearly her
refugee status is cheering at the hearts of everyone who
begins to look into the story. I think as we
also look at the suspect, and we look at how
many times CMPD has has arrested him. We see a
(03:26):
poster child, frankly, for what I consider to be our
failed mental health systems, because he clearly was harmed to
himself and others, and we were unable to get him
the help that he needed. And obviously the result here
is beyond anything anyone would imagine. But this was preventable,
(03:48):
and I'd like to see us be a lot, a
lot more aggressive as it relates to these types of
individuals who are, frankly, riding our bus systems, they're riding
our rail systems, and they there's many on the streets
of Charlotte that we just don't have a response for.
Speaker 6 (04:05):
So what in your mind to try to prevent things
like this from happening in the future. How do we
get folks the help that we need or that they need,
and how do we get them into the institutions that
can help when so many of the institutions have lost
funding or you know, there aren't as many available to people,
(04:28):
or they don't necessarily say I want this help, And
how do we get them committed to the help if
they don't want to be there.
Speaker 5 (04:42):
It's complex. I think when you talk with the DA's office,
when you talk with the county, many mental health professionals
and particularly those in the private sector, they talk about
the transfer from the state's responsibility to help those that
are mentally ill and shifting it largely to our prison
(05:04):
system as well as to our sheriff's office. And in
many cases we're asking CMPD to do things that they're
just simply not qualified to do. You will see from
our official press release from the city and from CMPD
that we've had individuals who've confronted him that have been
trained in mental health, but if we don't have a
way to put them somewhere best that can help them,
(05:28):
we're really ignoring the problem. And with the problem mental
health combined with addiction, we can't point the finger at
CMPD and say they're not doing their job. When you
see somebody who's been arrested, I believe almost eighteen times
we have a failure in the system, and the system
needs to be addressed. We're also at a very important intersection.
I referenced it in my comments last night. Obviously, Chief
(05:51):
Jennings is leaving after thirty one years of distinguished service
This is an opportunity for us as a council, in
this new future Council, to start under scoring that we
have a crime problem, and that crime problem needs to
have a more comprehensive look. There's many plans on the
shelves of six r D's Fourth Street that we need
to dust off and then we need to revisit. But
(06:12):
we need to revisit in the three hundred and sixty
degree angle, looking at both mental health and addiction and
obviously combined with that or many in our homeless population
that we want desperately to help, but we need to
provide them that help well.
Speaker 3 (06:25):
And earlier in the show, we were talking about this
sort of big picture about what it means for the
light rail service, and here we come at a time
maybe a crossroads, you'd even say, about extending that and
to the degree that which we do that. But you
mentioned other cities where you once a stigma gets attached
to something like public transportation, it's hard to turn the
(06:49):
public sentiment back in the other direction. And so it's
one thing that we're having all these discussions about expansion,
but you also got to make sure that the public
has an underlying confidence and what's already there.
Speaker 5 (07:02):
With public sentiment, you can accomplish anything. Without it, you
can accomplish nothing. And right now this is just a
small example that we cannot take this as business as usual,
that this is a normal incident. Bo it's not. We
need to get on top of it. We need to
give confidence to riters that there will be a visible
(07:22):
police presence on trains. When we have problems like this,
we need to have a response to it. We need
to have communications from our city giving writers confidence. Otherwise,
the moment that the public begins to feel the way
that I've described, you can see how it will change
(07:43):
the sentiment. And when we're looking at asking our voters
to tax themselves so that we can spend forty percent
on rail, forty percent on roads, and then another twenty
percent on the future of transit, which can be a
mix of micro transit to other things, we're asking them
to have confidence and us, and so we need to
reassure them. Last night I asked for details from CMPD
(08:05):
as much as we can provide at this point. I
asked for additional details from CATS. Is this a pattern?
We all know that we also saw an incident last
week on a bus at Carolina play small. We'refore assailants
attacked a veteran. We are seeing a series of incidents
over the summer here that point to a crime problem.
