Latest / APD Pod Squad / Episode 22; SPO Ryan Begley, SPO Ann Aiken, SPO Dennis Pace, and The History Minute with Hannah Silberman

Transcript

Episode 22; SPO Ryan Begley, SPO Ann Aiken, SPO Dennis Pace, and The History Minute with Hannah Silberman · APD Pod Squad

0:00
SPEAKER_02: This is the APD5 Squad.
0:04
SPEAKER_02: Coming up on this episode, we wish a happy belated Father's Day to Senior Police Officer Ryan Begley, who became a dad for the first time one day before Hurricane Helene arrived in western North Carolina.
0:19
SPEAKER_02: Senior Police Officer Ann Aiken joins me.
0:22
SPEAKER_02: From major rewards to viral videos, she's had quite a year.
0:27
SPEAKER_02: Officer Dennis Pace with the Community Engagement Division tells us what's coming up.
0:31
SPEAKER_02: And in the history minute with Hannah Silberman in a town called Beer City, it shouldn't surprise anyone the kind of business owned by the very first chief of the actual police department.
0:44
SPEAKER_02: It's all coming up on episode 22 of the APD Pod Squad.
0:50
SPEAKER_02: Officer Ryan Begley joins me right now.
0:52
SPEAKER_02: Thanks for joining me today.
0:53
SPEAKER_02: Oh, my pleasure.
0:54
SPEAKER_02: You know, with Father's Day in the month of June, we wanted to invite at least one father on here into hopefully a new one.
1:00
SPEAKER_02: And you fit the bill, because it just happened not that long ago.
1:04
SPEAKER_02: And so yours is still less than one year old, right?
1:07
SPEAKER_03: Yep, she's nine months old on the 26th.
1:09
SPEAKER_02: What's her name?
1:10
SPEAKER_03: Her name is Veda V-E-D-A.
1:12
SPEAKER_02: Veda Begley.
1:14
SPEAKER_03: Yep.
1:14
SPEAKER_03: It kind of just rolls off the tongue, doesn't it?
1:16
SPEAKER_03: Yep.
1:16
SPEAKER_03: Veda Vane Begley.
1:17
SPEAKER_02: Okay, so when was Veda born?
1:19
SPEAKER_03: Um she was born September 26th, around 8, 10 a.m.
1:23
SPEAKER_02: Okay, so that date is gonna jump out at just about everybody that has been here for the past year.
1:28
SPEAKER_03: Yep.
1:29
SPEAKER_02: That is the day before Hurricane Helene landed in Asheville.
1:33
SPEAKER_02: It is.
1:33
SPEAKER_02: So there has to be a story to go with that.
1:35
SPEAKER_03: There is a story behind this.
1:37
SPEAKER_02: Okay, well, let me have it.
1:39
SPEAKER_03: So um my wife, she got a little bit of pre-kalampsia and had to be induced early, and um we had to do a C-section because the baby was breached.
1:49
SPEAKER_03: So Veda was breached.
1:51
SPEAKER_03: And so it started storming.
1:53
SPEAKER_03: We didn't really think anything of it.
1:54
SPEAKER_03: We didn't think it was gonna be like we knew it was gonna be bad, but we didn't think it was gonna be that bad.
1:57
SPEAKER_02: Right, raining really hard and dealing with the stuff.
2:00
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, we're in Hendersonville, you know, she's pregnant, she's scared.
2:03
SPEAKER_03: You know, this is the first time we've ever had a baby.
2:04
SPEAKER_03: We went through the IVF treatment, and you know, we wanted a baby for so long that it took us about four years to have one.
2:10
SPEAKER_02: So Veda was like a miracle baby to begin with.
2:12
SPEAKER_03: 100%.
2:13
SPEAKER_03: Wow.
2:13
SPEAKER_03: So we get to the we get to the hospital, um, we get a call from her attending a physician and was like, I don't know if I'm gonna be able to make it there.
2:22
SPEAKER_03: I don't know what's gonna happen.
2:24
SPEAKER_03: I'll try.
2:25
SPEAKER_03: We'll see what's going on.
2:26
SPEAKER_03: And the one, the staff guy that was on duty was like, I'll do it if she can't.
