Panther's Fan Attack on Marine Family Fall Out Continues

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Coverage of Sunday's attack on a Maine in a wheelchair and his family by a local well known jackass Josh "Tank" Watts, has spread world wide.
Not surprisingly anger has been directed at the restaurant and bar that forced the Dallas Cowboys jersey wearing Marine Corporal and his family out the door.

The Moosehead Bar and Grill has been besieged with callers venting their anger. The bar has deleted their FaceBook page and their Yelp rating (a restaurant review guide) has "Tanked" as supporters of military personnel worldwide pile on the negative reviews for the small "dive bar" located in Charlotte's Park Road area.

Tank Watts has not fared much better as word spread of his verbal attack on the double amputee Afghanistan vet. Early Thursday morning, Watts deleted his Facebook account and contacted the Charlotte Observer to give "his side" of the events that lead to the attacks on Marine Corporal Garrett Carnes and his family.

Watts contacted the Charlotte Observer to give his version of the story telling the Observer, “He (Carnes) is a veteran, and I appreciate what he did for this country. But I don’t appreciate how abusive they were.”

Garrett Carnes, of Mooresville, North Carolina pictured with family members
including mom Rhonda, far left, and wife Courtney, far right

But Watts accusation that the Carnes family was abusive didn't find much traction.  In fact, his statements seem to have fueled the fire.

Late last night Nicole Coburn posted this comment on the CP Blog:

"I was the friend there with Courtney and Garrett, my husband and I. He (Watts) was starting in on Courtney from the parking lot as she was getting Garrett's wheel chair out, and then was waiting for us as we walked into the door.

Josh "Tank" Watts - FaceBook

According to Nicole Coburn who arrived at the Moosehead Bar and Grill with Garrett Carnes, "he (Watts) started talking trash before we could even get in the door. He called Courtney (Carnes) every obscenity you could imagine....she finally called him a "fat ass" and (Watts) threatened to rip her husband's jaw off."

When Garrett Carnes tried to explain he was just a Vet who lost his legs in Afghanistan trying to have dinner with his family, Watts replied "Don’t use your wheelchair as a crutch.”

Read more here: http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2012/10/25/3620757/marine-amputee-charlotte-restaurant.html#storylink=misearch#storylink=cpy

Read more here: http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2012/10/25/3620757/marine-amputee-charlotte-restaurant.html#storylink=misearch#storylink=cpyNo doubt "Tank" will find it hard to escape his mouth and his actions when he returns to his reported Section 501 5th row 1st seat for the Panther's home game against the Denver Broncos on November 11th.

Josh "Tank" Watts

But calls for him to be fired from his part time Bobcats security job seem to have fallen on Micheal Jordan's often deaf ears.

Mean while the Charlotte Observer has removed Watts name from their original report. When asked why the "cleansed" revision, the reporter allegedly replied "they didn't want to be sued". It is unknown if this was a fear of being sued for outing Watts or the fear that something might happen to Watts and it would be attributed to the Observer story.

Cedar Posts Bonus: Coming up the complete Josh "Tank" Watts photo expose' you won't believe what we've uncovered, and later the poll. Drunks vs Marines.

Cedar's Take: While opening a major can of whoop ass on the "Tank" might get a few laughs and put the D-Bag in the hospital for a few days it really does nothing to help Cpl. Carnes.

We have all known Tanks, they are the assclowns who ruin our night out, spoil a good concert, ignore the no wake zone on the lake and force our fav bars to close early. They are the guys who yell "its in the hole" at the Masters, and cheer when the other team's player is taken off the field on a stretcher.

All we can do is hope is that Tank at some point in his life has a moment where he wakes up from his "everyone loves me" dream and looks in the mirror and discovers he is a jerk.

Better that we turn our attention to Cpl. Carnes who has up to this point made great progress in recovering from his horrific injuries. The insults hurrled at Cpl Carnes and his wife will endure he will not forget, he may forgive but we can help and show our support by contributing to the Semper Fi Fund or the Wounder Warrior Project as well as Cedar's choice the Gary Sinise Foundation.

That is all!

