Mayor And Police Chief In Full Riot Control
Mayor Anthony Foxx and Police Chief Rodney Monroe used the better part of an hour yesterday trying to explain why the riot that rocked uptown and resulted in 70 arrests, one shooting fatality and one shooting injury was not, in fact, a riot. Or a melee. Or any other moniker that might give the uptown lunch bunch heartburn, or leave a dent in the Queen City’s crown.
“I think there’s been a wrong choice of words when it comes to this type of event,” Monroe explained. “If you look at the arrest report, the majority of arrests were disorderly conduct, and when you talk about disorderly conduct it’s people being loud, boisterous, disturbing the peace and so forth, so that’s where the majority of arrests occurred.”
The high number of arrests was largely a result of the department’s plan to handle and contain the uptown unrest, Monroe said.
The chief said, “Our plan worked.”
“When the numbers start to swell, our tolerance for certain behaviors goes way down,” Monroe said. “We could have very easily said we weren’t going to make arrests. But we made arrests to establish a pattern for the night of what we were not going to tolerate.”
When you got past all the media hype, Monroe implied, the riot that wasn’t a riot was really just a large crowd of unruly, loud kids who swarmed center city and got into a few pushing and shoving matches.
“There were a couple of fights that were broken up, immediately, two, three individuals who were actually engaged in the fight,” Monroe said. “You didn’t have 20, 30 people fighting against 20, 30 other people. There were two or three individuals engaged in pushing and shoving.”
“If you look at injuries,” Monroe said, “there were very few or any injuries that occurred in the uptown area.”
Aside, you know, from the gunplay that left one person dead and another injured.
“All the things that are associated with melee, riot, just don’t equate on the side when you talk about arrests, injuries, property damage and things of that nature,” the police chief said. “So I think we have to be careful and not try to instill unnecessary fear in the public.”
The mayor was quick to pick up and run with the same message.
“I recognize that when something like this happens in the bedroom of the region it raises concerns,” Foxx said. “What I think we have to be careful not to do is to allow those concerns to magnify themselves to the point where people lose a sense of reality.”
At the same time, Foxx reiterated that he was taking the riot that wasn’t a riot seriously, as well as its larger implications. The mayor said that “young African Americans dying at the hands of another young African American” is an “epidemic that we’ve seen across the country” that continues to be “like a cancer in terms of youth violence.”
Foxx and Monroe both called on the public’s help moving forward, noting that a majority of the unruly crowd involved in the riot that wasn’t a riot, or melee that wasn’t a melee, ranged in ages between 16 to 22 years old.
“Those of us that are responsible for our community, those of us that are responsible for our kids need to hold ourselves accountable for that,” Monroe said. “You allowing a 15, 16 year old to go uptown without some very clear direction as it relates to what they should or should not be involved in, we as parents have to take ownership of that also.”
Foxx said, “I think the chief said it exactly right, which is that it’s difficult for the police department to fix a problem that really starts in the home. We clearly need our parents in this community, our ministers, our neighbors to step up in a way to prevent this type of thing from happening again.”
The city council, Foxx said, was focusing its efforts on the prevention side by providing funding to expand Police Athletic League programs and youth employment/mentoring programs. But it’s “like a pebble in the ocean,” Foxx said. “There are many more kids out there who need our help.”
GOP mayoral hopeful Scott Stone was quick to criticize Foxx’s remarks and overall handling of events as they’ve unfolded.
“The current mayor’s remarks at his press conference this morning downplayed the seriousness of this past weekend’s riot in Uptown,” Stone wrote in an email. “I believe that CMPD can handle these situations when they arise, but we need a plan to keep them from happening in the first place. Gang violence in the city is real. The mayor could not even admit it was a riot. We had police in riot gear arresting 70 people, while people were shot and killed. If that does not define a riot, what would?”
We need your help! If you like PunditHouse, please consider donating to us. Even $5 a month can make a difference!
Short URL: https://pundithouse.com/?p=6418
