The Buncombe County Board of Commissioners awarded over $11 million in federal COVID-19 recovery funding Nov. 16. Those grants did not include any money toward the city of Asheville’s controversial planned purchase of a Ramada Inn for a low-barrier homeless shelter.
Of 911 calls and requests for assistance to the Asheville Police Department, less than 1% involve a violent crime, an AVL Watchdog analysis of police dispatch data shows. Much of the time, police are summoned to routine calls such as traffic accidents, domestic disputes and loud parties or non-violent crimes like shoplifting, trespassing and prostitution.
A proposed Asheville Police Department policy hashed out with substantial citizen input could mark a change in the way officers handle volatile situations, proponents say. If the policy is adopted as expected, officers will have to explain how they approached the situation and what they did to try to calm things down before resorting to […]
Information obtained by Xpress shows that out of 25 communications positions at the Asheville Police Department, 10 are vacant, leaving the department 40 percent short of its full number.