Lincoln Harris Dilworth Project Goes Down In Flames

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Does the stunning defeat of a re-zoning request signal a change in direction for Charlotte City Council? Could be......



From the Charlotte Observer:

A controversial rezoning request to build a Walgreens drug store and office building in Dilworth was rejected by Charlotte City Council Monday night, delighting neighbors who had waged an aggressive campaign of e-mails and yard signs against the project.

Developer Lincoln Harris’s rezoning lost 9-3, with only Warren Cooksey, Andy Dulin and David Howard supporting it.

The developer wanted to build a Walgreens and a two-story office building on two acres at East Morehead Street and Kenilworth Avenue. To move forward, Lincoln Harris would have to demolish several buildings, some of which were built at the turn of the century.

Lincoln Harris appeared to make a last-minute attempt to sway council members.

In an e-mail sent to council member Patsy Kinsey, who represents the area, a Lincoln Harris executive said the developer has an alternative plan for site that would contain “none of the softened commercial edges” in its Walgreens plan.

“I have come to the conclusion, based upon a number of discussions, these …neighbors were told by a core group of opponents that if the Lincoln Harris petition were to be denied , we will simply ‘go away’ and the property will remain the same,” wrote Alex Kelly, Lincoln Harris vice president. “This email is to confirm that this statement is completely false.”

The e-mail then suggested a backup development plan would have more impact on neighbors, and that it would be in Dilworth’s best interests to approve the original rezoning request.
“This is a serious decision....which could have a detrimental effect on other’s property values,” Kelly wrote.
The e-mail said that the alternative development plan would have “no development concessions offered to the neighborhood. All of the negotiated concessions will go away.”

Cedar's Take: Cooksey and Dulin always side with the developers, large and small. But without fellow Republican Edwin Peacock who often played both sides it was a dead horse way before the vote.

Cedar Posts has been asked why people feel Cooksey and Dulin are in developers pockets and what did Lincoln Harris VP Alex Kelly do wrong?

By illustration, take the CHA project in Ballentyne where Cooksey "washed his hands" by saying there was nothing he could do to oppose the low income project. In the end the shady deal was exposed, a massive fraud complete with developer kick backs, and was scraped.

As far as Alex Kelly, he is a total ass clown, and poster child for how not to deal with neighborhoods.

By contrast look at they way Autobell courted the folks in Southpark. That car wash may be the most over landscaped operation in the country but it began turning a profit on day one.
The demand was so great they didn't even have a grand opening, they just opened the doors.
Why? Because Chuck Howard went out of his way to work with his neighbors.
Alex Kelly's Vaseline or baseball bat method just didn't work.

So why did council members vote down the request?

Perhaps they have noted that much of the re-zoning completed in the past to accommodate developers like Lincoln Harris has left East Charlotte in a shambles. Charlotte's urban blight in East Charlotte and along the Independence and University corridors can be traced back to re-zoning votes approved at the request of developers like Lincoln Harris and not through well planned urban development.

Charlotte Catholic Posts Student Info On Line

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As parents we lecture our kids about all the dangers of on line predators, scams and hackers.

Our nation has created hundreds of laws to protect our children from harm via the Internet. So, it is pretty shocking to discover that Charlotte Catholic High School has posted their entire student body on line.

 

The alphabetical list includes student name, address, grade level, parents name, and email address.



At first glance the info seems harmless enough, but with a little interpolation, and some key strokes it doesn't take a computer expert to develop a pretty complete profile of someone.

Cedar Posts will let you know if Charlotte Catholic replies to our email request for comment and a copy of their computer security policy.

Cedar Update: Nothing but crickets from Gerald Healy at CCHS. But as of 1:03 this afternoon the information had been removed from the school's website.

Meanwhile back at the ranch CP received an email asking "what is the big deal?" I hate to try an argue with stupid but here goes. As a parent we tell our kids, never give out your home address on Facebook or Twitter. But Facebook encourages everyone to "use their real name" add your school, and a couple of keystrokes later thanks to Charlotte Catholic High School every sicko in the world knows right where this kids live. As a bonus they know their parents name, home number and in many cases where they work, since many provided a work email address. So.... WTF, (Well That's Freaky)!

