Tag: north carolina

North Carolina police advise residents to ‘limit nonessential travel’ as fuel shortage grips the East Coast

Police in a North Carolina city advised residents Wednesday to “limit non-essential travel” and stop hoarding gasoline as the state grapples with a fuel shortage following a cyberattack on the Colonial Pipeline.

The city of Charlotte, which has seen 71% of its gas stations out of fuel, relies heavily on the Colonial Pipeline, said Capt. Brad Koch of the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department. He advised residents to leave their homes sparingly and check on their elderly neighbors as frustrations mount in the area.

“Limit nonessential travel,” Koch said. “If you do not have to come out and go out, please do not. … Check on your neighbors — your elderly neighbors that might not be able to get out. Just see if they need something. See if when you’re going out to the store, if you can pick something up.”

“Do not hoard fuel,” he continued. “We are going to get through this, similar to whenever we have severe weather and we seem to lose a lot of bread and milk at the stores, similarly to last year at the beginning of the pandemic.”

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6yo Boy Arrested, Forced to Go to Court for Picking a Flower at His Bus Stop

“Should a child that believes in Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny and the tooth fairy be making life-altering decisions?” asked New Hanover County Chief District Court Judge Jay Corpening. This is a question which has come up repeatedly in the state of North Carolina as dozens of children as young a six are being processed into the criminal justice system. The latest case involves a 6-year-old boy who was arrested and forced to go to court because he picked a flower while waiting for the bus.

Attorney Julie Boyer’s child client was on trial for injury to real property after he stopped to pick a flower from a yard near his bus stop, according to The Herald-Sun. Illustrating the ridiculous nature of sending a child to court for picking a flower is the fact that he had no idea what was going on.

Boyer said she had to give the boy some crayons and a coloring book during the proceedings because he did not have the mental capacity to understand what was happening to him.

“I asked him to color a picture,” she said, “so he did.”

This is a serious problem and speaks to the archaic nature of the law in the state of North Carolina. Currently, the state’s juvenile system has the lowest minimum age in the world to enter the court system — which is six.

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