Thank you for setting a record for Empty Stocking Fund

Thank you, readers, for coming through as never before at Christmas for thousands of needy children and elderly residents.

Contributions to The Charlotte Observer’s annual Empty Stocking Fund this year surged to a new record: $362,750. That’s an increase of about 20 percent, compared with last year.

Also, more of you donated, and in larger amounts, than last year.

For more than 90 years, the fund has helped the Salvation Army’s Christmas bureau provide gifts for those least fortunate. This year, families of nearly 12,000 children registered with the bureau after documenting their financial need. The bureau also assisted seniors registered in its Silver Bells program.

Over the past month, Observer reporter Mark Price has written about the wide range of circumstances that led people to stand in line overnight in the cold in hopes of being registered. Many had lost jobs or faced staggering medical bills. Often, families needed help for children they had rescued from neglect.

Price said he was gratified that readers decided these recipients deserved a helping hand.

“I admire our readers,” Price said. “They were willing to take the leap of faith.”

As of Friday, 2,534 individuals and groups had contributed to the fund, a 12 percent increase over last year. Donations ranged from $5 to $10,000 and averaged $143, versus $131 in 2013.

All who donated were invited to be listed in print and online. Many took the opportunity to recognize others who similarly had shown them compassion. “In memory of our mothers,” wrote one donor. “In honor of our teachers,” wrote another. “In honor of my great-grandchildren,” wrote another.

There was also this, attached to one donation. “To whom much is given, much is required.”

On behalf of everyone at The Charlotte Observer, we sincerely thank you for sharing so generously this holiday season. Your giving spirit lifts and inspires us all.

A list of donors

Reach Rick Thames at rthames@charlottobserver.com or 704-358-5001.

Access to CharlotteObserver.com free on Christmas Day

Did you get a new screen under the tree? Relaxing on the Web in the quiet of Christmas? Spend some time with us here at CharlotteObserver.com.

Access to Charlotte Observer digital content is free beginning at 7 p.m. on Christmas Eve, and all day Christmas Day. That includes phones, tablets and, of course, desktops. Explore all you’d like, using our apps for iPhone, iPad, Android and Windows 8. You can download them for free here.

Visitors will find some special treats, including: our year’s top 10 stories and videos, Charlotte’s year in pictures; best political cartoons by Pulitzer-Prize winner Kevin Siers, and 2014 highlights in sports.

I also recommend some gems that are rarely obvious on our home page. They include: the “Daily Edit,” a slideshow of that date’s most compelling photos; our popular guide to the region, called “Living Here;” a searchable guide to area restaurants; and an online comics page with more than twice the comics available in print.

And, with the big Carolina Panthers game set for Sunday, I encourage you to check out our special Panthers app. Charlotte Hornets fans, we have a special app for you, too.

This year, more than 30 million people visited CharlotteObserver.com, making it the most viewed local news site in our region. We were honored to host them all, and we welcome you, too. Come see us.

Access is free on Christmas Day

Getting a new screen for the holidays? Take the opportunity to tour CharlotteObserver.com during our Digital Open House on Christmas Day.

Access to all of The Charlotte Observer’s digital content is free beginning at 7 p.m. Christmas Eve. That includes all Observer editions on phones, tablets and desktops.

We’ve assembled some treats especially for Christmas Day:

The 10 most watched videos on CharlotteObserver.com.

The 10 most read stories on CharlotteObserver.com.

The year in pictures for the Charlotte region.

Most memorable Carolinas sports stories of the year.

Best work in 2014 by our Pulitzer-Prize-winning political cartoonist Kevin Siers.

A list of more than a dozen of our staff’s favorite apps.

A collection of fun online quizzes.

This year, more than 30 million people visited CharlotteObserver.com, making it the most viewed local news site in the Carolinas. We were pleased to host them all, and we’d love to have you, too. Come see us.

Untrained medical examiners fail families, imperil justice

Anyone who has enrolled in school or applied for a passport knows the value of a birth certificate.

This is a special series of stories tied to the piece of paper at the other end of life -- your death certificate.

No, you won’t need the certificate, but trust me, it will be very important to the people you leave behind.

That’s because death certificates do more than just certify your death. They also explain what took your life.

The stated cause of death affects the ability of loved ones to collect on insurance, hold others liable for your death if warranted, and ultimately come to some peace of mind about what killed you.

And that’s just about you. Compiled and studied as vital statistics, death certificates reveal public health threats ranging from disease to environmental hazards.

But none of this works unless the facts are right. And as you will learn from this five-part series, titled "Fatally Flawed," that’s a big problem in North Carolina.

Our team of reporters documented many troubles. But the bottom line is this: Our state stands out nationally for trying to investigate unexplained deaths on the cheap.

Each year about 75,000 North Carolinians die. A medical examiner is called in to investigate about 10,000 of those deaths because the circumstances are suspicious, violent, accidental or unattended.

That’s where the trouble begins. The state requires no training for its medical examiners. And it pays them a paltry $100 per case. As a result, many deaths get little attention.

The effects on surviving loved ones can be devastating. We found case after case of grieving relatives forced to launch their own inquiries into how a family member died. Forget all you’ve seen on CSI. These circumstances were DIY (do it yourself).

The disgrace to our state doesn’t stop there. We found an eastern N.C. county conducting an earnest campaign to fight heart disease. Its inspiration: state statistics suggesting that residents were up to 10 times more at risk of dying of a heart ailment. Experts say it’s more likely that the county’s medical examiners simply chose heart disease as a catch-all explanation in processing death certificates.

While all of this may surprise you, there are people in Raleigh who have been in the know for a long time.

Our Legislature was first warned about problems with the medical examiner system 13 years ago, through another Observer series called “Grave Secrets.” Those stories triggered a 2001 commission that recommended improvements. A handful of suggestions were adopted, but many others were ignored.

