In a Sept. 11 press conference, NC Speaker of the House Destin Hall, R-Caldwell; and Senate Leader Phil Berger, R-Rockingham, announced plans to introduce legislation later this month targeting crime in North Carolina in light of the recent murder of Iryna Zaruska, a Ukrainian immigrant, in Charlotte.
“We have been speaking about what we can do to prevent the tragedy that happened in Charlotte from ever happening again in this state,” said Hall. “So we’re still in the homework stage, finding out how this specific case happened. But from what we can tell so far, this was largely as a result of somebody being released from jail who should not have been released from jail. An individual who had a violent history, a convicted felon, had multiple charges, clearly had mental health issues, had multiple interactions with Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department, and somehow was allowed to walk out of the jail by a magistrate, by simply signing a written promise to appear again… We’re looking at several possible legislative actions to reform various issues with our magistrates with pretrial conditions of release.”
Berger and Hall also invited Michael Whatley, former chairman of the Republican National Convention (RNC) and the NCGOP. Whatley recently declared his candidacy for the US Senate, following incumbent Sen. Thom Tillis’ announcement that he would not seek re-election. Whatley has been endorsed by President Donald Trump and is running against former Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper…