Is downtown Asheville becoming more dangerous? The answer seems to depend on whom you ask. Holding steady: Violent crime downtown is not on the rise, Patrol Lt. Wally Welch asserts. photo by Jonathan Welch Downtown resident Naydeehn Messier has no doubt about it. “I definitely feel as though it’s getting worse,” says Messier, co-founder of […]
Tag: Asheville Police Department
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APD arrests two in towing sting
Responding to complaints about predatory towing in downtown Asheville, Asheville police parked a decoy car off Lexington Avenue as bait on the night of Saturday, Dec. 20, then reeled in their catch. Police charged two men, 25-year-old Trevor Kyle Ballinger and 32-year-old Leonard Tobias Best of All-Safe Towing & Recovery, with obtaining property under false […]
Towing tandem charged
Responding to complaints about predatory towing in downtown Asheville, Asheville police parked a decoy car as bait Saturday night on Lexington Avenue, then reeled in their catch.
Asheville police detail graffiti arrests, surveillance
You’ve probably seen their vivid, uniquely styled works on many a surface in Asheville. They use signature “tags” to mark their work, including ETCHR, LIFE, MOMS and WISDOM. They are the city’s graffiti artists, and if they didn’t know it before, they know now: The Asheville Police Department is on their case. Painting the town: […]
Asheville Police announce latest in series of graffiti arrests, detail surveillance of local taggers
APD says two people were arrested last weekend for “multiple, separate incidents of graffiti related vandalism,” lists 14 alleged “prominent graffiti vandals” charged in ‘08
Asheville City Council
City jumps on board 51 Biltmore project Fireworks planned to gin up restaurant patronage Living wage not ready for prime time Police chief debriefs after Palin rally It’s hard to find a conversation these days that doesn’t somehow reflect the current national economic climate. The trend held true for the Asheville City Council’s Oct. 28 […]
Asheville Police Department to take citizen call-ins, comments on Aug. 25
As part of the process of gaining re-accreditation, the Asheville Police Department will hold a call-in and an information session on Aug. 25 to find out how well it has met policing standards.
Trainees graduate Asheville Police Academy
With the pinning of badges and the recitation of an ethics pledge, a group of 14 cadets graduated from the Asheville Police Department’s police academy last week.
Assault prompts formation of safe-streets group
It was just after midnight on July 6, and the man was walking toward LaRue’s Backdoor, a side bar located inside O Henry’s, Asheville’s (and the state’s) oldest gay bar. According to the police report, he was approached by two black males in their mid-20s who, after asking him where he was going, began punching […]
APD joins county’s anticrime team
The Asheville Police Department is joining the Buncombe County Anti-Crime Team, Chief Bill Hogan and Sheriff Van Duncan announced July 7. In 2004, the APD pulled out of the Metropolitan Enforcement Group, a joint antidrug task force involving the Buncombe County Sheriff’s Department and other local law-enforcement agencies. At the time, APD officials said that […]
Man charged in July 4 slaying; APD gives details **With video**
The Asheville Police Department has charged Steven Gordon Shultz with stabbing Frederick Garfield McLeod in the Beaucatcher Cinemas parking lot on Tunnel Road. In a press conference this morning, Capt. Tim Splain asserted that McLeod was a crack-cocaine dealer, and that the stabbing happened during a drug deal.
Watch the “Copwatch” training video
Watch “These Streets are Watching,” the movie recently shown to members of Asheville’s newly formed Copwatch group, which seeks to monitor the Asheville Police Department’s activities, as part of their training.
Asheville’s Copwatch rolls out
Last November, Citizens Awareness Asheville, an organization of community activists concerned about purported excesses and misconduct by local law enforcement, announced the formation of a “Copwatch” program. Such programs, active in cities including Los Angeles, Berkeley, Houston and New Orleans, involve volunteers going around neighborhoods on foot patrols, monitoring the activities of the police. Just […]
APD on Asheville’s gangs and “really good weed”
It was May 1, and Capt. Tim Splain, an 18-year veteran of the Asheville Police Department who’s the head of criminal investigations, was in the firing line (metaphorically speaking) at the latest session of the city’s ongoing Citizens Academy. “Let me be clear: Hip-hop does not cause gangs,” Splain declared after asserting that local media […]
Law honchos: Gangs, drugs challenge Asheville and Buncombe
Gangs and drugs are spurring much of the crime in Asheville and Buncombe County, both Sheriff Van Duncan and Police Chief Bill Hogan said at a forum on April 17. At the “State of Law Enforcement” discussion, part of the Asheville Area Chamber of Commerce’s ongoing “Doughnuts and Dialogue” series, both Hogan and Duncan gave […]
ACLU questions publicizing prostitution arrests
The Asheville Police Department’s new online Police Blotter, which publicizes prostitution arrests, has come under fire from the American Civil Liberties Union of North Carolina. The Raleigh-based group challenged the practice in a March 6 letter to Assistant City Attorney Curt Euler. “With regard to the posting of arrestees’ names and photos on the police […]
The writing on the wall
The brick walls and wooden fences at the now-abandoned McCormick Heights housing project tell a sort of a story: Simple spray-painted messages in muted or faded colors reveal a running dialogue between local gangs, each entry scrawled on top of the preceding one. In this particular case, notes Detective Louis Tomasetti of the Asheville Police […]
APD launches prostitution Web site
The Asheville Police Department has launched a new online police blotter where they will post the photos of individuals arrested on prostitution charges. The photos, names, charges and cities of residence of individuals arrested for prostitution (including the “johns,” as they are called) will be displayed on the site and on the Asheville Channel’s Bulletin […]
Asheville City Council
Created in 2001 to encourage high-density, mixed-use development, the “urban village” zoning designation is still experiencing growing pains. In 2006, City Council raised the maximum allowable height of buildings in such districts from 80 feet to 150 feet. The change came after Biltmore Farms pleaded its case for a 12-story hotel at its Biltmore Park […]
Policing the protest
At 2:10 p.m. on Aug. 13, the Asheville Police Department received a call about the protest at Bank of America. Later in the afternoon, they announced the arrests of five protesters inside the bank on charges of trespassing, failure to disperse and resisting arrest. photo by Jon Elliston Sgt. Lizz Budd was the first to […]
No bullets at Bele Chere
Asheville Police Chief Bill Hogan said his department was prepared for the worst on Saturday, July 28, due to threats of gang violence. That didn’t happen, but 89 unrelated arrests were made.