Now, a new team of Observer journalists has burrowed into the system. They examined more than 130,000 deaths investigated by medical examiners since 2001. Their work is the most comprehensive analysis of state death rulings ever conducted.

And while matters have only grown worse, it doesn’t have to be this way. We’ll show you how another state helps families get to the truth about causes of death, bringing them the closure they desperately need.

I hope you’ll read the entire series and support something better for North Carolina. Both you and your descendants deserve it.

An autopsy suite in Raleigh at the Medical Examiner's labs.

Just out: Our new Observer edition for the iPad

If you have an iPad (or hope to get one under the tree) we invite you to try our newly released Observer app for iPad.

This tablet edition is tailored specifically to take advantage of the iPad’s features. And it’s a leap ahead of our former iPad edition. Among the features I think you’ll like:

-- Easier navigation and a friendlier format.

-- More photos and videos.

-- The ability to leave a comment by a story.

-- More topics added, including a weather page and obituaries.

Also, with one click of an icon (in the uppermost right-hand corner of the screen), you can move from the iPad edition to the E-edition. That’s the very popular replica of the printed Charlotte Observer in a digital format.

What did he say? Yes, the E-edition is a digital replica of the actual printed newspaper.

Readers who like printed newspapers love this version.

If you subscribe to the Observer, you already have unlimited access to both of these formats, as well as our smartphone apps (iPhone and Android). If you don’t subscribe, but would like to take a test drive, try a one-month trial subscription for digital access to all of these products for only 99 cents.

We've also made it easy for you to download our apps for iPad, iPhone, Android and Windows 8. Users of all other web-enabled phones will find similar improvements at our mobile website. Simply aim your browser at www.charlotteobserver.com.

We know you spend more time now reading screens of all kinds. Our goal is to always be where you need us to be when you turn to The Charlotte Observer.

When death checks in, who's paying attention?

Last June, North Carolina’s top public health official talked tough about authorities’ failure to protect three guests killed by carbon monoxide poisoning at a Boone hotel.

“These deaths were a tragedy that should have never happened,” said Aldona Wos, chief of the Department of Health and Human Services. ”I have instructed my staff to work with local officials to identify measures to ensure tragedies like this never happen again.”

That was six months ago. Incredibly, Wos has said nothing about the deaths since and has repeatedly refused Observer requests for interviews.

And in a strange twist, her office in August issued a brief statement saying, in part: “Based on our review of the facts, we do not believe that any state employee erred in performing their responsibilities.”

I urge you to read our in-depth report today on the deaths of these three guests. Then decide for yourself. Is the state’s standard for meeting its responsibilities high enough for you and your family?

Shirley Mae Jenkins, 72, and her husband, Daryl Jenkins, 73, died mysteriously in Room 225 at the Best Western Plus Blue Ridge Plaza. There was no evidence of foul play.

But the medical examiner assigned to investigate did not visit the death scene. The state didn’t require it.

When the medical examiner submitted samples to a state lab for toxicology tests, he left blank a portion of the form that asks about circumstances surrounding the deaths.

Details like, this person died in a hotel room. Oh, and another person died in the same room at the same time.

Again, the state didn’t require him to mention those details.

Those samples then sat in a lab in Raleigh for 40 days for a test for carbon monoxide poisoning that takes 15 minutes.

And once the samples did test positive for carbon monoxide, no one took the necessary steps to save 11-year-old Jeffrey Williams.

Urgency was not part of the state’s protocol.

Jeffrey checked into Room 225 with his mother, Jeannie Williams, seven days after the state identified carbon monoxide as the Jenkinses’ killer. Jeffrey died and Jeannie was severely injured.

Why didn’t officials act more responsibly? And why should you believe they will next time?

You should also know this. The state Medical Examiner’s Office, which reports to Wos, obstructed The Observer for months in its efforts to get public records that were important for this story.

Those record requests went unfilled despite certified letters sent to both Wos and the state’s chief medical examiner, Deborah Radisch. Only through an attorney and a threat of a lawsuit were we able to secure the documents.

This is hardly behavior befitting people who claim to be public servants, looking after the public’s safety.

In today’s stories, an expert says it is a mistake for a medical examiner not to go to the scene of a mysterious death. Another expert says that when two people die in the same enclosed space, you should immediately suspect an environmental cause. Still another says he never spends a night in a hotel without taking along a carbon monoxide detector.

Sadly, all of this advice comes from authorities outside of our state. Inside, where this tragedy took three precious lives, we’ve heard little about how they are improving a system that is supposed to prevent public health hazards.

Our staff continues to investigate the important work of medical examiners in North Carolina. We invite your help. If you have a question or concern about a specific death investigation, please let us hear from you.

As a help, we’ve posted on CharlotteObserver.com a death investigation database that is public record. It is searchable by name and will indicate whether the medical examiner viewed the body in a specific case.

No one can bring back those who were lost, but we dare not ignore the lessons left behind for the living.

Traveling? Take The Observer with you

As you travel this Thanksgiving, it will be easier than ever to take your Charlotte Observer with you.

All subscribers have access to our popular E-edition. This is a digital replica of the printed newspaper for computer and iPad (download the iPad app at iTunes).

This edition has all the features of the printed paper and then some. For example, the content is searchable and the stories are easily saved and emailed. You can also pull up seven days of back issues.

Here is another convenience especially nice for travel. You can download the issues you want for reading later, when you won't have Internet access -- in the car, on a plane or at a remote vacation destination.

Thousands of subscribers now read the printed Observer this way. If you don't subscribe, we have a one-month trial subscription for digital access only for 99 cents.

Also, if you are traveling, it's easy to go online and put a temporary hold on delivery of your paper copies. You can arrange the dates to both stop and restart your paper.

Read The Observer by phone? You'll want to get our app updates for Android and iPhone.

These updates introduce a whole new look that includes more photo galleries, article commenting and video that comes embedded conveniently within stories.

