North Carolina Police Benevolent Association Officially Endorses Michael Whatley For U.S. Senate
Today, the North Carolina Police Benevolent Association after meeting with both major candidates, officially endorsed Michael Whatley for the United States Senate. This endorsement is the second major North Carolina law enforcement group backing Whatley. Shortly after the primary, the North Carolina Trooper Association endorsed Whatley.
Whatley opened the press conference saying, “These gentlemen represent the 17,700 active and retired members of the North Carolina Police Benevolent Association, and I am proud to be receiving their unanimous endorsement. The Police Benevolent Association is the largest law enforcement advocacy organization in our state and they do an incredible job taking care of our dedicated police officers from Murphy to Manteo.”
Whatley continued, “Our police officers leave home every day and put on their badges, not knowing if they'll come home that night. They are truly the thin blue line. There are roughly 22,000 law enforcement officers in North Carolina, and in 2024, over 4,100 of them were assaulted in the line of duty, and four of them have lost their lives in duty this year alone. These officers dedicate their lives to protecting our communities, and it is important to have representation in the United States Senate that will back them the same way. The number one task for any government, local, state, or federal, is to keep its communities and its citizens safe. Our dedicated law enforcement officers are on the front lines of this fight each and every day to protect our families and our communities across North Carolina.”
Whatley promised, “As your senator, my number one priority will be to keep our communities safe.”
Here are the public safety failures highlighted by former Governor Roy Cooper:
During the riots of 2020, Cooper failed to call out the National Guard to protect people, instead he marched with defund the police protestors.
Cooper started a racial justice taskforce to pushed policies to put dangerous criminals back on the street.
As Governor, he appeased his liberal allies in a settlement to release over 4,200 convicted criminals back onto North Carolina streets. Almost half of them went onto reoffend, several of them were charged with serious crimes like sexual assault and murder.
Whatley highlighted specific cases of criminals that Cooper:
Lucas Scrantz was a convicted drug dealer released early by Cooper. Scrantz was later charged with the death of his infant daughter, after Scrantz contaminated her bottle with fentanyl.
Tyrell was let out prison early. He was convicted for crimes including assault by strangulation of a pregnant woman, breaking and entering, and grand larceny. (5:00) Just one year later, Brace killed 23-year-old Elante Thompson. Elante Thompson's mother asked a question every North Carolinian should be asking.
Gary Jenkins was let out early as part of the settlement. But months ago, Jenkins stabbed Clifton McClam to death in Raleigh.
Brenden Locklear was serving time for assault with a deadly weapon, but Cooper let him out early. In 2023, Locklear murdered 38-year-old Brooke Dyle, the mother of a 3-year-old son. (5:56) Today, he's back in prison, but Brooke Dyle is dead, and her son has no mother and will grow up that way.
DeCarlos Brown Jr., was on the list as part of the settlement. Despite a long criminal record, Brown was released back onto Charlotte streets. Last year, he was charged with the murder of Iryna Zartkuska.
Whatley closed saying, “as your United States Senator, I will work every day to protect our kids and our communities. I will fight to ensure that criminals are behind bars and our streets are safe. And I will always back the blue.”
President of the North Carolina Police Benevolent Association David Rose said, “I'm the president of the North Carolina PBA's 17,700 members. Finally, there are two of those members. One works in adult corrections, the other in probation and parole. But, you know, we are announcing this endorsement, but we don't give this endorsement away. This endorsement process through the PBA is probably the most thorough out there. Michael Wadley has met with us, discussed our issues, met with a committee of about 24 of our members, as did Roy Cooper. So I say all that to say that when we reach this decision, we are picking the person that we think most identifies with our issues and that we can trust that while we're out there keeping citizens safe, that's going to have our back and keep us safe. And for that, I say thank you. And like I said, we don't give this away. It's earned. And we're proud to give you that nomination today.”