(08:25):
And while I applaud CMPD for the statistics that are
proving that our crime is down, I've been around long enough.
You all have been covering this long enough to know
that statistics are paper thin. When this turns, it's too late,
and that's why we need to get ahead of it.
Speaker 3 (08:42):
I want to change the subject real quick before we
let you go, because you actually were the catalyst for
a pretty lively conversation we got into on the air
a few weeks ago because you posted a video. You've
been posting a lot of videos, but one of the
first ones that you've posted since you've been back in
office and now running for at large was with one
of your campaign workers in one of the area Charlotte Neighborhods.
(09:04):
I'm gona play a little clip of that right here.
Speaker 2 (09:05):
And we're getting some good responses, but we're also getting
you know, a lot of gardenness among our neighbors around here.
You want to tell them about that?
Speaker 5 (09:13):
No, you tell them what are you seeing?
Speaker 2 (09:14):
Yeah, So honestly, some people who just do not even
come to the door. They acknowledge you, but they wave
you off. And it's it's certainly, certainly quite odd that
we have some people out here who don't, you know,
want to want to talk with their elected officials.
Speaker 5 (09:28):
And yeah, well, why do you think they're so guarded us?
Speaker 2 (09:31):
I believe it's a combination of technology and the risks
we live in with the modern world, you.
Speaker 3 (09:35):
Know, so you get an idea. And I thought that
was very interesting because here is someone like you who
is now running again this fall, and it's been a
while since you have run, and a lot of the
technology that's in place now wasn't there the last time
you were doing this. But the old school going on
knocking the doors and neighborhoods. Does that? Does that? I mean,
that was the first weekend that you did that. You've
been doing more of it, But is that sort of
(09:57):
a lost art?
Speaker 5 (09:58):
Now? It's not a lost art in how I'm campaigning Bow.
I think it's one of the best ways in which
any elected official can get very upfront and up close
examination as to what are on the minds of people.
My intern near Oz Connor, who's been helping me out.
We were walking door to door in the South Charlotte
(10:20):
neighborhood and just noticing obviously the preponderance of ring cameras
that are very helpful in the public safety's eyes, but
it adds a layer of defense where normally people might
look through their window to open up and to greet
the individual there. But now you see a sort of
a level of guardedness that wasn't there when I was
(10:41):
last doing this ten years ago. And I think it's positive.
But if we want to break down barriers and we
want to reduce tensions between individuals and neighbors, you have
to look at one another. And I think when you're
standing fifteen feet off the doorstep from somebody and you're
there just simply remind them to vote and to engage them,
(11:03):
you know it just it just shows you that we're
in a new era.
Speaker 6 (11:07):
It's really remarkable thinking about how quickly it has changed
because of technology, how quickly we have gotten away from
the face to face communication. And I think that you
are right that it has created more of this division
because we're not having those face to face conversations and
showcasing mutual respect.
Speaker 3 (11:27):
Bess.
Speaker 5 (11:29):
It is surprising. I mean, we hear so much about partisanship,
but when I stand on someone's doorstep and I ask
them to tell me where do we differ on issues
on the local level, generally I see a little bit
of a turned head, like, oh, I hadn't thought about that.
And what we know is is that people want safe
streets that they want they want their trash picked up,
(11:52):
they want dependability, they want to see a well functioning city.
And we don't have to dive into national divisive issues
or other subjects. It's very easy to find common ground.
And I think that's the non partisan nature of municipal politics.
That we have to remind ourselves that our first job
(12:13):
is to protect and serve. Our second role is, obviously,
is that we're here at the serve the people. So
we're responding to them in their neighborhoods and in all
four corners of Charlotte. We want to be able to
administer that same level of quality of service from the
City of Charlotte the people have been grown accustomed to.
We're a different city than many other rising cities in
(12:35):
this country in the sense that we have a top
notch police force that is on top of things, but
we need to complete that circle with obviously a stronger
mental health system and then secondly obviously looking very closely
at the addiction problem that is a part of much
of our homeless community.
Speaker 3 (12:53):
ED Edwin Peacock, who of course is the District six
representative now and he's running for at large city council
in the fall, kind enough to give us some time
this morning. We appreciate it and we'll talk to you
again soon.
Speaker 5 (13:06):
Thank you so much.
All right, ladies, so tell them a live here on
(00:01):
Sharloman from news talkie leven Ted at ninety nine three
double e BT.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
Strange things are a foot at the Circle case.
Speaker 3 (00:09):
This is Good Morning Beat with Bo Thompson at Beth
trout Bat.
Speaker 1 (00:14):
Watch me for the changes and try to keep up okay,
coming out right now.
Speaker 3 (00:24):
Eight o seven on WBT on this Tuesday morning, Bo Thompson,
Beth Troutman here in the Tyboid studio and a lot
of news to tell you about today. And we're still
learning more about a story, a tragic story heading into
the weekend last week. Uh Arena Zurutzka, twenty three years old,
police say was stabbed to death on Friday night on
(00:45):
the light rail in Charlotte. We now know she had
recently fled war torn Ukraine. That's according to a GoFundMe
page that was set up by some of her friends.
Ten point thirty on Friday night is when this happened
at the East West State in South End. Before I
bring on our next guest, I want to go to
some audio from last night's city council meeting. From that guest,
(01:08):
Edwin Peacock.
Speaker 4 (01:09):
Why I'm underscoring this and why I think it's so
important is the very reason that Ashmira and all of
us here who know what is on the ballot this November,
which is the continued continuance of the expansion of our
transit system, and the transit system that we have all
put so much energy and effort into that we feel
is one of the best in the country. And all
I know from my experience of living in Washington, d C.
(01:30):
And having a lot of friends in Atlanta, is that
the moment that the transit system starts to become something
where it's not considered to be safe is the moment
in which you begin to lose writers, You begin to
lose the momentum that you want to keep. And I
don't want to see our community. I know our council
doesn't want to see that as well too, And that's
why I want to request, do we have a trend,
mister manager, Do we have something that we need to
respond to? We are in a gap period right now.
(01:53):
We do not have a police chief that is coming in,
he is going out. Is that the cause of this?
I don't so I'm not pointing a finger at CMPD,
but what I do want is I want us to
be proactive and not be reactive to this. And most importantly,
I want our public to know that we care about
citizens that are being harmed, and especially at such an
egregious nature on a public transit system that we have
(02:16):
direct authority.
Speaker 3 (02:17):
Ever, that was at last night's City Council meeting. We
now welcome on the WBT Hotline live with us here
on Good Morning BT. Edwin Peacock, the representative from District
number six on City Council. Edwin, good morning to.
Speaker 5 (02:29):
You, Good morning going to Beck.
Speaker 3 (02:32):
Appreciate you being on with us, and you know, first
here before we talk about big picture, obviously, the tragic
nature of what happened on Friday night at a place
where you know, in this city, South End, where so
many people are and so many young people at that
are using that system. Just an amazing story to hear
about and just a terrible one to talk about well.
Speaker 6 (02:55):
And to think that she fled a war torn country
and then was killed in an active violces here.
Speaker 5 (03:03):
Yeah, my heart goes out to this victim. Clearly her
refugee status is cheering at the hearts of everyone who
begins to look into the story. I think as we
also look at the suspect, and we look at how
many times CMPD has has arrested him. We see a
(03:26):
poster child, frankly, for what I consider to be our
failed mental health systems, because he clearly was harmed to
himself and others, and we were unable to get him
the help that he needed. And obviously the result here
is beyond anything anyone would imagine. But this was preventable,
(03:48):
and I'd like to see us be a lot, a
lot more aggressive as it relates to these types of
individuals who are, frankly, riding our bus systems, they're riding
our rail systems, and they there's many on the streets
of Charlotte that we just don't have a response for.