To download our app for iPhone, go to the Apple App Store. For Android, go to Google Play. Users of all other web-enabled phones will find similar improvements at our mobile website. Simply aim your phone's browser at www.charlotteobserver.com.

Safe travels, everyone.

Check out our updated phone apps

If you are among the thousands who now read The Charlotte Observer by phone, you'll want to get our app updates for Android and iPhone.

These updates introduce a whole new look that includes more photo galleries, article commenting and video that comes embedded conveniently within stories.

Navigation is also simpler. Sub-sections logically lead you to topics you most care about. And, of course, you can swipe your way from story to story.

The most popular content also remains: local news, sports, weather, entertainment, movie times, news alerts and the ability to share favorite stories with your friends.

To download our app for iPhone, go to the Apple App Store. For Android, go to Google Play. Users of all other web-enabled phones will find similar improvements at our mobile website. Simply aim your phone's browser at www.charlotteobserver.com.

The phone is an easy way to keep up with the latest developments, wherever you may be. It's no wonder why mobile (phones and tablets) is now our fastest growing audience segment, representing a third of all visits to CharlotteObserver.com

We will soon launch a redesign of our tablet edition for iPad, with more video, photos and graphics. More on that in the next month or so.

As always, we welcome your feedback. Our goal is to be where you need us to be, in the format that works best for you.

Observer headlines for your website

If you manage a web site or blog, you know all about widgets.

A widget is a feature that you can download for use on your own web pages. There are thousands of them.

Now The Charlotte Observer has added one more that could be of special interest to your audience: Breaking news headlines from CharlotteObserver.com.

It’s a window, essentially, to the top local news of the day. The headlines change constantly to reflect the latest developments. And if your web site or blog is focused on the Charlotte region, it could be especially appealing to your visitors.

The headlines are also links. A user who wants to read more about a particular story can click on it. Naturally, we hope people will do that at times. But we’ve also made it easy for those users to return to your site with the click of their “back” button.

We’re launching this feature with a choice of headline topics: Local News, Sports, Business, Opinion, Entertainment, Young Achievers and SciTech. Pick as many widgets as you would like to try.

Also, know that this is an idea still in development. We welcome your feedback to help us improve on it, including topics you’d like to see added.

In Saturday edition: Panthers special section

Practice and preseason are over. Now it's for real. And your Saturday Charlotte Observer makes it more so with a 16-page special section kicking off the regular season of the Carolina Panthers.

What's so special about it?

-- A cover story by Joseph Person on quarterback Cam Newton and middle linebacker Luke Kuechly, the cornerstones of the franchise and one of the best young tandems in the NFL.

-- The complete roster and depth chart, plus an analysis of the Panthers, position-by-position.

-- Game-by-game analysis of the Panthers schedule, by the Observer's Jonathan Jones.

Then, coming Sunday:

-- It's game day, Panthers versus the Seattle Seahawks. You'll find a four-page wrap around your sports section with all the details.

-- Also, in an exclusive interview, Cam Newton talks with Jonathan Jones about how he spent the off-season analyzing himself as a leader. And, how Newton learned from former Panthers quarterback Jake Delhomme.

Can't wait? Check out this video of Observer columnsts Scott Fowler and Tom Sorensen giving their predictions.

Watch for more video, beginning Sunday, as Charlotteobserver.com features game highlights for the Panthers and other NFL teams.

Why the arrest of a reporter should matter to all

It's a simple principle, basic to keeping government power in check.

If authorities take you into custody, other citizens cannot interfere or impede, but they have the right to witness the arrest.

Sometimes, those witnesses are journalists. They watch on behalf of the public and independently report the circumstances.

Last year, Tim Funk was among Charlotte Observer journalists who trained on how to report on days of protests without obstructing police during Charlotte’s Democratic National Convention, where the president’s security was at stake. Not one of our journalists was detained or arrested.

In June, the Observer sent Funk to Raleigh to cover a single peaceful protest at the General Assembly. Police there handcuffed him as a “trespasser.”

It was obvious that Funk was merely doing his job as a reporter. He had Observer identification around his neck and a pad and pen in his hands.

Wake County District Attorney Colon Willoughby agreed. Last week, Willoughby dismissed charges accusing Funk of second-degree trespass and failure to disperse. Those charges were filed by the N.C. General Assembly Police.

“I saw a video of the incident and it appeared to me that he was there as a reporter, and not part of the protest. He was doing his job,” Willoughby said in an interview Friday. “If they (the General Assembly Police) had called me and showed me the video, I’d have told them what I thought.”

They didn’t. And that should disturb both you and the General Assembly.

In what ought to be the most public building in North Carolina, police did not respect the public’s right to witness officers arresting citizens.

Funk, 58, covers faith and values for the Observer. He traveled to Raleigh on June 10 to report on Charlotte-area clergy who were taking part in the “Moral Monday” protests. At least some participants from Charlotte expected to be arrested as they took their protest inside the marble-faced building where the state House and Senate meet.

Building rules prohibit disruptions or disorderly conduct. During the legislative session, nearly 1,000 protesters chose to sing, clap and pray inside the building and be arrested in an act of civil disobedience.

These arrests became a Monday routine. So routine, in fact, that the protesters who wanted to be arrested were advised to wear green armbands so they could be distinguished from crowds of onlookers and supporters.

Funk was working through those crowds, trying to locate people from our region, when he heard someone on a bull horn. It was General Assembly Police Chief Jeff Weaver, warning protesters to disperse or face arrest.

“It was very loud in the hall, so I couldn’t hear all of what he was saying,” Funk wrote later in an account of the day. “But I made out – and wrote in my notebook – that the arrestees-to-be had 5 minutes to leave. I kept trying to talk to the (protesters) as they sang and prayed.”

Weaver then gave a two-minute warning. But it never occurred to Funk, who was wearing his Observer press badge and taking notes, that the warning applied to him.

