it s hard to overstate how important the hospital is to the town of belhaven. it serves a county and a half and is the largest employer in the town. if it closes, o neal says residents would have to drive to the nearest emergency room. chris noble, methodist minister in town says he s alive today because of pungo. what happened? january 12th, sunday morning, 2:00 a.m. i had a heart attack in the parsonage down here. i coded. they air flighted me to greenfield. if it hadn t been for this emergency room, you wouldn t be interviewing me right now. right now hospital is scheduled to close july 1st. despite vidant s statements, mayor o neal blames his fellow republicans in the capitol. if the legislature isn t going to accept medicaid expansion, they need to come up with their own program to help these rural hospitals. the fact is if these hospitals close, people are going to die. the mayor has teamed up with
believe that stand your ground should be repealed. we recognize that the legislature isn t in a position to accept that and to move forward on that. and they ve made that very clear. just as they ve made it very clear that they don t want to give judges the ability to make the decisions that are necessary. i think we are all in agreement about mandatory minimums and the evils of mandatory minimums. niaz, quickly, one of the things this highlights is the ways in which gun legislation, particularly sentences attached to gun crimes can have the perverse effect of essentially increasing the incarceration rates of young men of color. no, absolutely. you know, like all other mandatory minimums in this country, there is racial disparity to be found in the way that they are applied because they do take the discretion out of the hands of judges to look at cases and make decisions base ed on the merits of the case and put discretion in the hands of the prosecutors which we re
firmly on the fact that we believe that stand your ground should be repealed. we recognize that the legislature isn t in a position to accept that and to move forward on that. and they ve made that very clear. just as they ve made it very clear that they don t want to give judges the ability to make the decisions that are necessary. i think we are all in agreement about mandatory minimums and the evils of mandatory minimums. niaz, quickly, one of the things this highlights is the ways in which gun legislation, particularly sentences attached to gun crimes can have the perverse effect of essentially increasing the incarceration rates of young men of color. absolutely. you know, like all other mandatory minimums in this country, there is racial disparity to be found in the way that they are applied because they do take the discretion out of the hands of judges to look at cases and make decisions based on the merits of the case
legislature isn t in a position to accept that and to move forward on that. and they ve made that very clear. just as they ve made it very clear that they don t want to give judges the ability to make the decisions that are necessary. i think we are all in agreement about mandatory minimums and the evils of mandatory minimums. niaz, quickly, one of the things this highlights is the ways in which gun legislation, particularly sentences attached to gun crimes can have the perverse effect of essentially increasing the incarceration rates of young men of color. no, absolutely. you know, like all other mandatory minimums in this country, there is racial disparity to be found in the way that they are applied because they do take the discretion out of the hands of judges to look at cases and make decisions base ed on the merits of the case and put discretion in the hands of the prosecutors which we re