In lunchtime speech, CMPD chief says repeat offenders need to be stopped
Police Chief Johnny Jennings decried repeat criminal offenders and said Mecklenburg County again needs a detention facility for teenagers during a lunch in south Charlotte on Tuesday. The speech came as he nears his Jan. 1 retirement.
“People thought I was saying we need detentions to lock kids up,” Jennings said. “It’s to protect the kids from themselves and to protect people from being victimized by some of these kids.”
Jennings spoke at CharBar No. 7 on Carmel Road in his address to the Hood Hargett Breakfast Club, a business networking group. He reflected on his career and answered questions as audience members chose between chicken marsala or blackened salmon.
Jennings said it’s not fair that families have to travel out of the county to visit their incarcerated children at a juvenile detention facility, and the city and county need more programs to help the kids who were arrested. A facility in Mecklenburg would put those things nearby, he said.
Jennings, who sat with his wife, Lisa, and incoming chief Estella Patterson, also renewed his calls to stop repeat offenders from committing crimes.
“The biggest thing is we need to fix the court system,” Jennings said to The Charlotte Observer after taking questions from the audience. “It always comes down on policing, but there is so much more in the criminal justice system that’s required after we make that arrest.”
Jennings said he wants to see more staff in the district attorney’s office to help with processing people CMPD officers arrest.
Jennings cracked jokes and went back and forth with family and friends during Tuesday’s event.
Becoming chief of police
He spoke about his reluctance to become an officer after graduating from college before a friend convinced him to apply to the police academy. It wasn’t until his seventh year at the department, Jennings said, that he decided he wanted to make a career out of policing. And after making it his career, he wasn’t sure about becoming the chief of CMPD.
“I was eligible to retire. I was out the door,” Jennings said. “It probably took me maybe a week or two before I finally said, ‘You know what? This is where I want to be.’”
He reflected on coming into the job as Charlotte chief in 2020 as the country grappled with the death of George Floyd and the protests that followed. He talked about his decision to train officers using a customer service model inspired by Chick-fil-A. And he talked about the struggle to battle perception of crime versus the reality, especially after the Iryna Zarutska stabbing.
Asked about his future and if he was finished with policing, Jennings said it was unlikely that he’d work in law enforcement again. The chief of Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police, he said, was the apex of chief’s jobs. However, he joked that his wife recently pointed out a job in the Florida Keys.
“I’ll never say never,” Jennings said. “If the boss says we’re moving ... maybe I’ll change. Otherwise, I’m good.”
Jennings in recent times has been reluctant to answer questions or do interviews with news reporters in Charlotte.
Even at the lunch on Tuesday, after the Observer approached him to ask some follow-up questions to his remarks, a police lieutenant, Crystal Fletcher, intercepted the Observer and suggested that the follow-up questions should come in the form of an email.
But Jennings, who overheard that conversation, agreed to answer questions.
This story was originally published November 4, 2025 at 3:16 PM.
