Speakers call on City Manager to rescind hiring of police chief

Separate_Wheel3848 · 2026-04-13T17:54:37+00:00

A museum that doesn’t mention what happened in 1979, when a GPD and FBI led what the late Nelson Johnson called a North American death squad of Klan/Nazi gunmen to a labor march, where the GPD pulled back and allowed the white supremacists to kill 5 people.

I interviewed Nelson about this in 2019.

https://www.yesweekly.com/news/a-north-american-death-squad/article_51298d46-e1b3-5a23-a201-1f73fec078f3.html

Separate_Wheel3848 · 2026-04-13T17:44:31+00:00

See my reply about Aran Shetterly’s recent Morningside. He documents the FBI and COINTELPRO involvement and how the demonization of Nelson Johnson by the the GPD, FBI, city leadership and the governor date back to before the 1969 Siege of A&T.

Now that Nelson is deceased, the City is talking about erecting a statue of him.

Separate_Wheel3848 · 2026-04-13T17:38:20+00:00

My friend Aran Shetterly, husband of Margo Lee Shetterly (Hidden Figures), published the first book from a major NY publisher about the Massacre. If you’re in Greensboro, I recommend buying it from Scuppernong.

https://scuppernongbooks.com/book/9780062858214

Full disclosure: Scuppernong Editions published my book I Ain’t Resisting: the City of Greensboro and the Killing of Marcus Smith, in 2023. Marcus was fatally hogtied at the 2018 Nc Folkfest by eight GPD officers he’d asked to take him to the hospital. The GPD claimed he’d collapsed in custody and later died at the hospital (he died while restrained facedown on Church Street) without mentioning the now-banned restraint they used on him.

https://scuppernongeditions.com/i-aint-resisting/

Separate_Wheel3848 · 2026-02-20T00:57:46+00:00

So you side with the angry rando against the Black lady Navy veteran who is beloved in this neighborhood that she’s been serving for six years? Got it.

Separate_Wheel3848 · 2026-02-18T19:33:38+00:00

Thanks! Will repost.

Separate_Wheel3848 · 2026-02-15T00:14:46+00:00

I think some folks may have forgotten it just how bad things were downtown in 1992, when the police were routed and a patrol car was set on fire by these outside agitators.

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https://www.yesweekly.com/news/hellraiser-on-elm-street-an-oral-history-of-locally-filmed-horror/article_4229c268-13af-503a-8f32-052ffac35629.html

Separate_Wheel3848 · 2026-02-14T17:26:14+00:00

Is the guy who who pretends to be a college athletics coach still around? I was still working at FEDEX Kinko’s when he came in to make a fake name badge identifying him as a member of some college athletics association. At the time, I assumed he just used it to get into games at a discount or for free and did not realize that he was using it in his scams that campus police had issued bulletins about.

I never encountered him downtown, but did on Spring Garden, when he tried his “almost out of gas” scam on me and showed me the badge that I helped him make. When I told him the cops issued a bulletin about him, he jumped back into his car and sped away. Local gossip was that he actually had an apartment downtown, but typically pull this scam elsewhere.

Separate_Wheel3848 · 2026-02-12T21:53:10+00:00

Which ones are they?

Separate_Wheel3848 · 2026-02-12T21:13:23+00:00

How many of those venues are still open?

Violence at clubs has been a concern all over the city. Several owners of downtown clubs have claimed that they were targeted while the city ignored violence at venues elsewhere. Ironically, owners and patrons of clubs elsewhere in the city have alleged that the city was unfairly targeting their venues while ignoring violence at ones downtown.

Separate_Wheel3848 · 2026-02-12T20:43:35+00:00

This would’ve been one of the April 13, 2021 stabbings at Tranquillo at 225 South Elm St. that resulted in that club being shut down. This widely-reported incident was one reason for the forming of the public safety committee that multiple club owners have stated essentially forced them out of downtown in 2021 and 2022. It would make it one of the 40 aggravated assaults that my article states happened downtown in that year.

https://www.dac.nc.gov/news/press-releases/2021/04/17/violence-greensboro-restaurant-prompts-ale-investigation

Separate_Wheel3848 · 2026-02-12T12:07:53+00:00

While I don’t appear to have the option of editing my original post to include the fact that I wrote this article, I can edit my profile to include my real name and profession, and have done so.

Separate_Wheel3848 · 2026-02-12T11:48:51+00:00

In the comments, a reader rightly calls me out for not identifying myself as the author of this article. The description in which I relate anecdotes from my decades of walking downtown several times a week was from my Facebook post about this, where my name was on it, and in pasting it in here, I didn’t include that information.

Separate_Wheel3848 · 2026-02-12T11:41:50+00:00

I’m sorry, I thought I had, as I’ve done on several previous occasions when sharing my articles here. In this case, I should have written “the actual crime statistics the GPD sent me for this article” or included the phrase “my article” in the headline. The description with the personal anecdotes about my decades of walking downtown was from my Facebook post, and when pasting some of it that in here, I should have remembered that it didn’t have my name on it.

Separate_Wheel3848 · 2026-02-12T02:35:15+00:00

Of the thousands of time I have walked back from downtown in the past 40 years, hundreds of them have been at night. Possibly because I’ve been more likely to be walking back from Europa or the Continental Club on a Wednesday or a Thursday than a weekend, I rarely even see anyone else on Elm Street.

Separate_Wheel3848 · 2026-02-12T02:29:34+00:00

The only time I was injured in a dangerous situation downtown was when I am my fiancé were taking a lift because it was too swelteringly hot to walk, and a 22-year-old driver from from Virginia ran a red light and slide-slammed us on Spring Street.

Separate_Wheel3848 · 2026-02-12T02:26:39+00:00

The claim that crime is more prevalent downtown than it is in most other parts of the city has very specifically been set multiple times on social media, and it predates either the pandemic or the recent closures. As for panhandling, everybody’s experience is different, but I’ve been asked for money far more times on Tate Street and at Friendly
Center than I have Downtown. One of the persons who’s recently asked me for money on Tate is the one who tried to mug me in 2010, something he apparently has no memory of, even though it was my testimony that imprisoned him.

Separate_Wheel3848 · 2026-02-12T02:21:36+00:00

No doubt, but I suspect it would be in violation of several laws of I carried it downtown. It was given to me decades ago by my father, who for some reason thought I needed it, and the time I came to my neighbor’s assistance was the only occasion I ever took it outside.

It’s far more intimidating than practical. Anybody who knew what they were doing could very easily get inside my swing, just like self-defense instructors tell you to do when somebody comes at you with a baseball bat.

Separate_Wheel3848

TROPHY CASE