2:30
SPEAKER_03: Well, she made it, you know.
2:32
SPEAKER_03: She, I guess her husband, you know, helped her out and they finally got to the hospital.
2:36
SPEAKER_03: Well, around 810, like I said, um, she was born.
2:40
SPEAKER_03: And when she came out, um, she had some breathing problems.
2:43
SPEAKER_03: So, you know, they had to put her on oxygen.
2:45
SPEAKER_03: And um, you know, as a new father, you don't really know what's going on.
2:49
SPEAKER_03: You know, oh god, you don't understand your emotions are doing these uh this you know charade, you just you don't know what to think.
2:56
SPEAKER_02: Flip-flops, yeah.
2:57
SPEAKER_03: Oh, 100%.
2:58
SPEAKER_03: Like the you know, the gymnastics in your heart and brain are going back and forth, back and forth.
3:03
SPEAKER_02: If it was your fifth kid, you probably wouldn't be so nervous, I would guess, but your first, I mean, and then all that happening too.
3:09
SPEAKER_03: Mm-hmm.
3:10
SPEAKER_03: So once we, you know, we get her on oxygen, um, she's all wrapped up.
3:13
SPEAKER_03: Taylor has to be separated from Aveda.
3:16
SPEAKER_03: And me as a father, I'm like, I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna stay away from the baby.
3:20
SPEAKER_03: So I stay with the baby the whole time.
3:22
SPEAKER_03: They're like, the baby's breathing wrong.
3:24
SPEAKER_03: We gotta take her into the um the NICU?
3:26
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, the NICU.
3:27
SPEAKER_03: Well, you know, it's it's it's not quite the NICU, but it's one step below, it's like called the like it's a baby care center of some sort.
3:33
SPEAKER_03: Got it.
3:34
SPEAKER_03: Um it has a name, I'm just escaping me right now.
3:36
SPEAKER_03: It's okay.
3:36
SPEAKER_03: Um but yeah, they they went there, so I'm um they got her like all bandaged up, they got oxygen in her nose.
3:45
SPEAKER_03: They have to take her blood and she's crying and all that.
3:47
SPEAKER_02: It'd be scary for you to see your newborn with all the the hoses and the bandages and just all the things.
3:53
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, the monitor, you know.
3:55
SPEAKER_02: All you want to do is what you've seen in the movies, which is just, you know, mama's holding the baby, you're there getting the photos and all that stuff.
4:02
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, it was it was it was uh by far the scariest moment of my life.
4:06
SPEAKER_03: You know, even as a police officer, you get in these situations, but you know, as personally, you're trained for those situations.
4:12
SPEAKER_03: Yes, you're not trained for this.
4:14
SPEAKER_03: I am not trained, yeah, exactly.
4:16
SPEAKER_03: So when you see that happening, you're you're it's you personally.
4:20
SPEAKER_03: You're so scared.
4:21
SPEAKER_03: You see this little baby, and you know, when they stab her with the needle to get her blood, she's crying, and you're just like, you know, you know she wants her mom.
4:29
SPEAKER_03: The mom can't be there right now because she's in the other room.
4:32
SPEAKER_03: So I'm holding this tiny little baby in my hands, and um the storm starts going bad, and then the power goes off.
4:42
SPEAKER_03: And the nurse looks at me, I look up at the nurse, and we both just freeze.
4:47
SPEAKER_03: And she goes, Well, if the power doesn't come back on, we're gonna have to bag her, you know, and just keep giving her oxygen.
4:54
SPEAKER_03: Luckily, approximately about a 30 seconds to a minute goes by, which has felt like a year.
4:59
SPEAKER_03: I would imagine.
5:00
SPEAKER_03: In my perspective, oh yeah, minute feels like an hour.
5:04
SPEAKER_03: The minute goes by, and like I said, it felt like an eternity.
5:07
SPEAKER_03: Generator kicks on.
5:08
SPEAKER_03: I'm like, I'm like, okay.
5:11
SPEAKER_03: Like decompress a little bit, the baby's still breathing, everything's still good.
5:14
SPEAKER_03: Right.
5:15
SPEAKER_03: You know, they don't have to, and they're debating right now, since she's in the shape she's in, do we need to helicopter her out of here?
