Wilmjax News

Charlotte, NC — Someone put two nooses on the UNC Charlotte campus this week.

According to the university, an employee found two ropes tied in noose knots in a bucket in a campus storage area.

The Chancellor says the school is investigating. He also stresses the UNC Charlotte’s zero-tolerance policy for racial discrimination.

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CHARLOTTE, NC — Charlotte-Mecklenburg police said they believe James Gladden is responsible for starting two fires at the same apartment complex.

Gladden was arrested and charged with arson early Saturday morning after fire officials responded to an apartment fire on West 26th Street just after 1a.m.

The fire was put out quickly and no one was hurt.

Article here.

Outgoing Sheriff Jim Pendergraph lashed out Friday at county leaders who have proposed stripping the sheriff of responsibility for the jails.

“My telephone on my desk has had the same number for 13 years,” Pendergraph said at a news conference, “and as of this minute, no one from the county manager’s office or the board of commissioners has phoned to inform me that this issue was under discussion. This is totally disrespectful to me and my dedicated staff, and I am furious about it.”

Pendergraph called the proposal to hire a jail administrator “hare-brained” and said it appeared to be a “political power grab to remove the voters from the process of electing someone to operate this large organization.”

“In essence they are saying the voters are too stupid to elect the right person in the future.”

Parks Helms, a Democrat and vice chairman of the Mecklenburg commissioners, suggested the change Thursday, and commissioners asked staff to explore it. Helms said the idea is to ensure the jails are run efficiently and by a qualified professional.

The proposal has since sparked e-mails and conversations among activists from both parties questioning Helms’ motivation and wondering who the Democratic Party would recommend as Pendergraph’s successor. Some Democratic activists, particularly Latinos, oppose a controversial program championed by Pendergraph — and supported by his pick for successor — that identifies illegal immigrants at the jail and turns them over to federal authorities for deportation.

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Police have arrested two men in connection with a brutal Wednesday morning rape in which the victim was hit several times in the head with a 2-by-4.

Jequan Sloan was arrested Thursday morning — a little more than a day after the assault in Grier Heights. Police charged him with attempted murder, rape, sex offense, kidnapping and possession of a firearm by a felon.

Sloan, 27, has an extensive arrest history, according to court records. In 2002, he was sentenced to more than a year in prison for selling cocaine. The court has also banned him from several east Charlotte apartment complexes.

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CHARLOTTE, N.C. — A Charlotte man accused of renting property he didn’t own to others could soon face dozens of new fraud charges.

Charlotte-Mecklenburg police said they expect to take new evidence in more than a dozen cases against Darryl Patterson to a grand jury.

Investigators say Patterson left angry people with less money and no place to live. One woman who says she was conned by the man spoke with Eyewitness News on Tuesday.

Pia Henderson said she’s been living with half-filled boxes in her living room since August, along with the half-empty feeling in her gut that comes from not knowing where she’s going to live one month to the next.

“I was actually supposed to be living in the house right now, but I’m not living there. I’m backed up with bills,” she said.

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A woman was raped and beaten with a 2-by-4 early Wednesday morning in southeast Charlotte’s Grier Heights neighborhood, police said.

The 29-year-old was rushed to Carolinas Medical Center, where she is being treated for serious head injuries. Charlotte-Mecklenburg police said investigators had been unable to interview her.

Nobody had been charged in the attack late Wednesday.

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Police described the suspect as a black male with shoulder-length dreadlocks, who was wearing a blue hooded sweatshirt. Two witnesses told the Observer he is also thin, about 6 feet tall and was wearing oversized clothes.

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CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Some people want answers about illegal language in deeds on thousands of Charlotte homes.

It says black people can’t live in the neighborhood. A sample of that 1936-era deed is displayed on the Myers Park homeowners association Web site and some question whether it should be there.

The sample deed, which is common for homes in the Myers Park neighborhood, lists restrictions that include, “The lot…shall be owned and occupied by people of the Caucasian race only.”

“Well I’m offended of course!” Susan Shivers said when she heard the language. She’s a board member and past president of the Myers Park Homeowners Association.

But she wasn’t surprised. She said it’s come up before when new people have moved into the neighborhood and asked about having the language changed.

The problem, she said, is that changing the language would be difficult, expensive, and not really necessary because it’s illegal.

“Since the language is illegal anyway, we have chosen not to undertake that task,” she said.

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A Waxhaw man has been charged in a sexual attack last month at a south Charlotte motel.