CMPD's Domestic Violence Tree an Odd Contrast To Officers Charged With The Same

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At CMPD Headquarters yesterday they held a memorial tree lighting. The trees and purple ribbons, a silent reminder of the 53 people killed this year by someone they trusted, victims of domestic violence.

The Domestic Violence Advocacy Council hosted the event. Survivors, family and friends remembered the victims, telling stories about each one. The WCNC News report shows CMPD Command Staff including Chief Rodney Monroe carefully placing ribbons on one of the trees and reading a prepared statement speaking out against domestic violence.

 
Chief Monroe has said on more than once occasion that his department is "committed" to stopping domestic violence, and without a doubt domestic violence hits close to home with Chief Monroe, having lost a sister to the crime.

But a floor away in the same building CMPD Officer Darnley "Cecil" Brathwaite is on desk duty. Officer Brathwaite, a Detective in the department's robbery unit, was arrested on a Domestic-Violence charge on August 26th and has been "riding" the desk ever since.

On that Sunday evening Huntersville Police reportedly responded to a call for service and arrested the 37 year old Officer after he forced his way into his ex-wife's home and held her at gunpoint. Brathwaite's former spouse was not seriously injured in the incident.

Brathwaite was transported to the Mecklenburg County Jail and charged with, Assault on a female. Assault by pointing a gun, Criminal Domestic Trespass, and False Imprisonment among other things. Officer Brathwaite posted bail the following day and was released.


Brathwaite's trial date is set for January 16, 2013 in Mecklenburg County District Court.

According to one source; since his August 26 arrest, CMPD Internal Affairs Unit has taken no action against Officer Brathwaite, opting to let the facts play out in court before proceeding with any formal investigation, if any.

Cedar's Take: Odd contrast, the trees in the lobby their branches holding stark reminders of women murdered at the hands of assailants like CMPD Officer Brathwaite. Couples have fights, things can get out of hand, but violence of any sort should not be tolerated by any police department when it comes to their officers. When an officer pulls his weapon on his ex-wife, there should be no delay in his prompt termination. There is no reason to risk a second chance.

In Case You Missed It Creative Loafing Takes On Harry Jones - AGAIN!

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You'll miss this re-cap of Mecklenburg County Manager Harry Jones hubris, since it is buried in the weekly known as Creative Loafing, somewhere in front of the males escorts and strip-o-gram ads but it is worth reading.


John Grooms:

Creative Loafing first got a close look at county manager Harry Jones' high-handed arrogance 10 years ago. In 2002, this paper published an investigative story by former CL reporter Tara Servatius that set off a classic Harry Jones bullying spectacle. The story, "It's A Crapshoot," revealed that millions of gallons of raw, untreated human sewage had been spilled into the county's creeks and streams in the past three years, and that county official charged with enforcing water pollution guidelines had done little to nothing to punish the polluters (i.e., Charlotte Mecklenburg Utilities, or CMU).

The reporter, this paper and this writer, in my capacity as editor at the time, were publicly vilified by county officials as "irresponsible" evildoers who, ostensibly, were just out to cause a ruckus. Soon, King Harry told the County Commission that his staff had produced a massive point-by-point response to our article, which would be sent to all local media, "except for Creative Loafing, because they're not interested in the truth." County Commission Chair Parks Helms told Jones that he had to send the response to CL lest the county government appear arrogant. But that was then. King Harry has gotten much worse since.

Last week, a Charlotte Observer editorial (which is here) revealed that Jones "became angry and aggressive" and "upbraided his bosses for their audacity" when the county commission refused to grant King Harry any raise at all this year, much less the 4.5 percent increase he wanted for what he called his "exemplary performance." Sad to say, but for anyone who has followed Jones' ever-growing sense of self-importance, the episode came as no surprise. The Observer editorial went on to, more or less, call for Jones' ouster. We've been saying the same thing for a few years.