“There was a lot of drama,” he said. “And, as a reporter, I thought my job was to capture it for Observer readers.”

A video shot by a documentary film crew captured that moment for all to see. It shows Weaver and accompanying officers closing in, not on the protesters, but on Funk.

“Chief Weaver came straight for me. … I was shocked that he intended to arrest me and was sure it was a mistake. … I remember that I kept saying, ‘I’m a reporter, I’m a reporter.’ But the chief kept coming at me, kept saying, “You’re under arrest; put your hands behind your back.”

Officers zip-tied Funk’s hands and led him to a detention center. They emptied his pockets. Took his notebooks, his briefcase, his computer. Stripped him of all identification, including his wallet and his driver’s license.

“I told every uniformed person I saw that I was a reporter, there to cover the protest, not participate in it,” Funk said. “I also asked several times whether I could call the Observer. They said no. I asked if they could call the Observer. No. At one point, my cellphone rang. I asked if they could answer it or put it to my ear. No.”

Funk was then locked in a detention cell for two hours before being taken before a magistrate and released.

Weaver was out of the office and unavailable Friday. But in telephone conversation with Observer Managing Editor Cheryl Carpenter on the night of Funk’s arrest, he said the reporter had ignored his order to disperse. He dismissed Carpenter’s explanation that Funk was a working journalist, lawfully reporting a story.

Raleigh attorney Wade Smith, hired by the Observer to represent Funk, said Friday that the reporter was clearly within his rights when he was arrested.

“He was doing his job just as fully as legislators were doing their job,” Smith said. “It seemed to me that they cast a net and caught someone they shouldn’t have. It may be that they just weren’t thinking about it.”

I’m sure that months of demonstrations, not to mention contentious political battles, have tested this police force in unprecedented ways. That may help explain how Tim Funk was treated. But it does not excuse it.

Chief Weaver and the General Assembly Police should own up to their mistake and apologize. They should also sit down with journalists who cover the legislature and discuss how both police and reporters can fulfill their responsibilities.

The Charlotte Observer and the North Carolina Press Association, representing more than 200 newspapers statewide, stand ready to meet.

“I would hope that in the future that (General Assembly Police) will recognize that a journalist has a very important role to play,” Smith said, “and that they will let journalists do their job.”


Reach Rick Thames at rthames@charlotteobserver.com, twitter.com/rthames and www.facebook.com/rthames.obs. Phone: 704-358-5001.

We are changing how readers comment on our site

You wouldn't go to a public forum wearing a mask and expect to be invited to speak.

And yet websites commonly allow users to speak their minds anonymously in virtual forums, as if that should be the new standard for the Internet.

No doubt it will continue to be the standard for many sites. But our own experience tells us that anonymity rarely produces the kind of dialogue our users want.

In fact, the mud-wrestling that often unfolds in anonymous comments that follow our stories on CharlotteObserver.com is a big turn-off for many people. And despite our best efforts to maintain a civil atmosphere, a small but determined number of users continue to post comments laced with hate, vicious attacks and vulgarities. We delete as many as 300 comments a day that violate our guidelines.

So we are recalling the masks. Beginning at noon Wednesday, our stories will only feature the comments of people who are willing to be recognized.

Specifically, commenters will log in using a Facebook account. Most people on Facebook use their real names. Even those who don’t are generally recognizable to their Facebook “friends” and, therefore, more accountable for what they say.

You won’t need a Facebook account to read the comments, only to post one. Many readers already have an account. For those who don’t, we’ll show you how to get one.

We’ve prepared a Q&A for that and other questions that we anticipate you will have with this change. You can also message me with questions on Facebook, in email, on Twitter or by phone (details below).

We know that a few users will yet find a way to post anonymously through Facebook. We will continue to monitor comments for violators of our guidelines, explained at the beginning of each comment section, and ban them from our site.

We also have an option for anonymous users who often assist us through the comments with news tips or additional context about a story. Look for a link at the top of each comment section that allows a user to send the newsroom a message that will remain out of public view.

With these changes, we expect fewer comments on our stories. This has been the experience of other newspaper websites that already switched to Facebook registration, including The Los Angeles Times, Miami Herald and USAToday.

But their experience also suggests this will result in more relevant and substantial comments. We hope it will also encourage the return of many reasonable commenters who previously left, rather than be bullied or intimidated. We want to provide our users a safe place for community conversations and respectful debate.

We also still welcome the tasteful comedians out there. Just remember that if the joke falls flat, someone will know where to aim the tomatoes.

Reach Rick Thames at rthames@charlotteobserver.com, twitter.com/rthames and www.facebook.com/rthames.obs. Phone: 704-358-5001.

Gun permits: We should handle with care, but keep them public records

Set aside for a moment the handful of journalists who have published wholesale lists of people with gun permits and the handful of gun enthusiasts who have threatened to kill them.

I’d like to talk to the rest of you, regardless of how you feel about guns.

First, let’s acknowledge what brought us here. Our nation continues to react to a horrific event. A deranged gunman walked into an elementary school in Newtown, Conn., just before Christmas and killed 26 people, including 20 children.

That massacre set off unprecedented demands for new forms of gun control, followed by record sales of guns. Journalists everywhere set out to cover these developments and, in the process, some turned their attention to gun permits.

Gun permits have been public records in North Carolina for decades. They are among hundreds of types of public records that the Charlotte Observer uses to research specific stories.

We were doing research earlier this year when we requested and received two databases from local and state authorities. In response to our public records requests, the Mecklenburg County Sheriff’s Department provided a digitized list of all handgun permits it has issued. The State Bureau of Investigation provided a similarly fashioned list of permits issued statewide for carrying a concealed firearm.

We requested these databases to help us explain trends tied to the recent surge in gun sales. We have never considered publishing the complete lists because we’ve found no compelling journalistic reason to do so.

That may disappoint some who think it should be enough that the permits are public record. But the Observer, like the vast majority of newspapers, makes choices like this every day. We constantly balance the public’s right to know against the potential harm that could result from disclosure.

We draw hard lines when safety and well being are in question. For instance, the names of rape victims are public record, but we withhold them. We withhold names of children accused of juvenile crimes. We use public records to provide you reports of crime in your neighborhood, but we withhold home addresses.

Does widespread knowledge of the identities and addresses of gun owners encourage break-ins, as some suggest? It’s a debatable question. A veteran burglary detective with the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police told me Friday that he has never seen anyone break into a home solely to steal weapons.

But many people with permits obviously are worried about their security. I’ve also read of serious concerns for permit holders who are battered spouses. Consider people who victims of stalkers. The point is, people have many reasons to arm themselves legally, and in some cases widely publicizing identities and addresses potentially could lead to harm.

But there is also real danger in closing these records to the public, as is now proposed in the state legislature.

Your sheriff has the sensitive task of determining who deserves a permit and who doesn’t. To close the records is to eliminate all oversight for that process. No agency checks behind the sheriff to see that permits are issued fairly or responsibly. The Cherokee Scout newspaper said it sought permit records because of a tip questioning the fairness applied to permitting in Cherokee County. The sheriff refused to release the information. (Read more about this on Page 1A today.)

In 2011, The New York Times obtained the same database we recently received from the SBI. It checked those names against five years of crime data and found that more than 2,300 people issued concealed weapons permits in North Carolina had been convicted of felonies or misdemeanors (excluding traffic-related crimes). More than 200 of those crimes were gun-related, and at least 10 involved murder or manslaughter.

“In about half of the felony convictions, the authorities failed to revoke or suspend the holder’s permit, including for cases of murder, rape and kidnapping,” wrote New York Times reporter Michael Luo.

This included a man jailed for terrorizing his estranged wife and daughter with a pair of guns, and then shooting at their house while they and a sheriff’s deputy were inside.

“That’s crazy, absolutely crazy,” the man’s wife said when told her husband was most likely still qualified to buy a gun at any store in the state.

His permit was revoked after the newspaper notified the Sheriff’s Office of his actions.

We are a nation of self-governing people. But we can only govern as far as we can see. The permitting of firearms is too important a process to all citizens to now be placed in a blind trust.

Reach Rick Thames at rthames@charlotteobserver.com, twitter.com/rthames and www.facebook.com/rthames.obs. Phone: 704-358-5001.

Jimmie Lee Kirkpatrick, Charlotte athlete and legend, takes his rightful place in civil rights history

It’s rare to think of history as front page news. But that is exactly where history belongs when, in its own right, it is an untold story.

Today, you can expect to read many things about Charlotte’s history that are news to you as we begin a special three-part series called “Breaking Through."
 

I’ll start with the obvious. Nearly 50 years later, the identity of an African-American who became one of the greatest high school football player's in the history of Charlotte remains unknown to even some of the city’s most ardent sports fans.

He made a courageous decision to break through racial barriers, hoping that college scouts would notice him at a predominantly white high school. We have never connected that choice to one of the most racially violent chapters in our city’s history.

Today, you can read that story. Today, Jimmie Lee Kirkpatrick takes his rightful place in history.

Observer Senior Sports Editor Gary Schwab stumbled onto a reference to Kirkpatrick in November. Schwab was searching online for information about Charlotte’s annual Shrine Bowl, which features the high school all-star teams of North and South Carolina.

“I didn’t know who Kirkpatrick was, even though I have worked at the Observer for almost 30 years, mostly as sports editor,” Schwab said. “No one I asked knew, either.”

Observer researcher Maria David found a phone number for Kirkpatrick in Portland, Ore. Schwab and reporter David Scott made the call.

“I’m humbled that you want to tell my story,” Kirkpatrick said on the other end of the line.

It turns out that Kirkpatrick had been telling it for years in Oregon during Black History Month. But he had never had the opportunity to tell it in Charlotte, where his brush with history unfolded.

In 1964 and 1965, when Kirkpatrick was in high school, the Observer did notice him, but only in breathless bouts of breaking news. Kirkpatrick, the unstoppable running back for all-black Second Ward High School. Kirkpatrick, the black athlete who created a buzz by transferring to mostly white Myers Park High. Kirkpatrick, the first black player to make the Observer’s all-star high school football team.

Even the appearance of those stories was unusual. And though there were episodic reports of Kirkpatrick in a civil rights battle, it is only this week's stories that acknowledge the price he paid on his journey.

“Mainstream newspapers rarely covered black athletes in the 1960s, or earlier during segregated times,” Schwab said. “There are dozens of great athletes whose stories went untold or are long forgotten, dozens more whose potential was never realized because of lack of opportunity.”

The Observer has doubled back to report some of those stories in recent years, writing about people like Paul Grier who went to West Charlotte High School in the mid-1950s and is considered by some to be the city’s best-ever high school basketball player.

When we first interviewed Grier, he paused before answering a question. Tears ran down his face.

“Stan Olson, the reporter, asked if he was OK,” Schwab recalled. “’Yes,’ Grier said. ‘It's just that no reporter has ever talked with me before.’”

David Scott wrote about Willie Cooper. While Charlie Scott is remembered as the North Carolina Tar Heels' first black basketball player, Cooper played briefly as a freshman two years earlier, in 1964. In response, the Ku Klux Klan burned a cross in the front yard of his family’s home in Elm City, about 80 miles east of Chapel Hill.

“I have always been struck by the fact that there is a history here that has gone untold for decades,” Schwab said.

Many people helped us reassemble the history surrounding Kirkpatrick. His former Myers Park quarterback, Neb Hayden, still has the school's film from most of the games of the 1965 season, on 16mm reel-to-reel tape. Hayden let us convert to a digital format some of that film, plus other footage previously transferred to VHS tapes.

