I give up.
The absolute refusal to report the facts of the criminal history of Robert Lamar McFadden, 16, baffles me. McFadden was charged with the Wednesday night rape of an 83-year-old woman. According to state records, McFadden received 30 months probation on March 18th on a felony car theft conviction.
More baffling, McFadden spent from March 22nd to April 30th in the Mecklenburg County jail on misdemeanor assault and false imprisonment charges.
Where was his probation officer?
And I guarantee that were you to look into his juvie file you would find incidents before his August 2009 arrest on two felony counts of car theft. And I bet that those two felony car theft charges were consolidated into one in a plea deal which resulted in the probation sentence.
Yet only at the end of this WBTV report is there any hint that McFadden was a felon serving an active probation sentence at the time of his March arrest as well as his arrest on Thursday on one count of second-degree rape, one count of second-degree kidnapping, two counts of felonious breaking and entering, one count of breaking and entering-auto, and order for arrest for violating conditions of release.
With all due apologies to the family of Capt. James Jack and the decent folk — perhaps too decent — of the May 20th Society and the Meck Dec effort, Robert Lamar McFadden is the real Spirit of Mecklenburg in 2010. A felon on probation, turned loose by a broken criminal justice system, charged with seven additional felonies, including the rape of a helpless octogenarian.