Speaker 6 (04:05):
So what in your mind to try to prevent things
like this from happening in the future. How do we
get folks the help that we need or that they need,
and how do we get them into the institutions that
can help when so many of the institutions have lost
funding or you know, there aren't as many available to people,
(04:28):
or they don't necessarily say I want this help, And
how do we get them committed to the help if
they don't want to be there.
Speaker 5 (04:42):
It's complex. I think when you talk with the DA's office,
when you talk with the county, many mental health professionals
and particularly those in the private sector, they talk about
the transfer from the state's responsibility to help those that
are mentally ill and shifting it largely to our prison
(05:04):
system as well as to our sheriff's office. And in
many cases we're asking CMPD to do things that they're
just simply not qualified to do. You will see from
our official press release from the city and from CMPD
that we've had individuals who've confronted him that have been
trained in mental health, but if we don't have a
way to put them somewhere best that can help them,
(05:28):
we're really ignoring the problem. And with the problem mental
health combined with addiction, we can't point the finger at
CMPD and say they're not doing their job. When you
see somebody who's been arrested, I believe almost eighteen times
we have a failure in the system, and the system
needs to be addressed. We're also at a very important intersection.
I referenced it in my comments last night. Obviously, Chief
(05:51):
Jennings is leaving after thirty one years of distinguished service
This is an opportunity for us as a council, in
this new future Council, to start under scoring that we
have a crime problem, and that crime problem needs to
have a more comprehensive look. There's many plans on the
shelves of six r D's Fourth Street that we need
to dust off and then we need to revisit. But
(06:12):
we need to revisit in the three hundred and sixty
degree angle, looking at both mental health and addiction and
obviously combined with that or many in our homeless population
that we want desperately to help, but we need to
provide them that help well.
Speaker 3 (06:25):
And earlier in the show, we were talking about this
sort of big picture about what it means for the
light rail service, and here we come at a time
maybe a crossroads, you'd even say, about extending that and
to the degree that which we do that. But you
mentioned other cities where you once a stigma gets attached
to something like public transportation, it's hard to turn the
(06:49):
public sentiment back in the other direction. And so it's
one thing that we're having all these discussions about expansion,
but you also got to make sure that the public
has an underlying confidence and what's already there.
Speaker 5 (07:02):
With public sentiment, you can accomplish anything. Without it, you
can accomplish nothing. And right now this is just a
small example that we cannot take this as business as usual,
that this is a normal incident. Bo it's not. We
need to get on top of it. We need to
give confidence to riters that there will be a visible
(07:22):
police presence on trains. When we have problems like this,
we need to have a response to it. We need
to have communications from our city giving writers confidence. Otherwise,
the moment that the public begins to feel the way
that I've described, you can see how it will change
(07:43):
the sentiment. And when we're looking at asking our voters
to tax themselves so that we can spend forty percent
on rail, forty percent on roads, and then another twenty
percent on the future of transit, which can be a
mix of micro transit to other things, we're asking them
to have confidence and us, and so we need to
reassure them. Last night I asked for details from CMPD
(08:05):
as much as we can provide at this point. I
asked for additional details from CATS. Is this a pattern?
We all know that we also saw an incident last
week on a bus at Carolina play small. We'refore assailants
attacked a veteran. We are seeing a series of incidents
over the summer here that point to a crime problem.
(08:25):
And while I applaud CMPD for the statistics that are
proving that our crime is down, I've been around long enough.
You all have been covering this long enough to know
that statistics are paper thin. When this turns, it's too late,
and that's why we need to get ahead of it.
