Hendersonville – In the business world, we recognize that the first step in solving a problem is to admit there is a problem. But local leaders in Asheville and Buncombe County continue to twist and manipulate statistics to deny the severity of the crime problem, and gaslight citizens who are all too aware how bad crime there really is.
Ask anyone in Buncombe County – and Asheville in particular – whether they feel safer these days than five years ago, and the answer you will most likely hear is a resounding “No.”
In the past few weeks, local news outlets have featured incidents of sexual assault, armed robbery, attempted kidnapping, burglaries, vehicle break-ins, drug trafficking and a violent assault that left a man dead.
Given what citizens are seeing, reading and experiencing on daily basis, you can’t blame them for feeling that recent crime figures trumpeted by Sheriff Quentin Miller in an Oct. 12 Asheville Citizen-Times story were not from Buncombe County, but from fantasyland.
In a widely quoted press release claiming a drop in crime rates, the Buncombe County Sheriff’s Department said that recently released numbers from the North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation showed a “total crime index” rate decline of 15 percent from 2021 to 2022, and a 25 percent drop in the past decade.
However, in the breathless reporting of these statistics, our local news outlets neglected to mention that this “drop” was only for part of Buncombe County. It did not include the large part of the county that is in the Asheville city limits.
Further, for the non-Asheville part of Buncombe County, data only showed two categories: violent crimes and property crimes.
What the sheriff’s office chose to leave out was that, according to that same NCSBI data, in 2022, the violent crime rate in Buncombe County rose 13 percent in one year. But property crimes were down enough to offset that, making it appear that all crime had dropped.
That is simply not true.
Within the Asheville city limits during that same period, according to the NCSBI, the news is even worse: Violent crimes rose 23 percent. Murders increased 72 percent. Aggravated assaults and arsons jumped 30 percent and 36 percent, respectively.
Then there is what the numbers don’t show: the fact that the Asheville Police Department doesn’t even respond to some calls, including those for theft under $1,000 and certain vehicle thefts. That means we have no idea what the real crime numbers actually are.
This is nothing to brag about. In fact, the data show Buncombe County residents inside and outside Asheville are absolutely justified in feeling less safe.
This echoes what I heard at my first anti-crime summit convened at AB Tech in June. I was grateful to the local leaders, experts and residents who showed up to discuss this disturbing rise in crime and vagrancy that is centered in Asheville but appears to be spreading into surrounding communities.
The clear message from this summit was that more has to be done to crack down on violent and petty crimes, as well as drugs, homelessness and panhandling that are a blight on our area, and a threat to WNC residents and our way of life here in the mountains.
It’s no secret that, while it is struggling valiantly to hire more officers, the Asheville Police Department is severely understaffed, down 40 percent earlier this year. Chief David Zack is trying everything in his power to raise the number of officers in his department, and I commend and support his efforts.
But in reading the deliberately misleading numbers coming out of the Buncombe County Sheriff’s Office, I was reminded of the old saying: “There are three kinds of lies: Lies, damned lies, and statistics.”
Editor’s Note: U.S. Rep. Chuck Edwards represents Western North Carolina in the U.S. House of Representatives.