(upbeat music) - [Announcer] A production of PBS Charlotte.

- This week, a special edition of Unspun.

Charlotte's heart is broken over the shooting of eight public safety officers where four were killed.

As we grieve for the families, we discuss together what do we all do now and what have we learned or not learned from past tragedies?

We'll talk with former FBI Assistant Director Chris Swecker.

We'll explore how the media covers these emotional events and we'll revisit the police shootings in the past that changed our city.

And we'll remember the week's four fallen officers.

That's all coming up on Unspun.

In today's America, welcome to the spin game.

Believe me, I know, I'm Pat McCrory.

When I was governor and mayor, I played the spin game.

I was played by the spin game.

But aren't we all done being spun?

Let's take the spin out of the world we're in, here on Unspun.

(upbeat music) Good evening, I'm Pat McCrory and welcome to Unspun.

You know, it's moments like this that remind us of the risks that every day officers take.

Every single day here in Charlotte and throughout the state, and the sacrifices every officer makes.

We feel the loss in our community, not just the tragic loss of four law enforcement officers, but that collective loss of security, that feeling that we're not as safe as we thought we were.

Not when we hear the names and see the faces of those four officers who lost their lives for simply doing their jobs.

- Today's an absolute tragic day for the city of Charlotte and for the profession of law enforcement.

Today, we lost some heroes that are out to just simply trying to keep our community safe.

- That's Police Chief Johnny Jennings earlier this week on the day of the shooting.

Talking about the Charlotte Mecklenburg police officer, the two state investigators, and the deputy US marshal all shot and killed, while serving a warrant on a known felon in Charlotte's Shannon Park neighborhood.

Chances are we didn't know their names or faces before, but now we grieve for them together, trying to make sense of it all.

Some of my worst days as mayor and governor were weeks like this.

Getting that call of an officer down and rushing to the hospital and standing in front of the cameras to share the news that nobody wants to hear.

And especially, those moments away from the cameras with the family members of those fallen officers, it was truly heartbreaking.

Police officers swear an oath to protect us, they wear a badge to protect us, they feel an obligation to protect us, but who protects them?

The truth is we do.

We have to stand up for them and support them and work with them, because when the funerals for those four officers, those fallen officers are over, when the four other wounded officers recover, we can't forget their names or their sacrifice or the sacrifice of every officer who takes that oath and puts on that badge and feels that obligation.

That's our obligation too.

Joining me now on Unspun is Chris Swecker, former assistant director of the FBI overseeing all FBI criminal investigations nationwide.

Chris is a 24-year FBI veteran, including six years as a special agent in charge of FBI operations right here in North Carolina.

Chris, thanks for joining us.

And I know this is an extremely sad day.

Dealing with probably the worst tragedy that we've ever seen in this state and frankly, in this nation.

Having four officers shot and killed and another four wounded.

But I want to get to your expertise and that's the investigation.

There's already a lot of confusion in the fog of war.

Tell me who does this investigation and how long does it go?

- Yeah, I think it's pretty clear that Johnny Jennings, chief of Charlotte Mecklenburg Police has assumed the lead in this investigation.

We've got five homicides, and homicide just means a man was killed, a person was killed, whether they were the good guys or the bad guys, in Mecklenburg County.

So, they're taking primary jurisdiction.

I'm sure the US marshals, because it was a federal task force, because they lost an officer, are gonna do their own internal inquiry.

But the forensic lead, the investigative lead, will be CMPD, and they've got good capabilities.

They'll be able to sort this out.

But there are still some things that are being sorted out.

- I noticed some of the audio of reporters are already standing in front of the house where this tragedy occurred.

Do you think they had enough time to have all the information?

You know, you watch "CSI", and we're a little consumed by how it is on TV versus how it is in real life.

How do they gather all this evidence both inside a house, which has been partially destroyed, and outside of a house?

- Yeah, I mean, the fact that the house was partially destroyed.

The whole front of the house is almost gone is particularly challenging.

From a forensic aspect, they have to sort out who shot who, you know, from the ballistics from the weapons that were found at the scene or found on the, you know, right next to the bodies.

Who handled the gun?

You know, who from a forensic standpoint, you know, who's actually had their DNA or their fingerprints on a particular gun.

- And these are all the guns.

- The powder marks.

These are all the guns.

I mean the officers' as well.