As a result, you can see for yourself at CharlotteObserver.com/MyersPark why fans found it necessary to rise to their feet nearly every time Kirkpatrick had the football.

We also interviewed former teammates and opposing players. Some now meet as alumni of two of Charlotte’s former all-black high schools, Second Ward and West Charlotte. Once bitter rivals, they work together to support the community and call themselves the Thursday Morning Breakfast Club.

Kirkpatrick spent hours with Schwab and Scott, recounting his childhood in Charlotte’s Grier Heights community and his fateful decision to leave Second Ward High for Myers Park High. He then traveled to Charlotte to reunite with teammates from both teams, black and white.

Most had not seen him since their days as teenagers.

“This became a chance to talk to his old teammates,” Schwab said, “to see if what happened mattered to them as much as it mattered to him.”

And now it becomes history that matters to all of us.

Reach Rick Thames at rthames@charlotteobserver.com, twitter.com/rthames and www.facebook.com/rthames.obs. Phone: 704-358-5001.

Come hear your Congress member assess the 'Cliff'

The election is over. The Thanksgiving table’s been cleared. But, believe me, this is no time to nap.

Your government has worked itself into a national crisis. Call it a fiscal cliff. Call it a wall of fire. Or simply call it a train wreck.

Just know that it is coming on Jan. 1 if the president and Congress do not find some way to defuse a time-bomb that would again derail the economy.

“A recession would begin in the first half of 2013, reducing economic growth by about 0.5%,” predicts Forbes magazine. “Unemployment would increase. The jobless rate would rise to 9.1% by Dec. 2013.”

If that’s so, why are we here? The short answer is government gridlock. And it doesn’t end with this crisis. Congress is gridlocked on the next moves for Medicare. Immigration. Social Security. Even passage of a farm bill.

On Sunday, Observer reporter Tim Funk explained the root causes of this paralysis and, just as important, what can be done about it.

Now, you are invited to a public forum on Friday, Nov. 30, at UNC Charlotte. Come hear current and former members of Congress suggest ways the nation can move forward

despite its political differences.

For this special report, Tim talked to people who should know: retired Senate Majority leader Bob Dole and his wife, former Sen. Elizabeth Dole; Erskine Bowles, chief of staff under President Bill Clinton and co-chair of the Bowles-Simpson Commission on shrinking the federal deficit; members of Congress who now represent our region; congressional scholars; and journalists who cover Capitol Hill.

Nearly all agree that Congress is in a ditch.

“It’s the most dysfunctional in our lifetime,” says Norm Ornstein, author of “Congress Inside Out,” a column for the Capitol Hill newspaper Roll Call. “Maybe not quite as bad as during the Civil War, the War of 1812 or the 1890s. But these are not great periods to compare yourself to.”

These interviews also unearthed potential solutions to the problem. Some can help right away. Others will take time.

All of them ultimately will require the support of the American people. If you want to be part of that, I urge you to join us for the forum at 7 p.m. on Friday in the auditorium of UNCC’s uptown campus building at 320 E. 9th St.

Expected participants include at least three current members of Congress from our region: Rep. Patrick McHenry, Rep. Mel Watt, and Rep. Mick Mulvaney. They will be joined by two former members, Jim Martin and John Spratt, as well as Kimrey Rhinehart, a former top aide to Sen. Richard Burr.

The Observer is presenting the forum in partnership with PNC Bank, the event’s underwriter. The evening’s moderator will be WCNC-TV’s Sonja Gantt. UNC Charlotte is the forum’s host and venue sponsor.

Admission is free, but seating is limited. Here is the link to register in advance.

Moving America forward will not be easy. But it won’t be possible at all unless its people make clear that this is their No. 1 priority.

Free to you: Wednesday's late, late election edition

Because the presidential election went very late, some of you missed the most up to date version of today's newspaper. This was particularly disappointing for many, since a printed newspaper can be a prized keepsake on historic days.

So here are two ways we want to help.

In the A-section of all of Thursday's print editions, we will reprint the final front page as it appeared in today's paper.

And through Thursday, we are offering free access to that final edition in an electronic form. It's our E-edition and it is a replica of the printed paper.

Here is the front page that rolled off our presses between 2:30 a.m. and 3 a.m. today. About a third of our readers got this version.

Here is how to read and save this edition in electronic form today at no charge.

If you are using a PC, link here.

If you are using a tablet other than an iPad, link here:

If you are an iPad user, simply download the app for our E-edition in the Apple store at no charge and it will give you free access today.

To print a copy of your E-edition, go to the upper-right-hand corner of the page of the electronic paper and click on the icon depicting a printer.

To create a copy of the E-edition that you can store on your computer, again go to the upper-right-hand corner and look for the "application link" icon just to the right of the printer icon. Pull down the menu for that icon and click on "Download newspaper PDF."

Once you have your PDF on your computer, it's yours to keep in whatever form you'd like.

Presidential elections are an important part of our history. Even amid the toughest of deadlines, we want your printed Observer to capture that for you.

This week, we bring you the election and more

You could easily guess one reason Wednesday’s Charlotte Observer will be special. We’ll have expansive coverage of local, state and national elections.

Here’s another: Wednesday marks the debut of ShopTalk, a new Observer feature focusing on the world of small business. More on that in a moment.

First, here’s some of what we have for you in the run-up to Election Day.

Did you vote early? You are among millions in the state who are reshaping the dynamics of elections. See today’s 1A story analyzing early-voting trends and their potential impact across the state.

Today’s Big Picture section offers context. With polls suggesting a virtual tie in the presidential race, we explain how the Electoral College could come into play. Also don’t miss a breakout of key congressional races to watch and seven burning questions that the election will answer.

If you have yet to vote, go to CharlotteObserver.com, where you can make your own sample ballot by simply typing in your address. You will also find background on the candidates and other helpful voter information.