Rose continued, “You know, I was around in 2020. We saw incredible vacancies, COVID, and the profession was being hit pretty hard by issues that weren't even here in North Carolina. What a time for then-Governor Cooper to step up. And instead, he created a commission that really turned its back on us. This organization asked for a seat on that commission. 17,700 members, and we couldn't even be in that conversation. So, you know, again, we don't take this lightly. This is serious stuff for us. And the 43 members of those people he released, we were ill. You know, when people went to bed at night, we were rearresting those people and taking them and watching them go back out. During that time, there were pilot programs. I don't want to go too long on this. We were encouraged to write citations as opposed to arrest people. Citations were a little less appropriate. The cashless bill was just being hammered through the system. And your cops out there on the street kept doing the job. They can tell you exactly who the 1-2 percent of people in the community are that are committing all the crimes. So I say all that to say this. We never got the sense that Governor Cooper, then Governor Cooper, wanted to hear our opinion on that.”
Rose concluded, “You've got our 100 percent support, and we look forward to working with you as a senator on issues of qualified immunity and due process.”
A reporter for the News and Observer misleading asked, “So recently a TV station published a video of you saying that you wanted Governor Cooper to release the criminals.” (Despite false claims from the Cooper campaign, in the video Whatley only said that Cooper didn’t take covid in prison seriously until a judge told him to, well before the secret settlement was announced.) Clearly, there is a difference between addressing COVID concerns in prison and simply releasing violent criminals back into the public who then went on to commit more crimes.”
Whatley responded, “That is absolutely not true. I did not say that we wanted him to release those prisoners at all. This is completely unprecedented. The NAACP and the ACLU sued many different governors across the country. Roy Cooper is the only one who released prisoners. So, no, that is absolutely not true. I have never said that prisoners needed to be released because of COVID or for any other reason.”
The reporter followed up, “Well, obviously the videos, you know, we’re seeing a small glimpse of it. So can you explain what you were trying to say in that video?”
Whatley answered, “Well, what I was saying was that conditions in prisons needed to be addressed. What we saw in many other states was they took steps to address it that involved COVID shots, they involved masks, they involved separation. Certainly did not call in any way for there to be a release of prisoners, let alone 4,200 of them, including the worst of the worst, with pedophiles and predators and rapists and murderers.”
The Blue Ridge Times asked, “What are some other examples of where you think Roy Cooper fell short? I think of something like the crime lab and his management there. The leader of the Police Benevolent Association said, “That goes back over a decade for us specifically because he's intangible. We have implored him. Do you know most of the police officers in North Carolina don't have whistleblower protection? The officers in North Carolina, if they call out corruption in their agency, they'd be fired. There's no protection for that. It boggles my mind that that doesn't cost a dollar, and we could not give Governor Cooper to move that conversation along. Cooper opposed a due process issue where an officer's career can be taken, ripped from them without any ability to defend their position. These are the things I talked about that were failures with then-Governor Cooper and AG Cooper. This has gone for 24 years. This isn't just an eight-year run where there was no confidence.”
A reporter for the North State Journal followed up, “A follow-on with the crime lab. When Cooper was running for governor for the first time after being A.G. for 15 years, North Carolina was number one in the nation for untested briefcase theft. We had a huge backlog. It was something like almost 16,000 untested kits that made it south there. He ran for governor saying that he cleared the backlogs in the crime lab, but clearly that didn't happen. Some of it was a funding issue, which the legislature stepped up with. The other half of it was trying to be put off on sheriffs and local police departments. Did you have any conversations about that back in the day, about that issue? Rose responded, “So not with Roy Cooper. He also tried to push it off on prosecutors, sheriffs, and police chiefs across the state. No, I have not personally had a conversation with him. I've been involved in some of the downstream conversations as a result of the fallout from that and the backlog.”
At the conclusion of the press conference, the Blue Ridge Times asked, “Can you talk a little bit when it comes to what's the difference it makes to have a senator that backs law enforcement in place versus one that doesn't (to the patrol officer on the street, to the correction officer? How does this impact people's everyday life?” Rose said, “So your average officer on the street, let's say that five-year veteran, their primary concern in their life is paying the rent or the mortgage and deciding whether the kids are going to be able to go to daycare or we're going to probably just use the thing, brakes on the car or braces on the kids, right? As you get older, you get an opportunity to be a little more engaged in this process.
Rose ended by saying, “And we all have this epiphany at some point where we're like, holy cow, I was out there just doing the right thing for the right reasons. I trusted the system protected me, right? That's kind of where your average police officer would be. They trust that this system is going to take care of them if they have to make a decision that may not be popular, right? So for us, us old veterans, I know that there's cops that their lives are going to be kept very safe because we have someone that actually cares about having a conversation about these issues.”