All that has to be sorted out.

The trajectory of the rounds that went through.

Over 200 rounds from what I understand.

Many of them probably went through the house.

You know, wood doesn't stop these types of rounds, especially the AR-15.

So, you know, the rounds that went through we'll probably never recover.

Some of 'em might have hit trees and that sort of thing.

But the whole thing has to be fully investigated.

One, to figure out one after action what really happened here.

What were the tactics used?

We gotta know who did the shooting.

We have two suspects, and Johnny's described them as persons of interest.

That means they still haven't sorted out, because they have not arrested them yet.

They haven't sorted out whether they fired weapons.

And it may be that they didn't, but the fact that we have no arrest warrants and no announcement of an arrest of the other two people in the house, tells me that they, you know, they still don't know.

- Now, I used to ride with the hit squad.

It was just known back when I was mayor.

I used to ride with the police once a month kind of away from the cameras.

And I remember when riding with 'em, we'd meet early in the morning, they had extensive planning.

They had coordination with other departments, then they had tend to go wake up the people that they were planning to arrest.

This was at 01:30 in the afternoon.

You have a lot of experience in this with cross joint agencies working together.

What do you think we're gonna learn from this?

- Yeah, you know, I've heard some things.

One of which is that, you know, this is the Marshals' fugitive task force.

They execute warrants all day, every day.

Really high volume turnaround.

And you're right, most of the time you want the element of surprise.

You want to hit 'em early in the morning.

Oh, dark 30 before they have time to react.

They're just getting outta bed, they're groggy.

And you have the element of surprise, you have the advantage, you have the initiative.

In this case, they hit the place at 01:30 in the afternoon.

Lost the initiative, didn't have the element of surprise.

Three task force officers were shot down pretty much in front of the door.

Ambushed from up above.

So, I think there's gonna be a big look back on the tactics here.

You got two things going on.

You got the investigation.

Who did what?

Who's gonna be charged?

You know, from a judicial standpoint, from a court, you know, a criminal justice standpoint.

And then you gotta, what happened and how can we make sure this doesn't happen again?

Were the tactics sound.

How did the suspect get the advantage on them?

How did the suspect ambush them?

How did he know they were coming?

There's a whole lot of unanswered questions here.

Was there in fact coordination with CMPD?

My information is that CMPD did not to know the warrant was being executed.

So, they come rushing into a scene where they know nothing about the situation.

They don't know why the officers were there.

They don't know who's in the house.

They don't know what kind of weapons they have.

They don't know if there are innocents inside the house.

But they do know that there's three officers down and they gotta save them, get 'em outta line of fire.

So, I think the CMPD showed tremendous bravery and courage in just putting themselves directly in the line of fire to try to save these three brother officers.

And one tragically lost his life.

- It's just heartbreaking.

- It is.

- It's just heartbreaking.

I'm kind of curious, the gun.

- Yeah.

- We've got a unique situation.

The man who is allegedly did most of the shooting or all of the shooting, and the four officers who were initially involved, they're all gone.

This is very rare.

So, the only witnesses are the officers that followed, the ballistic evidence.

And I suppose, did they have their cameras on?

Do you typically have your cameras on during this?

- Since these are task force officers, we don't know the answer to that question, 'cause you know, the body cameras are typically for routine, not routine, but patrolmen for uniformed officers.

These are task force officers, federal and state and local.

I don't know whether they're wearing body cameras in these scenarios.

We didn't wear 'em in the FBI.

I don't think they wear 'em to this day.

So, you know, as you say, who's gonna tell the story here?

It would be good to have body camera coverage.

And I'm sure we have a lot, you know, cameras from the dash cams and the responding CMPD.

But do we have the cameras from the arrest team that actually went up to the front door?

- Real quick, the gun?

- Yes.

- Will there be an investigation of how he got this gun, this very powerful gun that goes through armor?

- Yeah, he's a felon.

- And tell me about how that's done by the FBI or by this task force?

- Yeah, so this warrant was for a felon in possession of a gun.

So, where did he get that gun?

Good question.

I mean, who knows.

The way you track these down, those ATF does that.

ATF has a system where you can track the gun, you know, to the point where you lose the trail when it gets being sold informally or at gun shows and that sort of thing.

- It's interesting, the alleged killer.

He had already been arrested in Person County, Roxboro, North Carolina.

He had a warrant possibly out for him in Lincoln County.

Gastonia or Gaston County that may have chased him.

- Mecklenburg as well.

- Mecklenburg as well.

You and I know there's a revolving door in the criminal justice system.

This is a major issue I had as mayor and governor.

- Yes.

- Is this the breakdown as we conclude this, that there's just a breakdown in the criminal justice system where if we keep letting these criminals get in and out, it's not if, but when.

- No doubt about it.

And we know, you know, in the nineties, and you were around for this when you were mayor, crack epidemic.

We collectively law enforcement reduced crime by going after the worst offenders.

They're responsible for disproportionate amount of the crime.

You have to go after them.

You gotta get 'em for spitting on the sidewalk if you can, but you have to get them incarcerated.

And then you can prevent, some are good for 20 or 30 crimes each.

Put one of them away and you reduce the crime wave, if you will.

And we're about to hit a serious crime wave, because of the border situation, which is another story.

But this gives you that sense of lawlessness when you see these incidents and you see this revolving door right here in Mecklenburg County.

Three charges on this guy were dismissed.

And I think there might've been one remaining charge.

And he was out and he had several occasions he had fled police.

He had done committed crimes with a weapon.

That's what they were going after him for.

He is the worst of the worst.

And I don't see where it ends right now unless we get some policy changes.

- Chris, sometimes with a repeat story.

We've had this happen again before in Charlotte.

You and I have worked together on this type of tragedy.

I hope it doesn't happen again.

But we learned from this and turn it into a positive in recognition of these four.

- We do.

- Four brave heroes.

- We do, it's heartbreaking.

Our hearts and prayers go out to the families.

- Chris, thank you so much for your service.

- [Chris] Thank you, Governor.

Take care.

- Next, PBS Charlotte's Jeff Sonier takes Unspun on the street to hear your thoughts on this week's terrible police shooting in Charlotte.

- Yeah, we're here in uptown Charlotte, where mourners are leaving flowers at the police memorial across from police headquarters.

And where the flags fly at half staff, four different flags outside the Government Center representing those four fallen law enforcement officers.

(somber music) - It broke my heart.

It broke my heart to think that we have something like this that happened to all of these people in our law enforcement.

- And it was almost unbelievable.

That's what it felt like.

- This is crazy.

What are we doing?

What is this world coming to with people just shooting at people, because they're doing their job.

And when you do your job, you don't expect to die from doing your job.

And I understand that they're US marshals, I understand that they're police officers, and all of that, but at the end of the day, it's still someone doing their job.

So, they shouldn't have had to die for that.

- [Jeff] And their job is protecting us.

- Protecting us, yeah, yeah.

(somber music continues) - I feel for the officers.

It's a very tough job and they're often prepared for doing it.

And I don't think you can prepare for this.

- [Jeff] Collectively, I guess we all kind of suffer when something like this happens.

We all kinda share that grief, don't we?

- Absolutely, it's painful to watch and understand and, you know, the people that lost loved ones, it's unimaginable.

It just seems like there's a wanton disregard for life.

And I don't know why.

(somber music continues) - [Jeff] We came down from Hickory today.

- We sure did.

- Why?

- We brought Faith, comfort dog, to give comfort to the people that are suffering, and from this tragedy.

We just wanted to come and just help with their grief.

- [Jeff] Also coming out to honor the fallen officers, the entire Mecklenburg District Attorney's Office.

For a silent vigil on the sidewalk outside Charlotte's old City Hall.

Each mourner holding flowers that were placed at the statue of two police officers.

One officer calling for help for another fellow officer lost in the line of duty.

- I think that crime has got outta control in Charlotte.

- It is disturbing.

It seems like it's more often, and I'd like to see it solved.

It's gonna take a statesman or a stateswoman to really back away from a divisive side of things to try and find something really reasonable that, you know, actually makes sense that we can do.

I think we've done all the easy side things on both sides of it.

And that's why it's hard and complex.

(somber music) - And those local conversations about gun violence, about the risks of being a police officer, turning into a national conversation as well as people send in their condolences from all over the country.

Pat.

- Hey, thanks, Jeff.

That was incredible feedback that we got from our citizens.

And we wanna know more of your thoughts on this week's tragic police shootings.

Email them to unspun@wtvi.org.

(suspenseful music) Tonight, on our top five countdown, we explore the next steps that we need to take as a community after this horrendous tragedy.

And what's unique about this at this point in time, is that all five steps are gonna have to occur at the same time.

There's no order of events.

And it makes this job even more difficult after this terrible, terrible shooting.

So, we'll start at number five.

Number five, which Chris and I just talked about, and that is a thorough investigation.

Can you imagine the complexity of what's needed to be done among three or four different agencies that were working together regarding a very tragic crime scene.

Regarding the emotion of your peers and your colleagues involved in this shooting.

It is very, very tough.

And we don't know how long this is gonna take, but it could be a considerable amount of time.

And the dilemma with this is people are gonna be impatient, because they're gonna want to find out what happened as soon as possible.

Number four, any prosecution needs to be taken.

Prosecution, we don't even know who the people are at this point in time, except for the individual that was killed as a result of this shooting.

And sadly, the four other officers are no longer with us, but there were other officers involved.

We're gonna find out if there was cameras and so forth as potential evidence.

There were at least two other people in the house.

Will they be prosecuted?

And who got the gun to this individual?

Will that person be prosecuted?

Number three, the most difficult part for the police chief and the families and everyone involved, because the funerals are extremely difficult for the families, of course.

But there's a family of police officers that we have to think of in this region, in this state, and this nation, which will come to Charlotte in addition to the President of the United States coming to Charlotte.

So, the funeral logistics with four funerals that need to be coordinated.

We've never had this difficulty.

And the emotion will be a motion that this community has never felt before.

Number two, the community and police grieving together.

And we're already seeing this today with services at the First Baptist Church of Charlotte downtown, where we've done other services when I was mayor.

And it's a kind of a community place in downtown Charlotte where anyone can help grieve as a community together.

And it's so great to see the outpouring of grief and prayers from all parts of our city, our state, and our nation.

And we need it now more than ever.

And number one, probably the most important at the end.

As a result of this shooting, we need action.

We need action to make sure this never happens again.

We need to find out what went wrong, what went right, if anything.

We need to find out what are the follow-up steps.

And we need to start going after the career criminal to make sure we don't have career criminals that are still out there that could do this again.

To our heroes.

To our heroes.

So action is gonna be very necessary for local, state, and federal officials.

(suspenseful music) Next up, PBS Charlotte's Jeff Sonier joins me for our Unspun one-on-one segment.

Jeff, this is a tough week.

I'll tell you.

It's the worst tragedy in Charlotte's history.

- It's hard on reporters, it's hard on public officials, it's hard on the public in general.

I mean, it's just tough to watch.

And before we get started about what happens behind the scenes, I wanna take another look at one of those clips we saw from that live news conference.

This is Mayor Vi Lyles, - You know, three people lost their lives today.

And the most that I can ask of our community is that we honor and respect them for all the work that they've done, all the work that we will do, to make it possible for our city to be safer.

Every one of us wants to be in a situation where you get up this morning and get to come back home.

And someone didn't today.

- That was Mayor Lyles before we knew there was a fourth victim.

A Charlotte police officer also among those who were killed by that gunfire.

You've been there as mayor and as governor several times.

You got a job to do on that day, but gosh, it's gotta be tough to hold in that emotion.

- You can't hold the emotion.

I remember being mayor pro tem and watching Mayor Vinroot deal with the emotion of officers Burnett and Noble being killed and shot down on West Side Homes area.

And I remember going, "How's he doing it?"

And then I didn't know a decade later, I'd be doing the same thing when Officers Clark and Shelton were assassinated.

And I wrote a note to Vi earlier this week and said, "You're doing a great job, and don't be afraid of the emotion.

If you feel it, show it."

But it's real difficult for a political figure during this time, because it's really about the families and the police.

But the political figure is very important to bring the community together without being political or even perceived as being political.

And this is a challenge for the President.

This is a challenge for the Governor.

This is a challenge for the Mayor.

And then you might have city councilmen, congressmen, senators who wanna get involved, and you gotta almost push everything to the side.

So, I know when I was asked to speak at the two funerals back in 2007, it was the most emotional event I've ever been to in my life.

And I remember before going up to the podium at the church of that first funeral, I looked over at the widow and it broke my heart and I lost my breath.

And I was afraid I couldn't even walk to the podium, because the grief in that room was so strong.

And your adrenaline works.

