Asheville is Not Meeting its Police Obligations - TribPapers
Opinion

Asheville is Not Meeting its Police Obligations

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Burlingame, CA – A primary duty of the government is to protect the citizens. The City of Asheville is not meeting this obligation! Residents are not safe on their own streets. Some business owners are sleeping in their stores at night to protect their establishments from burglars. Many who work in downtown are in fear when they leave work to get to their parked cars, especially at night.

Panhandlers aggressively confront people, often tourists, on city sidewalks, asking for “donations”. Drug deals occur in open spaces such as parking lots with impunity. Theft, especially shoplifting, is rampant, with little or no resistance from anyone, including the police!

In fact, the Asheville police don’t respond in a timely manner, if at all, to many calls for assistance from victims of crime. In many ways, the Asheville Police Department is dysfunctional. However, this is not due to the valiant efforts of those officers still working there!

Who is responsible for this state of affairs? The Chief of Police and his officers have the duty to fight crime, but they are trying to meet their obligations in a toxic work environment! It is impossible to maintain law and order without adequate resources. If you need 200 officers to get the job done, you are not going to provide adequate public safety with only 150 officers. The Chief of Police can ask for additional resources, but the governing body (i.e. City Council) must provide those resources with a true commitment, not just talk, to make it work.

Recruitment and retention of police officers are at the heart of Asheville’s current crime crisis.

Recruiting officers is difficult in these times for many reasons. The low pay and benefits offered by Asheville for police officers must be substantially increased to attract new candidates. But low pay and benefits are not the only problems. Since 2020, at least, a negative relationship between some in city leadership and the rank and file of the police department has existed.

The “defund the police” crowd has demoralized many police officers!

This has resulted in early retirements of veteran officers whose expertise takes years to replace. Other officers seeking a more positive political leadership have resigned and sought employment in a more police-supportive city or county. “Defund the police” is heard by police officers as “support the crooks”! Many politicians who run cities don’t get this! The City Manager and City Council of Asheville need to publicly and vocally support their own police department. Young men and women considering a career in police work do their homework. They are not likely to even apply for a position on the Asheville Police Department if they perceive Asheville as a “defund the police” employer who “does not have their backs”.

The job of a police officer is difficult enough without some politician “throwing you under the bus” when controversy arises!

Editor’s Note: This was a letter written by one of our readers. Gary MIssel is a former Chief of Police.