Asheville Police Chief David Zack told Fox News Digital last fall that his department is down 42%
\nBreak-ins in Asheville, North Carolina, saw a 200% monthly surge in January amid a violent crime spike in the Democrat-run tourist town that has hemorrhaged police officers in recent years.
\nThe Asheville Police Department, which serves a town of approximately 90,000 people, responded to 41 break-ins throughout 2022 and has already fielded 11 reports of break-ins in 2023 as of Feb. 1, according to local ABC affiliate WLOS.
\nChris Faber, whose bar in downtown Asheville was targeted twice last month within a span of a few days, told the outlet that a suspect broke into his establishment and stole about 20 bottles of whiskey and up to $800 in cash.
\nThe suspect was then reportedly recorded on surveillance video breaking into a neighboring business and stealing from its cash register.
\n“It\u2019s wildly frustrating, and mostly for me it\u2019s frustrating because I\u2019m not comfortable leaving my bar by itself when it happens that frequently,” Faber told the local outlet. “We just don\u2019t know what to do as a preventative measure, other than what we\u2019re already doing.”
\nChuckie McKelvey, who also owns a bar in downtown Asheville, said a suspect broke into her business on Jan. 18 and made off with alcohol and a cash register filled with $7 worth of quarters.
\n“I feel like we\u2019re all suffering the problem, but none of us really have a great solution,” McKelvey told WLOS. “Of course, if more police presence were there, that would be a helpful deterrent. But I understand that that\u2019s just not an option right now.”
\nAPD senior officer Robert Crume told the outlet that some businesses are not even reporting break-ins. “They just report the loss to their insurance and move on. They\u2019ve become so frustrated with the situation,” he said.
\nThe break-in surge comes amid a violent crime spike in the historic mountain town, which has seen an influx of people moving in from out of state during recent years. Violent crime in Asheville increased 31% per 100,000 people between 2016 and 2020 \u2013 nearly double the national average and 18-percentage points higher than North Carolina’s 13% increase statewide during the same period.
\nAccording to statistics released by APD in September, such trends have continued, rising 34% year-to-date compared to 2021 and 29% over 2020. The department noted that aggravated assaults are mostly responsible for the increase.
\nAPD Chief David Zack told Fox News Digital last fall that his department lost more than 100 sworn officers since May 2020, and that the force is struggling to maintain visibility while “operating at almost 42% down every single day.”
\nMultiple local law enforcement sources from Asheville who spoke to Fox News Digital last fall laid partial blame for the mass exodus of police on the city’s liberal leadership and on left-wing activists who undermine police.<\/p>\n
Foxnews<\/p>\n
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Asheville Police Chief David Zack told Fox News Digital last fall that his department is down 42% Break-ins in Asheville, North Carolina, saw a 200% monthly surge in January amid a violent crime spike in the Democrat-run tourist town that has hemorrhaged police officers in recent years. The Asheville Police Department, which serves a town of approximately […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":5327,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1154],"tags":[2276,2277,1237],"class_list":["post-5326","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-trending","tag-asheville","tag-democrat","tag-police"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5326","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5326"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5326\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5328,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5326\/revisions\/5328"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/5327"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5326"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5326"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5326"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}