5:24
SPEAKER_03: And if we can't get the helicopter out of here, do we um they have like this uh mountain unit they have here?
5:30
SPEAKER_03: Um, you know, that's comes along with mama and the trauma unit.
5:33
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, they're like for the babies, they're like, do we call them out?
5:36
SPEAKER_03: So they had to make the split second decision, really, to just say, no, we'll try to handle it here.
5:41
SPEAKER_03: Whatever happens here, we're gonna try to handle it.
5:42
SPEAKER_03: Because they're like, we're gonna have to take the baby by itself.
5:45
SPEAKER_03: Y'all can't come.
5:46
SPEAKER_03: And I said, absolutely not.
5:48
SPEAKER_02: Well, thankfully, Hendersonville uh did not get things nearly as bad as as Asheville, as far as the water and the power and things like it.
5:55
SPEAKER_02: It was bad, make no mistake.
5:57
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, but not nearly to the extent of the lost services that we experienced here in Asheville.
6:02
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, of course.
6:03
SPEAKER_03: And what happened was what was really difficult was um once my wife was able to come back and you know take care of the baby and the people um on 26, so they didn't have anywhere to go.
6:16
SPEAKER_03: They didn't have any food, they didn't have water, you know.
6:19
SPEAKER_03: So they were called coming to the hospital for help.
6:22
SPEAKER_03: So there was a whole lot of people coming for food.
6:26
SPEAKER_03: So they literally wiped out their whole reserves of food, just giving it to people.
6:30
SPEAKER_03: And then there's you know, also the you know, bad actors in the groups that wanted to do, you know, nefarious things.
6:36
SPEAKER_03: So um I had a deputy, he pulls up, he looks at me, and he sees my um I'm wearing an APD shirt because I was like, These people are trying to break in, these people are trying to do stuff, you know.
6:47
SPEAKER_03: I need law enforcement presence, you know.
6:49
SPEAKER_03: And he literally throws me a soft vest and was like, You have the hospital.
6:55
SPEAKER_03: You, you know, whatever you need, whatever you need signed, I'll sign it later.
6:58
SPEAKER_03: He protect the hospital.
7:00
SPEAKER_02: So you got deputized Henderson County Sheriffs?
7:03
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, for a second.
7:04
SPEAKER_03: Okay, and he's like, just take care of the hospital because um I'm the only one that can make it here, but I gotta take care of this out of the you know, the road or whatever.
7:11
SPEAKER_03: So I was like, fine.
7:12
SPEAKER_03: So that's what I did.
7:13
SPEAKER_03: Every single night I patrolled the hospital, made sure everybody's good, and then even went as far as I knew my power was out of my house, but I had a whole bunch of stuff in the freezer.
7:22
SPEAKER_03: So my truck's a four-wheel drive.
7:24
SPEAKER_03: So I got in my truck, made it to my house.
7:26
SPEAKER_03: I cooked all the stuff on my grill, the the pizzas, all that stuff, and then brought it to the patients that were there because they ran out of food.
7:33
SPEAKER_02: My goodness, man.
7:35
SPEAKER_02: You had some things on your plate.
7:37
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so it was uh newborn baby upstairs.
7:40
SPEAKER_02: You're down there handling security, and on the side making flapjacks over there on your grill.
7:45
SPEAKER_02: Wow.
7:46
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that's something.
7:48
SPEAKER_03: It was it was uh pretty insane.
7:50
SPEAKER_03: The actual the CEO of the hospital came down and thanked me afterwards, which he ought to.
7:57
SPEAKER_03: It was uh really appreciative, and um, we had uh we had a great talk and everything, and you know, they helped me out a lot and they did a really good job for me.
8:06
SPEAKER_03: So um I was super happy with how you know how they were and how they treated us.
8:10
SPEAKER_02: So, how's Veda?
8:12
SPEAKER_02: Okay, so we're talking about Father's Day a little bit.
8:14
SPEAKER_02: You had all these things going on, so Veda is now like nine months old.
8:19
SPEAKER_02: Yep, you're coming up on it.
8:21
SPEAKER_02: How is Veda doing?
8:22
SPEAKER_03: Uh, she's amazing.
