Are White Kids At Risk Too?

Child murdered at Erwin Montessori School 3012 East Bessemer Ave. Now maybe some of you white people on the west side will take interest: https://greensboro101.com/news-release-teen-shooting-victim-succumbs-to-wounds-170821/

And be sure to notice the official police document left off the name of the school.

Does Greensboro Care About Poor And Minorities?

I can't agree with everything Joe has to say in his article, Greensboro's Killing Fields but this part is true:

"Ironically, the lives lost due to the spike in homicides are disproportionately African-American. These lives are regarded by our local political culture as expendable. There are, after all, greater political objectives to be pursued."

Oh, and I checked, he's right about the numbers too.

When The Pig Eats The Lipstick

I guess I see things differently than most people. By now most of you are aware of the Greensboro Police Officer who was shot during a traffic stop in Councilman Tony Wilkins District 5 just off of West Gate City Blvd yesterday.

And also resulted in the death of the suspect.

But I can't help but wonder: How might things have gone if the Greensboro City Council had chosen to spend those $Millions of Dollars that were spent putting lipstick on a pig (streetscaping and changing road names) on things like real economic development and additional funding for the Greensboro Police Department?

How might have things gone if those $Millions had been spent on helping people instead of rebranding, "International Restaurant Row" and other forms of corporate welfare at the local level?

For you see, people, it's not Washington where our biggest problems lie. It's with 9 people right here in Greensboro where we have the power to change just 1 city and make it the beacon the rest of the nation wants to become.

Our current leaders are overseeing the deaths of civilians and police officers alike when they ignore the needs of the people in order to increase tax bases and fatten corporate coffers.

Show them another way that works-- that's how you change Washington. That's how you change Raleigh.


Update: Saturday, February 11, 2017, Councilman Tony Wilkins replies and others reply back:

Voters vote based on the information voters are given. Saying the voters voted for it when the voters weren't given the correct information in the first place, is hardly an excuse for elected representatives to continue making the wrong decisions.

And how often are voters given the wrong information as a means of shifting the blame from elected leaders to voters?

Mayor Vaughan Shoots Self In Foot... Again

Yesterday Greensboro Mayor Nancy Barakat Vaughan used her Facebook page to highlight a report on crime in our schools by Ben Holder.

But Mayor Vaughan's attempt to draw attention away from the Greensboro City Council and point a finger at the Guilford County Schools in an apparent smoke screen failed to work as myself and others quickly pointed out how the problem rests squarely on the City of Greensboro:

• Whaland Shepherd likes this.
• 
• Billy Jones Crime has always been kept quite in Greensboro's schools. In 1970 I was beaten almost to death by a gang from off campus on the campus of Dudley High School. Mr Bradley, the assistant principal, found me laying in a pool of my own blood and rushed me to Cone Hospital in his car.
  
  A few days later my mother took me to the office of the Greensboro School Superintendent, Dr House, where I stood just outside his office and listened to him tell my mother the incident did not take place on school property. I overheard every word they said.
  
  My mother called me into his office and demanded he tell me what he had just told her. He stood there looking at me wrapped up like a mummy, my entire face and head in bandages, chest wrapped for the broken ribs, arm in a sling... He looked down at the floor and said nothing.
  
  A few days later we went to Lineberry Funeral Home. Al Lineberry Sr was head of the Greensboro School Board. He refused to see us that day. We waited. At closing time his secretary told us we would have to leave or she would be forced to call the police. My mother told her to please call the police that she would take me to the TV station after she paid our bail. Mr Lineberry was back in his office 5 minutes later.
  
  In 1971 the Greensboro City Schools hired out of work coaches to work as security guards in every high school per my mother's request. Had she understood how bad it really was she would have demanded much more.
  
  1970 wasn't the first or last incident I would suffer-- just the worst. This stuff is nothing new in Greensboro. Friends like Mike Baldwin Howard Shepherd Faye Smith Woollett and dozens more all in their 50s now can tell you horror stories that happened to them or people that were close to them.
  
  And you wonder why we're angry?

  Yesterday at 11:28am · Like · 1
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• Sue Lecin Polinsky From the link. I find this very troubling: "There were rapes reported at Mendenhall, Kiser, Allen, Smith, Aycock, Greensboro Middle College and Grimsley and over the past school year. Kiser and Allen Middle School reports show two rapes were reported at each during the past school year."