Here's a quick review of some of King Harry's "exemplary performances" we've written about.
In 2009, Jones' standard treatment of "his" county government as an Uptown good ol' boys club was in full display when:

1. Charlotte Mayor Anthony Foxx's wife Samara was handed a $100,000 job as a special assistant to the chief of the Department of Social Services, after posting the job listing for a total of one day;

2. The Department of Social Services hired the daughter of Police Chief Rodney Monroe;

3. It hired the daughter of Superior Court Judge Yvonne Mims Evans;

4. Jones tried his best to cover up a report of tens of thousands of dollars being embezzled from the department's Giving Tree Christmas charity; and

5. Jones reacted to criticism by Bank of America Vice President Harry Lomax by going behind the commissioners' backs to a BofA official in order to have Lomax's complaints quashed.

In 2010, in the middle of a severe economic downturn, Jones accepted a $38,000 bonus on the heels of cutting county jobs and denying raises for everyone else who worked for the county — an action for which he was publicly slammed by Schools Superintendent Peter Gorman, who turned down a bonus, along with his top administrators. In addition, the King showed textbook-quality poor management by waiting until the last minute to tell schools, libraries and parks that they had to make huge, wrenching budget cuts that, to put it mildly, upset the community.

Add to that the revelation of poor, or rather nonexistent, oversight of a nonprofit that handled nearly $2 million in federal funds for the Shelter Plus Care program. And don't forget the brouhaha over a giant conflict of interest after county commissioners received free packets of tickets to the CIAA basketball tournament from Jones, after the county ponied up $200K to the CIAA to keep the tourney in Charlotte.

The rest of John Groom's opt-ed is here.

Cedar's Take: Tossing Harry Jones out on the street will be a hard sell considering that he is allegedly battling pancreatic cancer. However retaining him in a $35,000.00 staff postion, would be pretty smart. First it would ease the conscience and secondly it would lower his 5 year average salary down which would lower his retirment benefit, saving the county a bundle.

Of course if he didn't need the medical coverage, he'd just quit, which works as well.

Marathon man faces more charges

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Marathon – A Marathon man charged with burglaries tounlocked occupied homes on overnight between November 18^th and 19^thhas been charged with two more of the crimes.
28 year old Michael Crawford was charged Wednesday with twooutstanding warrants  – one for the burglary of a shed and boat on 3^rdAvenue Ocean and one for the burglary of a home and a vehicle on 6^thAvenue Ocean. He stole fishing equipment and tools from the first location, andstole a purse, cash, sunglasses and prescription medication from the secondlocation.
Most of the stolen property was recovered from Crawford’sresidence. Detective Bobby Burkett is the investigator assigned to the cases.The investigation is continuing and more charges are pending against Crawfordfor additional crimes.

Young Writer's Learning Experience at the 2011 Milan Bluegrass Festival

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Okay, I'm not going to sit here and lie to you all and say that I'm a big fan of bluegrass music. I'm not. (For reference, if I was writing this to a group of my friends its very possible I wouldn't say "lie" in the previous sentence, but instead say "front." Sorry.) But I also don't dislike bluegrass music. Its influences can be seen in some of the music I listen to in the terms of prevalent vocal harmonies and finger-picked acoustic guitar. See: Fleet Foxes, Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young.

Plus, I really like "O Brother, Where Art Thou?" That's a really great movie! And that was my first real experience with bluegrass, and some of those songs were really good! But as a I sat and walked around KC Campground on Saturday at the festival, there was something there that to an uninitiated observer hit me more than the music: the atmosphere and the people. I got a chance to talk with one of the bands that performed on Saturday, HeartTown, and they talked a lot about precisely that: the crowd at the Milan Bluegrass Festival is a group of people who love and really know their bluegrass. I've been to shows where there's people there who really care about the band, or at least appreciate their style of music, and then there are people there posturing or just trying to look cool. (I feel like the moral of this post is: Kevin is still kind of young.) For the record, at shows I'm usually near the front shouting along with all of the lyrics, so obviously not one of the people trying to "look cool."

But there was certainly nobody at the Festival who wasn't there to enjoy a long day (or weekend) of bluegrass music. Even when i asked people what acts they liked the best, no one could pick one. "I like them all," was a very common response. "We see these guys basically every week," said Tim Laughlin of HeartTown. "Bluegrass is like a traveling carnival, and we're the carnies," said HeartTown's Darren Beachley.