8:23
SPEAKER_03: Of course, I'm I'm biased because she's my child.
8:26
SPEAKER_03: Um it's kind of like a ray of sunshine and just a cold day.
8:30
SPEAKER_03: You know how like you're freezing, you're so cold, and just that ray of sunshine peers down on you and you feel warm again.
8:35
SPEAKER_03: That's how it feels just to look at her every day.
8:37
SPEAKER_03: Like you just look at her smile and she just melts.
8:40
SPEAKER_03: Like she's unbelievably happy all the time.
8:44
SPEAKER_03: Just a smiling baby, just super happy, nonchalant, always, you know, she sleeps when we sleep.
8:51
SPEAKER_03: She's right now, she's cruising the couch, you know, she's trying to walk.
8:54
SPEAKER_03: She's been crawling around everywhere.
8:57
SPEAKER_03: And if she wants something, she'll yell at you a little bit, but she won't she doesn't cry unless like she really, really wants something, you know.
9:05
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, and she only does it at a necessity, not out of just I want to cry.
9:09
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, if she could like rattle off a few sentences, I'm sure she would do it at this point.
9:12
SPEAKER_02: Oh, 100%.
9:14
SPEAKER_02: She's not able quite yet, but it sounds like she's made a complete recovery health-wise.
9:18
SPEAKER_03: Oh, yeah.
9:19
SPEAKER_03: So we have a this thing, it's an outlet, it's um a thing that goes around her foot, keeps track of her oxygen and all that, and um, it stays constantly good.
9:29
SPEAKER_03: So, you know, above 92, I think is where you want it.
9:32
SPEAKER_03: Okay.
9:33
SPEAKER_03: And that's where she's always at.
9:34
SPEAKER_03: So we're always worried about it, but still, even nine months later, you still you're still cautious.
9:40
SPEAKER_02: So, where did the name Veda come from?
9:43
SPEAKER_03: So, my wife, she's um she's a she has her doctorates in pharmacy, so she's a pharmd, and one of her patients was an elderly lady that she um I guess sprung a friendship with, and her name was Veda, and she's thought thought that that was such a cool name, and it was old fashioned, but yet inspired power, and like not so common that someone's gonna be like, Oh, that's you know, she's gonna have four Vedas in her class, you know.
10:10
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I mean it's a beautiful name, and it's it's like you say, it's kind of kind of old school, it's kind of you know historic.
10:16
SPEAKER_02: Kind of I I love it.
10:18
SPEAKER_02: I think it's even with your last name Begley, Feta Begley, it just kind of rolls right off the tongue.
10:23
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, and the middle name was Evane, and I don't know if you've ever watched uh Stardust.
10:29
SPEAKER_03: Um it's a movie.
10:30
SPEAKER_03: So the fallen star in Stardust, it's a it's a actress, and her name's Evane in the movie.
10:36
SPEAKER_02: So it's Feta Evane Begley.
10:38
SPEAKER_03: Yes, Veda Evane Begley.
10:39
SPEAKER_02: It just keeps getting better.
10:40
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, it sounds like uh I tell my wife it sounds like a uh superhero name.
10:45
SPEAKER_02: All right, so as a uh new dad with the first baby, how about the first time you changed a diaper?
10:50
SPEAKER_02: How'd you feel about that?
10:52
SPEAKER_03: Oh, I didn't mind at all.
10:53
SPEAKER_03: So I am That stuff's toxic, man.
10:56
SPEAKER_03: That stuff is just oh so it got worse when she started eating regular food for real.
11:02
SPEAKER_03: Okay, but uh the first, like by me as a person, I'm pretty um nature-oriented.
11:08
SPEAKER_03: Like I don't mind taking care of the baby, especially little kids.
11:12
SPEAKER_02: Okay, we this is all audio.
11:14
SPEAKER_02: We're not, but I'm seeing a picture right now of Veda.
11:18
SPEAKER_02: You're right.
11:19
SPEAKER_02: That is a happy baby.
11:20
SPEAKER_02: Yes, she's very happy.
11:21
SPEAKER_02: I mean, she might just be farting, which we don't we never know the difference, but it it's still that is she probably is.
11:26
SPEAKER_03: So knowing her.
11:27
SPEAKER_02: That is a beautiful baby.
11:29
SPEAKER_02: No wonder you're so proud.
11:30
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, she's amazing.
11:32
SPEAKER_02: So it's everything you imagine so far.
11:34
SPEAKER_03: Oh, yeah.
11:34
SPEAKER_03: Oh, more than I imagined.
11:36
SPEAKER_03: No offense to you know anybody's parents, but my parents were that great, and it makes me look at them a different way because I'm like, hmm, when once you have something that you love so much, like I just don't understand how someone could ever abandon their kid or anything like that.
11:50
SPEAKER_03: I never thought it would change in my even my professional opinion.
11:54
SPEAKER_03: So like normally I would deal with a lot of the child um stuff that happened because I didn't have a kid, and other guys would be like, Hey, once you have kids, it's gonna change.
12:02
SPEAKER_03: You know, once you see this, you have kids, it's gonna affect you differently.
12:06
SPEAKER_03: And in my head, I was like, Yeah, okay, you know, maybe, maybe not, you know, we'll see.
12:10
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, you don't know until it happens.
12:12
SPEAKER_03: Um it it has to a certain extent.
12:14
SPEAKER_03: Like, you know, I can still compartmentalize it pretty well, but when you see those things, it's like wow, like you just don't understand it, you can't comprehend it.
12:20
SPEAKER_03: Because, like you said about changing diapers, like I love changing diapers.
12:24
SPEAKER_03: My wife, you know, she she loves what I'm doing.
12:26
SPEAKER_02: You gotta be the first person that has ever said I love changing diapers.
12:30
SPEAKER_03: Well, it's it's it's the opportunity, I guess the honor to get to.
12:33
SPEAKER_03: You know, I'm I'm just so honored to be a father that I I get to do something and take care of this baby that depends on me.
12:41
SPEAKER_03: It just makes me feel just really, really good and honored to do it.
12:45
SPEAKER_02: Well, let's go back to when you were a baby.
12:46
SPEAKER_02: So, where were you born?
12:48
SPEAKER_02: Where are you from?
12:48
SPEAKER_03: So I'm originally from Melaban, Oregon.
12:51
SPEAKER_02: Okay, way out west coast.
12:52
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
12:53
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
12:53
SPEAKER_03: I grew up uh I stayed there until I was nine.
12:56
SPEAKER_03: Okay.
12:56
SPEAKER_03: And then we moved to Atlanta, Georgia, and then uh went back and forth many times to different states.
13:02
SPEAKER_03: I went to around 20, some somewhat different schools growing up.
13:05
SPEAKER_03: Wow.
13:06
SPEAKER_03: So, you know, fun fact about me is that um I I didn't learn how to read until I was 10.
13:12
SPEAKER_02: So that will answer the question.
13:13
SPEAKER_02: What's one thing that most people don't know about you?
13:15
SPEAKER_02: So that would be you didn't read until you're because you're hopping school hopping.
13:18
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, school hopping so much.
13:20
SPEAKER_03: Well, I didn't go to school until I was 10.
13:21
SPEAKER_02: So So just moving, all the moving.
13:23
SPEAKER_03: It just never got and then yeah, I I lived with teachers, I lived with you know, police officers, I lived with principals, I lived with just random friends, um, just back and forth.
13:33
SPEAKER_03: And um I was just no one ever caught up to us.
13:36
SPEAKER_03: We always kind of just kind of skipped the system.
13:38
SPEAKER_03: And like, you know, like my younger brother was always with me.
13:41
SPEAKER_03: Like I can I memorize his social care number because I put it on his documents my whole life.
13:47
SPEAKER_02: Well, much like your baby girl, you made a a complete recovery.
13:51
SPEAKER_02: Oh, yeah.
13:51
SPEAKER_02: For somebody that didn't, you know, learn to read until you were 10.
13:54
SPEAKER_02: Here you are, obviously educated, a police officer for the Asheville Police Department.
13:58
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
13:59
SPEAKER_02: And how long have you been with the APD?
14:00
SPEAKER_03: Since 2018.
14:02
SPEAKER_02: 2018.
14:03
SPEAKER_02: So you got to experience you were here a couple years, and then you got to experience the down years, as we call them.
14:08
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
14:08
SPEAKER_02: The years of the Floyd years, the the protests, the the riots, the losing of our officers and the shrinking of the ranks.
14:16
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, actually, um, I left for um about a year and came back.
14:20
SPEAKER_03: I left not because of that.
14:22
SPEAKER_03: Um, I actually was leaving when it was coming becoming good again.
14:26
SPEAKER_03: Okay.
14:26
SPEAKER_03: It was just my I wanted to see if this was really, really the career I wanted to do for 30 years.
14:32
SPEAKER_03: And obviously it is.
14:33
SPEAKER_03: It's I I could I I try to sell insurance, which was horrible.
14:38
SPEAKER_02: So But by going away and doing something else, it helped you appreciate it more and going back.
14:42
SPEAKER_03: Oh, 100%.
14:43
SPEAKER_03: The the impact that people don't see that we have on other people is tremendous.
14:48
SPEAKER_03: I've saved people's lives here.
14:50
SPEAKER_03: Um, I've done things that are so fulfilling.
14:53
SPEAKER_03: People talk about the depressing side of this, the how hard our job is, and it is very, very difficult.
14:58
SPEAKER_03: There is very difficult aspects, but it's so much more rewarding than people give it credit for.
15:04
SPEAKER_03: I just I'm blessed that I get to do this job and help as many people and touch as many people as I do.
15:09
SPEAKER_02: So there's a lot of highs to go with the lows.
15:11
SPEAKER_02: As you mentioned, everyone kind of focuses on, boy, you must see some things.
15:15
SPEAKER_02: You know, like, yeah, I and I also get to see some things.
15:17
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
15:17
SPEAKER_02: You know, it's like I get to experience this, I got to, you know, help this person achieve this, or I was able to prevent this from happening.
15:26
SPEAKER_02: So at least I think in your mind, the positives definitely outweigh the negatives.
15:31
SPEAKER_03: Well, I always say it's is so life is how you frame it.
15:34
SPEAKER_03: You know, we all ha have our own little worldview and we all have to frame our lives a certain way.
15:40
SPEAKER_03: So I like to try to frame my life, you know, as a more positive way.
15:44
SPEAKER_03: You know, if you're thankful for everything you get or you're happy that you have stuff, then you're always gonna be in, you know, kind of a jovial mood.
15:50
SPEAKER_03: You know what I mean?
15:51
SPEAKER_03: Or try at least.
15:52
SPEAKER_03: You know, I'm not naturally a happy person.
15:54
SPEAKER_03: I'm just a I wouldn't think that.
15:56
SPEAKER_02: I think you are a happy person.
15:58
SPEAKER_02: You seem like it.
15:58
SPEAKER_02: Uh my wife would tell you differently.
16:00
SPEAKER_02: You gotta so you gotta work at it a little bit, you're saying.
16:02
SPEAKER_02: Oh, I I do 100%.
16:03
SPEAKER_03: I'm I'm a very grumpy, um not like glass half empty, half full.
16:09
SPEAKER_03: I'm just like it's a glass, who gives a sh crap, you know what I'm saying?
16:12
SPEAKER_03: So it doesn't matter, you know.
16:14
SPEAKER_03: Hold on however you want.
16:17
SPEAKER_03: About your glass.
16:18
SPEAKER_03: And you know, I'm always like that.
16:20
SPEAKER_03: But then you have these what do I do to that determines my life?
16:25
SPEAKER_03: Who do I make myself?
16:26
SPEAKER_03: Who do I want to be in the movie?
16:28
SPEAKER_03: Well, you can be whoever you want as long as you make yourself that person, right?
16:32
SPEAKER_03: So you have to find those attributes that you love and you are like, hey, I want to be like growing up, I didn't really have uh an established mother figure or father figure.
16:40
SPEAKER_03: So I saw men in my life that treated their wives well, you know, treated their kids well, were always super dependable.
16:48
SPEAKER_03: I don't want to be the man that has a million dollars, I want to be the man that has, you know, this big, huge mansion.
16:54
SPEAKER_03: I want to be the man that you can call at three o'clock in the morning to change a tire and you know he's gonna be there.
16:58
SPEAKER_03: That's what I that's who I want to be for the people that love me.
17:01
SPEAKER_02: And I think that type of attitude is something that was more common in the era before us.
17:09
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
17:10
SPEAKER_02: I I I think that generation, the greatest generation, call them what they were.
17:13
SPEAKER_02: The people in the 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s, they were raised that way that a measure of a man is that you can rely on him, that he's gonna be there for you.
17:22
SPEAKER_02: It wasn't how much he earned or where he lived.
17:24
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
17:25
SPEAKER_02: Like you describe.
17:26
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, like my wife, so um when we had the baby, uh, me and my wife had to go opposite shifts.
17:32
SPEAKER_03: Right.
17:33
SPEAKER_03: And so she's working 12 hours, I'm working 12 hours, I'm taking care of the baby, she's taking care of the baby the baby.
17:38
SPEAKER_03: Because we don't want uh someone else raising our kid, you know.
17:41
SPEAKER_03: We never saw each other.
17:42
SPEAKER_03: We never, you know, it was very difficult.
17:44
SPEAKER_03: And my wife was like, hey, I want Veda to be able to see us together.
17:49
SPEAKER_03: I want and I want to be a stay-at-home mom.
17:51
SPEAKER_03: So I said, okay.
17:53
SPEAKER_03: Um, it took us probably about two months, but she's a stay-at-home mom now.
17:56
SPEAKER_02: That's fantastic.
17:57
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
17:58
SPEAKER_02: Okay, so now that we're talking about Father's Day and Veda and your family, is your family going to grow more or is one going to be enough?
18:06
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, that's a that's a that's a question that I want to know.
18:09
SPEAKER_02: I'm sure I'm sure that has camp come up in your home, the Begley home.
18:12
SPEAKER_02: It has uh been bounced around the walls, I'm guessing, a little bit.
18:15
SPEAKER_02: And yeah.
18:15
SPEAKER_02: Sounds like it's yet to be decided.
18:17
SPEAKER_03: Well, it's so it was such nerve-wracking having Veda, and it took us that long and we had to go through the IBF process.
18:24
SPEAKER_02: Right, it wasn't an easy process to begin with.
18:26
SPEAKER_03: So my wife, she's very hesitant to go through that again.
18:29
SPEAKER_03: Understandable.
18:30
SPEAKER_03: Um, you know, because she was pregnant before we lost that first baby.
18:34
SPEAKER_03: Sorry.
18:34
SPEAKER_03: So that's that's fun.
18:35
SPEAKER_03: Um so she's very it's a very scary situation for her.
18:40
SPEAKER_03: But on the upside, we see the baby that we have now, and we're like, we don't want her to be alone.
18:46
SPEAKER_03: So I told my wife we're gonna table this until Veda gets to be, you know, around uh around one and a half.
18:53
SPEAKER_03: You got some time.
18:54
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
18:55
SPEAKER_03: And then we'll talk about that.
18:56
SPEAKER_03: You know, it's it's mainly up to her.
18:58
SPEAKER_03: She's gonna be going through it.
18:59
SPEAKER_03: I know I have a part to play in it, a huge part to play in it, but I'm also not, you know, going through the you know, the physical turmoil that a that a you know a female has to go through to have a baby, you know, the strength that it takes.
19:12
SPEAKER_02: It's is I oh my gosh.
19:15
SPEAKER_02: My grandmother was like four foot ten, and she had like eight kids.
19:20
SPEAKER_02: Wow.
19:21
SPEAKER_02: And and it I I never thought about it when I was growing up.
19:24
SPEAKER_02: I thought about it later in life.
19:25
SPEAKER_02: It's like, well, no, no wonder grandma was always kind of slouched over and looked like she was broken.
19:30
SPEAKER_02: Because, you know, she had eight kids and she was like under five foot tall and like a hundred pounds.
19:35
SPEAKER_02: Wow.
19:36
SPEAKER_02: I mean, how do you even do that?
19:37
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and my dad was the record baby size-wise in our local hospital for the longest time.
19:44
SPEAKER_02: He checked in at like 12 and a half pounds.
19:47
SPEAKER_02: Oh gosh.