Speaker 3 (08:42):
I want to change the subject real quick before we
let you go, because you actually were the catalyst for
a pretty lively conversation we got into on the air
a few weeks ago because you posted a video. You've
been posting a lot of videos, but one of the
first ones that you've posted since you've been back in
office and now running for at large was with one
of your campaign workers in one of the area Charlotte Neighborhods.
(09:04):
I'm gona play a little clip of that right here.
Speaker 2 (09:05):
And we're getting some good responses, but we're also getting
you know, a lot of gardenness among our neighbors around here.
You want to tell them about that?
Speaker 5 (09:13):
No, you tell them what are you seeing?
Speaker 2 (09:14):
Yeah, So honestly, some people who just do not even
come to the door. They acknowledge you, but they wave
you off. And it's it's certainly, certainly quite odd that
we have some people out here who don't, you know,
want to want to talk with their elected officials.
Speaker 5 (09:28):
And yeah, well, why do you think they're so guarded us?
Speaker 2 (09:31):
I believe it's a combination of technology and the risks
we live in with the modern world, you.
Speaker 3 (09:35):
Know, so you get an idea. And I thought that
was very interesting because here is someone like you who
is now running again this fall, and it's been a
while since you have run, and a lot of the
technology that's in place now wasn't there the last time
you were doing this. But the old school going on
knocking the doors and neighborhoods. Does that? Does that? I mean,
that was the first weekend that you did that. You've
been doing more of it, But is that sort of
(09:57):
a lost art?
Speaker 5 (09:58):
Now? It's not a lost art in how I'm campaigning Bow.
I think it's one of the best ways in which
any elected official can get very upfront and up close
examination as to what are on the minds of people.
My intern near Oz Connor, who's been helping me out.
We were walking door to door in the South Charlotte
(10:20):
neighborhood and just noticing obviously the preponderance of ring cameras
that are very helpful in the public safety's eyes, but
it adds a layer of defense where normally people might
look through their window to open up and to greet
the individual there. But now you see a sort of
a level of guardedness that wasn't there when I was
(10:41):
last doing this ten years ago. And I think it's positive.
But if we want to break down barriers and we
want to reduce tensions between individuals and neighbors, you have
to look at one another. And I think when you're
standing fifteen feet off the doorstep from somebody and you're
there just simply remind them to vote and to engage them,
(11:03):
you know it just it just shows you that we're
in a new era.
Speaker 6 (11:07):
It's really remarkable thinking about how quickly it has changed
because of technology, how quickly we have gotten away from
the face to face communication. And I think that you
are right that it has created more of this division
because we're not having those face to face conversations and
showcasing mutual respect.
Speaker 3 (11:27):
Bess.
Speaker 5 (11:29):
It is surprising. I mean, we hear so much about partisanship,
but when I stand on someone's doorstep and I ask
them to tell me where do we differ on issues
on the local level, generally I see a little bit
of a turned head, like, oh, I hadn't thought about that.
And what we know is is that people want safe
streets that they want they want their trash picked up,
(11:52):
they want dependability, they want to see a well functioning city.
And we don't have to dive into national divisive issues
or other subjects. It's very easy to find common ground.
And I think that's the non partisan nature of municipal politics.
That we have to remind ourselves that our first job
(12:13):
is to protect and serve. Our second role is, obviously,
is that we're here at the serve the people. So
we're responding to them in their neighborhoods and in all
four corners of Charlotte. We want to be able to
administer that same level of quality of service from the
City of Charlotte the people have been grown accustomed to.
We're a different city than many other rising cities in
(12:35):
this country in the sense that we have a top
notch police force that is on top of things, but
we need to complete that circle with obviously a stronger
mental health system and then secondly obviously looking very closely
at the addiction problem that is a part of much
of our homeless community.
Speaker 3 (12:53):
ED Edwin Peacock, who of course is the District six
representative now and he's running for at large city council
in the fall, kind enough to give us some time
this morning. We appreciate it and we'll talk to you
again soon.
Speaker 5 (13:06):
Thank you so much.
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