  Yesterday at 11:51am · Like
• 
Don Moore Crime in the schools will carry into the community as the "children" grow up. Wonder what the crime rate was when prayer was in the schools?
Yesterday at 1:27pm · Like



Joseph Eckstrom It's more the crime in the community will carry into the schools. It's important to pray, but it's also important to take those Christian values and apply them to economic and community development outside of the school.
Yesterday at 1:31pm · Like · 3

Linda East Times have changed. My high school days at Bessemer in the 50's were innocent and fun. The worst scandal involved some boys getting caught drinking beer after school. Our society is not doing well and that is reflected in the schools. I think all we can do individually is be kind to each other.
Yesterday at 2:47pm · Edited · Unlike · 1

Matt Stafford If we want to stop crime and gang violence in schools the answer is to remove gang members from schools. The only reason why a Crip or a Skinhead gets within 100 feet of a school is to recruit. It's time to stop pretending otherwise.
Yesterday at 3:17pm · Unlike · 1

Billy Jones And it's not just in our schools either. Greensboro tries to gloss over every issue preferring instead to use Public Relations rather than deal with the issues at hand. You can bet were Nancy Barakat Vaughan responsible for overseeing the Guilford County Schools she would have never posted this link to her facebook page, right Deena Hayes-Greene?

I ran a 2 week write-in campaign for Mayor of Greensboro against Yvonne Johnson and Milton Kern a few years ago when my neighborhood was overrun by the Bloods Gang buy Yvonne, Milton and the Greensboro City Council all denied Greensboro had a gang problem.

Our mayor would like to put this problem entirely on the schools but the fact is: our schools reflect what is going on throughout the rest of the city. Increased unemployment, a failing economy and corruption in government all contribute to children failing to learn right from wrong. Our children see our leaders lying and think its okay.
Yesterday at 3:28pm · Like
 
 
• Deena Hayes-Greene Gangs are often a manifestation of larger structural issues. The original "violent street gangs" in this country were European immigrants who has not become white and experienced discrimination, oppression and exclusion. Instead of midnight basketball they assimilated into the dominant culture and gained rights of citizenship. With that came employment opportunities, better housing and environmental conditions and future opportunities. Food deserts are situated in housing deserts, economic deserts, education deserts, environmental deserts, transportation deserts, judicial deserts...we must address the root causes that creates environments where pathologies flourish.
  Secondly white students have much higher risk of violence on school grounds and are the largest possessors and user of the most serious drugs. Students of color get "caught" more often and face more and harsher consequence. Go read Breaking Schools Rules and the latest Youth Risk Behavior data

  20 hrs · Unlike · 2
• 
• Billy Jones Nancy Barakat Vaughan would have loved to dump this issue entirely on the Guilford County Schools. That's why she leaked the info to Ben Holder in the first place. But the fact is: The municipalities in which the schools are located are responsible for security within those schools. That makes this Mayor Vaughan's problem and opens up an entire can of worms Nancy will wish she had never opened.
  
  Greensboro has long used PR to "solve" our problems but as Ben's report shows, PR isn't working. Our schools have been dangerous places for 40 plus years. Those of us who were at Aycock in the late 60s and Dudley or Smith in the early 70s know full well the nightmare going to school can be and in many instances it never got any better.
  
  What is going on in our schools is a mirror of what is going on in our communities and until the Greensboro City Council addresses our communities our schools will only become more dangerous.

  12 hrs · Like · 1
• 
Bernadette Wilson Conley @Deena is right on point. Another resource to check out is the 40 Developmental Assets from Search Institute. The more of these assets kids have access to, the less prone they are to violence, and more likely to develop into successful contributing adults. These assets can come at the individual or family levels, but many can also come from other adults, schools, and the community.
10 hrs · Unlike · 2
 
 
 

Things were going so badly Nancy didn't even reply to her own post. That has to suck. Of course Nancy's daughter goes to private school.

What's really surprising is that Ben Holder pointed out that Grimsley High School-- long known as Greensboro's best high school-- had the highest number of 911 calls. Now add to that the fact that while Guilford County Schools has schools all over every city in Guilford County, the the vast majority of calls on Ben's list were from schools inside the city limits of Greensboro and Madam Mayor Vaughan really has problems on her hands.

That should teach Nancy about leaking info to Ben Holder to create smoke screens as Ben follows up with Teen charged with 50 counts of secret peeping at local school.

Reelect Nancy Vaughan-- I dare you.