That's how Vinroot did it, that's how Vi is doing it right now.

I'm worried about our police chief.

I've known him for a very long time.

He was a, like a sergeant when I was mayor, and I've always liked him.

I'm worried about him being able to take all this entire burden of having this happen in his city, because you do take it personally, you feel responsibility.

And Chief Stevens was the chief when our officers got killed in 2007.

And I don't know if he ever recovered from the emotional toll of the funerals and the responsibility, the coordination of the investigation, the funerals.

It's a burden that you can't describe to anyone, but it's the families that are suffering right now more than anyone else.

- We've all been watching the coverage from home.

The live the news conferences and that sort of thing.

I know you've been watching.

What's happening behind the scenes when you get that first phone call as mayor or governor of this kind of thing happening?

I mean, obviously, you've gotta come together quickly, but it's gotta be just so hectic and so helter skelter.

- It is helter skelter.

And I always had, I remember in the governor's mansion, I'd get a call at two o'clock in the morning and when that phone rings, it's either a family member or a police officer down.

And right after my state of the state speech, my very first one, they came to me right before the speech as I'm walking down the aisle and said a police officer in Durham was just shot in the face three times and I'm walking down and I couldn't get it off my mind.

And as soon as the speech ended, we headed to Durham.

And by the way, that officer and I, he is disabled now, but he lived.

We still talk to each other once a month.

And that's another thing, you do a lot of things off camera and it makes you better to talk to the community and show that you're doing things off camera, because that's the right thing to do.

But meeting with the families is the toughest.

And you give it the time they need, not what you need.

Does that make sense?

- It does.

- It's not about you.

It's about them.

And it might be 20 seconds, it might end up being two hours where you just listen.

- You've been, as said, watching the coverage.

What do you think about the local coverage and also the national coverage of this story?

Obviously, it was a very big story here, but it's a very big story all over the country.

- Well, I think the local coverage was excellent.

I really do.

I commend all the local networks.

The national coverage, the first day I was in my, I was actually coming home from Lake James on that Monday, and I got caught up in the traffic jam and I didn't know what it was about.

And what it was about, they were bringing the bodies of the deceased to the hospital, and Kenilworth and everything was backed up.

But what disturbed me about the national coverage is the low priority they put on it.

They put protestors on college campuses, professors and students having their tents taken down ahead of eight officers being shot out, four of them being killed.

I was upset with the national media coverage.

It didn't meet the agenda of the national media.

It's gotten more coverage since then.

But frankly, I think I ought to be on the news every day, because these are heroes.

And I'm sorry, it's not the Trump trial or the students at Yale, or Columbia, or UCLA.

This is much bigger story than that.

And right now, crime is the number one issue in our country, that in the economy.

And it seems like the national media would get that.

And this was a criminal act against four of our bravest people.

- Well, thanks for the insight, Governor.

It's been a tough week for everybody involved.

I know you feel like you wanna do something.

- You as a reporter, don't you wanna go out like the old days?

- We all wanna do something, but I guess the most important thing, as you said, is the families right now and those fallen officers.

Remembering them, remembering those families, and hoping that going forward we can learn as a community from all this.

That's this week's Unspun one-on-one.

(suspenseful music) - To wrap up our show, tonight's Backspin segment gives thanks to good public servants for the things they've done in the past.

Well, Charlotte's heart was truly broken this past week as we endured the worst violent assault on our police in our city's history.

Back in 2007 when I was mayor, we lost Officers Sean Clark and Jeff Shelton to a similar violent fate.

And we struggled through emotional memorial services.

We all promised that we would never forget these two men and the everyday sacrifice of all of our police.

But as is human nature, as time goes by and as new generations arrive right here in Charlotte, society again takes for granted the dangers of those protecting our safety.

Members of the public even began assaulting and disrespecting our police and politicians have even recommended defunding them, while most citizens stayed quiet during this debate.

Well, this week we've got the worst wake up call to again remind us that these men and women deserve our undoing respect, our long-term, respect, support, and thanks every day.

Well, that does it for tonight's episode of Unspun.

Thanks for joining us, and I hope you'll come back next week as we explore the politics of problem solving in Washington.

That's on our next Unspun where we'll tell you what politicians are thinking, but not saying, goodnight.

(upbeat music) (upbeat music continues) (upbeat music) - [Announcer] A production of PBS Charlotte.