Need encouragement just to vote? On Monday, we complete our profiles of people who are so enthusiastic that they are working to turn out people like you. Read what inspires them.

On Tuesday, Election Day, we’ll offer last-minute tips for voters still going to the polls. On CharlotteObserver.com, you’ll find frequent updates on turnout and other developments as they unfold.

Tuesday night, you can check the returns for yourself, minute-by-minute, as they accumulate on CharlotteObserver.com. Dozens of Observer journalists will also report live on races from commissioner to president. They include the reporting team of Jim Morrill and Tim Funk, veteran political observers who began following these contests more than a year ago.

On Wednesday, all of our reporting, photos and graphics will fill 15 extra pages in a special election edition of our printed paper.

A unique feature of the Wednesday paper will be our expanded use of full-color graphics. We’ve planned 10 in all. At a glance, we hope to show you how every N.C. county voted for governor and president. In Mecklenburg, we will break down results for your precinct. Other graphics will detail congressional races and voter turnout.

Now, a preview of ShopTalk, our new Wednesday feature that will be devoted to advice and insights for small business.

Whether you run a small business, or are merely thinking about starting one, we think you will find this to be very useful reading.

Every week, we’ll ask small-business owners who are succeeding to share their experiences, as well as their secrets. This Wednesday, for example, learn how Olive Stewart convinced Whole Foods to stock its shelves with her homemade marinades and seasonings.

Other features include an Ask the Experts column, a calendar of networking opportunities and columnists with advice on everything from time management to having a spouse as business partner.

Nearly one of every five jobs in North Carolina is tied to small business. We are pleased to expand our own coverage of this sector through our underwriting program.

The underwriter, Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina, pays for the cost of these pages. The Observer’s newsroom independently produces the content and maintains sole editorial responsibility.

Our editor for ShopTalk is Celeste Smith, a member of our business news team who has 18 years of experience at the Observer. The section’s reporter is Caroline McMillan, a Charlotte native who covers the region’s small-business scene.

Smith and McMillan have already been in touch with many in our business community. They look forward to hearing from you.

Reach Rick Thames at rthames@charlotteobserver.com or 704-358-5001.

My talk with MacDonald during his 1979 trial

I can see how someone coming across the murder trial of former Dr. Jeffrey MacDonald 33 years later would think he was wrongly convicted.

As a reporter who covered the trial, I watched the case build for and against MacDonald, day by day, for seven weeks inside a Raleigh courtroom.

I was a 24-year-old reporter for the Fayetteville Observer, barely a year into my first job as a journalist. My beat was the military, and MacDonald, 35, had been a doctor in the Army’s Special Forces.

Fort Bragg was where I reported most of my stories. It was there, nine years earlier, that MacDonald’s family had been savagely wiped out in one night.

Now, MacDonald stood accused of committing that savagery against his own pregnant wife and two small girls.

As the jury went into deliberations, the press corps quietly took its own poll. A majority said MacDonald would be found guilty.

I voted with the minority.

It wasn’t that I was convinced that MacDonald was innocent. I simply doubted that a jury of 12 people could see what I had seen and unanimously agree he was guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.

Yet they did. They looked right past nagging details that supported MacDonald’s case and decided that what really mattered was this: He was lying.

A 33-year-old tape of the interview.

On Monday, the case gets another airing in a court in Wilmington. MacDonald’s lawyers say they have fresh evidence and testimony that gives more credence to MacDonald’s version of what happened.

That version goes like this. MacDonald and his family were attacked by two white men, a black man wearing a fatigue jacket and a blonde-haired white woman wearing a floppy hat and carrying what appeared to be a candle. The woman, he said, chanted: “Acid is groovy, kill the pigs.”

Journalists tend to hang on to their work when they report memorable stories. For me, the MacDonald trial was that kind of story. When I heard last week about the new hearing, I dragged a plastic tub from a closet and soon was leafing through dozens of articles I filed over that seven-week period.

Reading those yellowed pages, I was reminded how the jury could think the unthinkable.

I also found a cassette tape. On it was my one-on-one interview with MacDonald, conducted while the trial was under way.

I didn’t know this in 1979, but it was remarkable we were talking at all. The government had begun presenting its case. MacDonald decided he could talk because the judge’s gag order covered witnesses, but not the prosecution or defense.

So there we were, sitting in a pizza restaurant during a lunch recess. The rookie reporter asking questions of a defendant who had been honing his story for nearly a decade.

In playing the tape now, I’m reminded of how indignant MacDonald was over the idea of a trial.

Nine years earlier, the Army had investigated MacDonald for the murders and declined to prosecute.

The latest set of prosecutors, he assured me, would present nothing new from that time.

“There is no case,” MacDonald said. “They know there is no case. What they are trying to do is, they are trying to mound up a pile of stuff and make it look like a good investigation was done, and then in a closing argument, unbuttressed with any facts at all, they’re going to misinterpret the witnesses’ words. You watch.”

He heaped special scorn on two people he held principally responsible: His stepfather-in-law, Alfred Kassab, whose complaint with the Justice Department was the basis for re-opening the case; and Assistant U.S. Attorney Brian Murtagh, who helped prepare the case for trial.

I asked again. Are you sure there’s nothing new?

And then he brought it up. The blue pajama top.

MacDonald had worn it the night of the murders. He said a government expert had come up with a model of that shirt, which would be shown during the trial.

“(It’s) something he devised in 1974 that he felt added to the case,” MacDonald said.

He didn’t seem particularly worked up about this model. And showing my inexperience, I didn’t ask him to explain further.

But a few weeks later, its significance showed when the former FBI expert, Paul Stombaugh, took the stand.

Stombaugh said the shirt had 48 ice pick holes in it, more than four times the number of wounds found on MacDonald. None of the holes matched his wounds. But it was possible to fold the shirt in such a way that the holes equaled the 21 ice pick thrusts into the chest of MacDonald’s wife, Colette.

