On Tuesday’s broadcast of “NewsNation Now,” North Carolina State House Chief Democratic Whip Rep. Terry Brown Jr. said that the suspected perpetrator of the fatal stabbing on a Charlotte train “should not have been out on the streets,” and “this could have been prevented well before he got on the light rail that night.” Brown also stated that “Oftentimes, those magistrate courts are the wild west.”
Brown said, “What I will say is that this was a heinous crime. It never should have happened. … I will say that it’s not a left or a right issue. It is a failure by the system on multiple different levels that caused for this brutal murder of this young woman in the city of Charlotte. So, I don’t believe…the left versus right, Republican versus Democratic politics is going to do anything to advance this. We have to look at all the different reasons why the system failed this young woman.”
He added, “I have dealt with our magistrate courts on a fairly regular basis. … Magistrates do not have to be trained legally. Oftentimes, those magistrate courts are the wild west. Most of the magistrate judges don’t have law degrees. I have always said that we need to have more training for our magistrate judges so they are more abreast of the laws, more abreast of the rules of evidence, more abreast of the things that they can do there.”
Host Connell McShane then cut in to ask, “So, a guy with 14 priors is not out, is that the point you’re making, that he shouldn’t have been out, should have never been out on the streets?”
Brown responded, “Absolutely. He should never have been out on the streets. What I will say about this case and this unfortunate situation is, the fact that, when he got before that magistrate judge for the last arrest that he had for making false 911 calls, I don’t think that he should have been locked up in jail for the rest of his life for that. But I do believe that he should not have been out on the streets, able to interact in our community, riding on our light rail. There are multiple different avenues that this case could have taken that this man could have been involved in, whether it’s getting more mental health help, whether it’s getting some other type of involuntary commitment. But I don’t believe that he should have been out on the streets, and I think that this could have been prevented well before he got on the light rail that night.”
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