Rocky Scarfone: Known By The Company He Keeps

Got an interesting e-mail recently:

"Billy, please take the time to research the name Mike Rose and his federal indictment from a couple weeks ago. This was a business partner of Rocco Scarfone and the Gold Club that they owned and operated on Guilford College Rd. in Greensboro. Since the indictment, Rocco changed the name of the club to The Playhouse to avoid any connection to Mike Rose being in public view. The location was formerly Harpers for close to twenty years and was owned and operated by Eddie Collins before Scarfone and Rose purchased the business and reopened it as The Gold Club approximately two years ago. I send this in question if the Cone family would want their name tied to a man who owns strip clubs, I would ask the same question of councilman Zack Matheny.  Rocco also owns The Playhouse Gentlemans Club in Hickory, NC that was raided for drugs and prostitution approximately a year ago, google can give you insight on that as well. I am sending you this from a false email so it can not be tied back to me, after all we are dealing with an individual with known ties to organized crime."

So I decided to do a little digging and here's what I learned. From the FBI: 

"SAN FRANCISCO—Seven persons—Vladimir Handl, Michael Rose, Peter Scalise, David Gaither, Richard Leyland, Edwin Hetherton, and Paul Fink—were arrested after being charged with racketeering, money-laundering, and drug trafficking related crimes, announced United States Attorney Melinda Haag and Federal Bureau of Investigation Special Agent in Charge David J. Johnson.

According to an indictment that was unsealed yesterday, Handl and Rose were businessmen in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, whose interests included restaurants, nightclubs, and strip clubs in several states. Handl operated and controlled businesses such as VIP Group, LLC, International VH, LLC, and Heat Lounge, LLC, while Rose operated and controlled defendant PML Clubs, Inc., along with Explosive Clubs, Inc., Nightclub and Restaurant Services, LLC, Legacy Entertainment, East Coast Restaurant & Nightclubs, and Micro Management Group, LLC. Rose, through PML Clubs, Inc., operated several strip clubs in South Carolina, Delaware, and New Hampshire under the name “The Gold Club.” Rose, through PML Clubs, Inc., also licensed the use of the name “The Gold Club” to franchisees throughout the United States.

According to the indictment, Handl and Rose, along with their associates, Peter Scalise, and David Gaither, conspired to conduct the affairs of an enterprise through a pattern of racketeering involving money laundering, bank fraud, and drug trafficking. Between 2011 through the present, the defendants knowingly accepted more than $2.3 million that they believed either had been fraudulently diverted from a bankruptcy court proceeding or constituted proceeds from drug trafficking, and then laundered the money through their businesses, including Rose’s Gold Clubs. The indictment further alleges that as part of their laundering scheme, the defendants created fraudulent invoices, contracts, and other business records to make it appear that the money they received and “cleaned” was for legitimate business transactions. The defendants also sought to acquire cocaine to sell."

A screen grab from TheGoldClubNc.com website located at 626 Guilford College Road in Greensboro:

I suspect that website will be gone soon, thus the screen grab.  According to the Guilford County Register of Deeds, the address 626 Guilford College Road is owned by a Mr Carl Edward Collins of High Point.

It seems Mr Collins has also been in the sexually oriented business having sued the City of Greensboro as the owner of Christie's Cabaret, Y.K. Enterprises, Inc., Southside Johnnie's, Reesaw, Inc., Chester's Premier Gentlemen's Club, E.K.'s II, Inc., Harper's II, Harper's Exotic Car Wash, Simply Explicit, L.L.C., Treasure Box, Inc. and Xanadu Video and Boutique. Is Eddie Collins involved in any of these crimes? Eddie Collins has been a scumbag for decades having dealt in drugs and prostitution for as long as he's been in business. His party buses are infamous throughout North Carolina but as to any involvement with these latest crimes...

Well your guess is as good as mine.

But what I do find most interesting is how criminal after criminal after criminal ends up having close ties to Greensboro's Rocky Scarfone. More on Vladimir Handl. Interestingly enough, Michael Rose shut down the Gold Club in South Carolina last July. Said he wanted to, "stay out of Horry County's crosshairs going forward."
 

Peter Scalise? You're going to love this guy. Besides drugs and money laundering his thing is selling stock in companies that don't exist. Companies that make nothing and do nothing except take peoples' money.

And David Gaither? A Myrtle Beach Police Officer who was fired for exposing himself to children on the beach. Money launderers, drug dealers, gangsters, penny stock scammers and perverted cops are all among Rocky Scarfone's business partners.

I already knew about Rocky's problems at Thee Playhouse. I wrote about them in my series, I'm Being Sued By Rocco Scarfone. By the way, Rocky never did sue me. Even after his two-bit lawyer set me the threatening letter he chickened out. Seems the media attention wasn't what he wanted.

The letter writer makes a good point, how does Greensboro's Cone family like having their name attached to a man who operates strip clubs, sells cocaine, hangs out with known perverts and no telling what else? Will the Cones change the spelling of their last name? Again?

That's right, it wasn't always Cone. Will Wibur Ross change his name too?

And why do Councilman Zack Matheny and the rest of the Greensboro City Council still have the time of day for Rocco Scarfone? If I were an elected official I wouldn't want Rocky in the same city with me, much less having hundreds of documents, e-mails, media reports and blog posts that tie Scarfone to City Council.

It's interesting that Rocky and the Cones are really doing the same thing. Instead of working to make their name good they just make up a new name. In Rocky's case he's changing The Gold Club to Thee Playhouse Greensboro.

Notice the address is the same.


Got any doubt's about Mr Scarfone's ownership of Thee Playhouse Franchise? Send him an e-mail and ask him?

Anyone remember the late Bill Snoffer?  His family owned a small mattress and upholstery company on North Church St. Bill was well known for teaching Kung Fu, operating a security service at concerts at the Greensboro Coliseum and for being the go-to guy for Greensboro's cocaine trade. Bill was a local boy who like so many got caught up in things that were bigger than he could handle. When Bill was busted he never told anyone where he got the cocaine, did his time and died a tragic death that some of us think suspect when he crashed his car into a tree.

I first met Bill Snoffer in 1973 when I was just 17 years old, Bill was 20. We were both kids in northeast Greensboro. Bill wasn't yet selling cocaine then. Rocky Scarfone met Bill a few years later. You see, Rocky has been here in Greensboro a lot longer than most people realize. Born in New York City, grew up near Boone and spent a lot of his early years throughout the Piedmont.  Just saying.

I guess I need to update my list of businesses tied to Rocky Scarfone.

Merry Christmas Mayor Perkins

As some readers may remember, without any authorization from the City of Greensboro, Walker Sanders of the Community Foundation hired commercial realtor David Hagan to buy properties for the Greensboro Performing Arts Center-- why? Mr Sanders had no authority to buy property on behalf of the City of Greensboro. At the time the City Council had not yet voted to build the performing arts center. City Council questioned it but under the direction of then Mayor Perkins it was allowed to slide.

The city already had licensed commercial real estate people on payroll who work without commissions-- why not use them instead? Why not save the City of Greensboro Hagan's commission fees to the tune of $586,000? That's the questions lots of people asked but no one ever answered.

My guess always was that Mayor Perkins needed someone who would pay him a cut on the deals he had already worked out in advance. Robbie has personal and business connections with all the property owners or at least most of them. Robbie was bankrupt, desperate for money, facing incarceration for non support-- suddenly he's rich again. How?

I believed that Robbie used his position as Mayor for personal gain by getting David Hagan to buy the properties and split the commissions with Robbie. What other illegal deals might Robbie Perkins done as Mayor of Greensboro?



But alas, I never had the first shred of evidence... until now.

It appears Robbie thinks he's been cheated by David Hagan. He tried to use the County GIS system but it isn't working so he submits PIRT # 4139 to Donna Gray not realizing Sarah Healey will enter it into the system for all to see: http://www.greensboro-nc.gov/index.aspx?page=3765 Go read the PIRT for yourself.

"From: Robbie Perkins [mailto:RPerkins@naipt.com]
Sent: Monday, December 15, 2014 5:53 PM
To: Gray, Donna
Subject: Tanger Performing Arts Center Acquisition Costs

Donna,

Hope all is well.

Can I get a summary of the acquisition costs of the land required for the Steven Tanger Performing Arts Center?  I need the amounts paid for each of the individual parcels and the date of the purchase.  For some reason, the County GIS information on these sales is either incorrect or not accessable.

Thank you.

Robbie Perkins, CCIM
President
rperkins@naipt.com

 
NAI Piedmont Triad
500- D State Street
Greensboro NC 27405

www.naipt.com

Direct +1 336 358 3219
Main +1 336 373 0995
Fax +1 336 373 0260
LinkedIn   |  Vcard"

Now why would Robbie Perkins need to know such information if not to check to see if David Hagan had given him his "fair share" of an illegal transaction in which Walker Sanders is an accessory? I would love to hear the 3 of them explain that one away.