The shirt was found on her chest. MacDonald said he only put it there after regaining consciousness and finding her severely wounded.

But prosecutors asserted that he stabbed his wife with the ice pick through the pajama top to simulate an attack on him.

As the jury deliberated, among the evidence it requested to see again was that blue pajama top, as well as the top Stombaugh used as a model.

Later, jurors said it was part of a patchwork of physical evidence that convinced them MacDonald had made up his story.

Never mind that the initial Army investigation mishandled critical evidence.

Never mind that a neighbor saw three people, one with a candle, walking toward the MacDonald home the night of the murders.

Never mind that the defense worked to implicate a drug addict who owned a floppy hat and blonde wig, and bore an uncanny resemblance to one of MacDonald’s alleged attackers in a police sketch.

Clothing, blood, fibers and wounds all told a different story.

“All the pieces came together,” one juror told a Charlotte Observer reporter also covering the trial. “You couldn’t deny it.”

As long as those pieces stay firmly in place, it’s difficult to imagine MacDonald’s fate changing now.

Clippings of some of the stories Thames wrote in 1979 while covering the Jeffrey MacDonald trial in Raleigh for the Fayetteville Observer.

Click here for your free copy of today's Charlotte Observer

Want to see today’s printed newspaper? Do that here this week -- for free.

Through Friday, we are offering our popular e-edition of the Charlotte Observer at no charge. Get it on your computer, iPad or smartphone.

PC users go to: http://digital.olivesoftware.com/Olive/ODE/CharlotteObserverD/
 
Mobile users go to http://tablet.olivesoftware.com/Olive/Tablet/CharlotteObserver

IPad users download our iPad app at the Apple Store.

The e-edition looks exactly like the printed Observer, only it arrives digitally. I read the Observer this way on an iPad three or four times a week. It’s very user-friendly. We’ve arranged for you to link to it easily from the home page of CharlotteObserver.com.

Why the free offer now? Because tighter security measures for the Democratic National Convention could, at times, delay the delivery of the printed Observer.

Our offices are within blocks of the convention. That’s great for news coverage. But we’ve also learned that our delivery trucks will be slowed by security checkpoints next Tuesday through Friday. As a result, some papers may arrive later than usual those days.

We apologize for this inconvenience. As a help, we are offering all readers free access to our printed newspaper, via the Web.

The free access remains in effect daily through Friday. (To report e-edition problems, please call 704-358-5980.)

When you link to the e-edition, you will read the latest possible edition of the newspaper. This could be especially helpful during DNC week because much of the convention will unfold after our early edition deadlines.

So, if either the paper or the news is late, we hope this helps.

Observer is covering conventions from your perspective

Bloomberg will bring 90 people to Charlotte. CNN is sending 100. The Fox News Channel, another 100. In all, 15,000 journalists are predicted to visit for the Democratic National Convention. 

Can you imagine them missing anything you’d want to know? I can.

On Friday, the Observer told you that the Secret Service plans to seal off streets in the heart of Ballantyne during DNC week. Bloomberg, Fox and CNN did not.

Not their mission. But it will be part of ours.

Our media visitors are here for the nation. We’re here for you. That means reporting all that the nation cares about, plus how this convention touches you and your community.

If you’ve read the Observer lately, you know we are already reporting in-depth on the local impact. But we are also prepared for the actual convention. 

In all, the Observer has assigned 85 journalists to cover this moment. They are spread among eight teams, each tackling a specific topic. Those topics range from politics on the convention floor, to protests in the streets, to parties across the region.

One team will focus solely on how Charlotte is doing on this world stage. Were arrivals orderly at the airport? Were there enough cabs? Does the Wi-Fi work? Can visitors find enough places to eat? Are the security checkpoints running smoothly? 

High-caliber extras

For our coverage of the convention itself, we’ll be joined by an additional 20 journalists from our McClatchy Washington Bureau and our sister McClatchy newspapers. This group includes Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist Leonard Pitts and humor columnist Dave Barry.

We’ve also partnered with Politico.com, a nonpartisan journalism organization based in Washington, D.C. Politico specializes in coverage of the president, Congress and elections. It will have more than 50 journalists here. 

In fact, for DNC week, our newspaper will also be Politico’s designated newspaper. Politico will suspend publication of its printed paper in Washington and, instead, join us in producing a special edition for conventioneers. The best of that edition will also appear in copies of the Observer going to our regular readers. 

All told, we will draw from the work of more than 150 journalists. And that’s not all. Our wire services will continue to give us the best of the New York Times, the Washington Post, Bloomberg, the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times and the Associated Press, among others.

We have the same partnerships in place in Tampa for our coverage of this week’s Republican National Convention. We’ve also sent three Observer journalists there and will be picking up stories from the Tampa Bay Times.

Our stepped up coverage of the RNC begins today with stories on Page 1A and a special report on the Tampa convention in place of our Big Picture section.

We’re listening to you

All of these journalists need your perspective. Elections should center on the concerns of voters. What would you ask either candidate for president? Email your question to reporter Tim Funk, tfunk@charlotteobserver.com (please put “candidate question” in the subject line and specify which candidate to ask).

We’ve requested interviews with both President Barack Obama and Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney. If they agree to speak with us, we’ll ask a representative sample of your questions. If not, we’ll still publish the questions for you to see.

Here is a question submitted by Amy Sass of Matthews. 

“Mr. President, If the Republicans retain majority in the House after November, and the Democrats retain majority in the Senate, if you win re-election, what will you do differently over the next four years that will reduce the partisanship in both houses on the major issues facing us today – economy, debt, health care, etc. – so this country can really start moving forward?”

I’d say that’s a good question worth asking both candidates. Who has another?

Reach Rick Thames at rthames@charlotteobserver.com, twitter.com/rthames and www.facebook.com/rthames.obs. Phone: 704-358-5001