Glenn Vinson, 42, is accused of walking up to a stranger at the America’s Best Value Inn on Archdale Drive, groping her and then chasing her while exposing his private parts, Charlotte-Mecklenburg police said.

He is charged with sexual battery, assault on a female, indecent exposure, public masturbation, and false imprisonment.

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Ricky Graham will spend the rest of his life in prison for the 1996 killings of his wife and her one-year-old daughter, a Superior Court judge ruled on Friday.

Around 2:30 p.m. Friday, jurors in the case told the judge that had reached a unanimous decision of life imprisonment for one of the deaths; but were deadlocked on one issue in the second recommendation.

Judge Nathaniel Poovey ordered a sentence of life in prison for the second conviction, and ordered the sentences be served consecutively.

The jury could have recommended a death sentence for Graham, 43, convicted last week of two counts of first-degree murder in the deaths of Tracy Coleman and daughter Rishea.

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CHARLOTTE, N.C. — The WCNC Investigators took a look into the background of the man accused of shooting two managers in a Dilworth restaurant and we discovered several things, including the fact he had a permit to own a gun.

Thursday police charged Derrick Lamont Gregory, 28, with two counts of murder. He’s accused of shooting and killing Vincent Patrick Ferens, 36, Moe’s Southwest Grill’s managing partner, and Jeffrey Philip Maher, 34, an assistant manager. Gregory was fired from the restaurant.

Maher died at the restaurant on East Boulevard where it happened, according to police. Ferens died a short time later at Carolinas Medical Center.

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Related article.

CHARLOTTE, N.C. – A fifth day of deliberations began Friday for a jury trying to decide if a man convicted of killing his family deserves life in prison or the death sentence.

Ricky Graham was convicted for the decade-old killing of his wife, Tracy Coleman, 26, and 1-year-old daughter, Rishea, in a trial last week. Friday would have been Coleman’s 38th birthday.

Thursday’s deliberations ended around 12:30 p.m. when the judge called them back into the courtroom and sent them home for the day because he had a death in the family.

Thursday morning jurors asked to see a psychologist’s report from the sentencing phase of the trial that says Ricky Graham has a personality disorder.

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A Mecklenburg County commissioner wants Charlotte, home to conservative bankers’ ties and pearl-wearing women, to become the latest community banning saggy pants.

You know the pants: Slung so low on the thigh that they’re about to fall off — and yes, they’re still considered “on” when they’re exposing several inches of underwear.

Talk about outlawing the fashion rose in recent weeks when some citizens complained and cited a handful of other communities that have banned them. Critics say those laws unfairly target young African American men who favor the style.

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Police are looking for two men wanted in connection with a carjacking Sunday evening in southwest Charlotte.

The incident happened shortly after 9:30 p.m. in the 6600 block of Montcrest Drive, off Archdale Road near Archdale Park.

According to police, two men carjacked the victim at gunpoint. They took the victim’s 1995 GEO Prizm. The car is a cream-colored four-door model, with N.C. license tag VRM-3920.

The suspects are described as Hispanic males, about 19 to 20 years old, each weighing about 120 pounds and wearing white shirts.

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For the second time this year, a Charlotte-Mecklenburg police officer has been arrested and accused of taking money for off-duty work he didn’t do.

Jerome Whitlow, 35, was charged Monday with felony obtaining property by false pretenses. Whitlow, who resigned from the force last month, was booked into the Mecklenburg County jail and released on a written promise to appear in court.

Police Chief Darrel Stephens said Whitlow failed to report to an off-duty security job at a construction site, but filled out a time report reflecting that he was there.

In January, Officer Alan McGraw was arrested on the same charge, accused of lying about security work he’d been hired to do at a county park.

Stephens said Monday he plans to review records and policies for the department’s secondary employment program to find ways to increase oversight.

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CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Families in one north Charlotte neighborhood are learning about a series of violent robberies. Several teenagers with guns are targeting neighbors. And they might not even notice anything suspicious about them until it’s too late.

A neighbor in the Allen Hills neighborhood was trimming back trees when he was robbed at gunpoint. It’s part of a robbery spree in this neighborhood. Police say the crimes are being committed by teenagers. Sylvia Cannon lives in the community.

“I think the parents done a rotten job of raising them,” she said.

Police said the crime spree started two weeks ago. That’s when three pizza delivery drivers were robbed at gunpoint. Officers arrested one person in connection with that crime. But they said his accomplices are still on the loose and committing armed robberies in this neighborhood.

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