We now have evidence of felonies having been committed to the tune of Millions of Dollars-- get it? Do we have enough evidence for a conviction? Not yet but that's why investigations are done, right?

It's time GPD started leaning hard on some people. The Greensboro Police Department must now investigate Perkins, Sanders and Hagan no matter how much they don't want to or risk looking like a corrupt police department in front of the entire state. I don't care that David Hagan's sister-in-law is former United States Senator Kay Hagan, if Chief Holder is scared then she should be the one contacting the SBI and FBI before this blows up in her face and her retirement and the respect she spent her life earning.

Oh, and Robbie, you misspelled  accessible.

Merry Christmas, Mayor Perkins, may this be your last one for a few years.

As always, share this post with everyone you know and demand City Council give us answers. Demand a criminal investigation begin right away. Give Robbie Perkins the Christmas present he deserves. And perhaps Walker and David can share a cell with him.

Derek Fleming: Club Turnt Up 336

Today Club Turnt Up 336 is again in the news as club owner Derek Fleming has lost his appeal before the Greensboro Board of Adjustment to keep his business privilege license:

"The city has shut down a “teen club” business in east Greensboro that investigators said wasn’t catering to youngsters and allowed alcohol consumption."

 What I want to know is why was Derek Fleming allowed to operate such a business in the first place?

"Derek Fleming was convicted of (1) conspiracy to distribute cocaine base ("crack") in violation of 21 U.S.C. §§ 841(a)(1), 841(b)(1)(A), and 846; (2) inducing a minor to participate in a drug conspiracy in violation of 21 U.S.C. § 861(a)(1); and (3) possession of a firearm during a drug trafficking offense in violation of 18 U.S.C. §§ 924(c)(1) and (2). Fleming appeals, arguing that the district court erred by admitting evidence of prior drug sales and improperly calculating the weight of drugs ascribed to the conspiracy for sentencing purposes. We affirm.

3Derek Fleming and Antuan Marsh entered into a conspiracy to operate a "crack house" from an apartment on Martin Luther King Drive in Greensboro, North Carolina. Fleming and Marsh purchased the crack and then gave it to Ronald Smith, a 16 year old minor. Smith sold crack to walk-in customers at the apartment and was paid between $200 and $300 dollars per week.

4On May 23, 1991, Greensboro police officers arrested Smith and searched the apartment. They found 52 grams of crack, a pistol, and a Mossberg shotgun. Drug paraphernalia was scattered around the apartment, and, in the closet, the police found an army jacket with Fleming's name on it. Fleming and Marsh were arrested and indicted.

5At trial, the government attempted to prove Fleming's participation in the conspiracy by offering Marsh's and Smith's testimony that Fleming was a co-conspirator, the physical evidence from the crack house, and evidence that Fleming had previously dealt drugs.

6The jury found Fleming guilty of all three counts. He was sentenced to 322 months of imprisonment to be followed by 60 months of supervised release. Fleming appeals.

7The indictment charged Fleming and Marsh with conspiring to distribute crack from April to June, 1991. At trial, the government also introduced, through the testimony of four Greensboro police officers, evidence that Fleming had sold crack on two prior occasions.¹ The district court's decision to admit "other acts" evidence pursuant to Fed. R. Evid. Rule 404(b) is reviewed by this court for "abuse of discretion." United States v. Rawle, 845 F.2d 1244, 1247 (4th Cir. 1988)."

Yeah, this is the kind of guy we want our children hanging around, right? One might begin to believe the City of Greensboro wants to kill the children of East Greensboro. And the city waits until after 2 shootings have taken place at this illegal liquor house before they take action when preventing it was as easy as googling Derek Fleming Greensboro. 

Derek Fleming lost his appeal against GPD Chief Sylvester Daughtry and Officer D E Gaines in 1996. For what I don't know.

He lost an appeal on an unrelated charge against the United States government in 1996.

Derek Fleming was arrested and charged with ASSAULT BY STRANGULATION on June 20, 2013 and the City of Greensboro allows him to operate a venue that caters to teenagers? I could go on but you get the picture.

It is past time the Greensboro City Council took a very hard look at how business privilege licenses are issued here in Greensboro.

Update: As confirmation, Mr Fleming's most recent arrest for the incident reported in the News & Record article linked at the top of the page. Same guy.