19:48
SPEAKER_02: So take that math with a woman that's under five foot tall and a hundred pounds, and he comes out at twelve and a half.
19:53
SPEAKER_02: So I hope he got her Mother's Day cards and more his entire life, because that's just crazy to think about.
20:00
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, it is very crazy.
20:01
SPEAKER_02: Of course, now that the modern technology has brought things along a little bit with C-sections and things like that, all the all the different ways that babies can be brought into the world that aren't the old-fashioned way.
20:10
SPEAKER_02: Uh so that's some good news.
20:12
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, there's um me and my wife, we looked up the whole like uh history of birthing and all that stuff.
20:18
SPEAKER_03: And there's a lot of even um I would encourage people to look it up because there's even equipment that we use for trees that used to be used for childbirth.
20:27
SPEAKER_03: Okay.
20:27
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
20:28
SPEAKER_03: So it's it's uh it's it's it's that's a crazy rabbit hole to go down someday.
20:33
SPEAKER_03: It's like, wow, they went through immense things that is that I I couldn't even fathom.
20:38
SPEAKER_02: So okay, now that you've decided the uh Asheville Police Department is for you, you left, you came back.
20:45
SPEAKER_02: Any kind of aspirations toward uh another stage in your career, a a particular department you'd like to see yourself in, be it detective or just move up the ranks of patrol sergeant, lieutenant captain.
20:56
SPEAKER_02: How do you see yourself?
20:57
SPEAKER_03: Well, um I'd like to go the detective route eventually and then move up as a sergeant.
21:03
SPEAKER_03: I think that's good.
21:04
SPEAKER_03: Me personally, I think that um having that that experience of being a detective for a little while really helps you when you get out back on patrol as a officer.
21:13
SPEAKER_03: One of my um one of my sergeants, he was a detective for a while, and it was really cool to be like, Oh, I need to write search more for this.
21:21
SPEAKER_03: How do I do that?
21:21
SPEAKER_03: He knew exactly.
21:23
SPEAKER_03: You know, sometimes, and he knew like all these other tricks and all these templates and stuff like that that was available to him and he learned well he was a detective.
21:31
SPEAKER_03: And I was like, wow, that's that's pretty cool.
21:34
SPEAKER_03: That's pretty neat to have that side of it as well.
21:36
SPEAKER_03: So I think it's a different side that sometimes patrol officers don't get to see.
21:39
SPEAKER_03: I've done a little bit um through their like internship program.
21:43
SPEAKER_03: I was a detective intern for a while, okay, and I liked it.
21:46
SPEAKER_03: And then I also like doing um street crime level stuff and working with those guys because a lot of them are my friends and a lot of them are just really, really top notch guys that have a lot to offer.
21:57
SPEAKER_03: Because in this job, if you're not gaining knowledge, then you Need to leave.
22:00
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and knowledge is power.
22:01
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
22:02
SPEAKER_02: So I'm looking forward to seeing your career progress.
22:04
SPEAKER_02: Yes, sir.
22:04
SPEAKER_02: Maybe calling you Detective Begley sometime soon.
22:07
SPEAKER_02: But Ryan Begley, thanks for joining me, and congratulations on being a dad.
22:11
SPEAKER_02: Hey, thank you very much, Fred.
22:14
SPEAKER_02: Senior Police Officer Ann Aiken joins me right now.
22:17
SPEAKER_02: And thanks for sitting down with us.
22:18
SPEAKER_07: Absolutely.
22:19
SPEAKER_02: Now, in the world of Cops Speak, you do have some aliases.
22:22
SPEAKER_02: Uh Annie is what your friends call you.
22:25
SPEAKER_02: Yes.
22:25
SPEAKER_02: And Stinky Annie.
22:27
SPEAKER_02: Let's start by talking about that.
22:29
SPEAKER_02: For the people that don't know, you need to go to the Asheville Police Department Facebook page and look at this video from a few weeks ago where we worked with Make a Wish and just made a wish dream come true for young Toby suffering from leukemia.
22:47
SPEAKER_02: So you were the, shall we say, villain?
22:50
SPEAKER_04: Villain.
22:51
SPEAKER_02: So you led the villainous team that we needed Toby's help and the teenage mutant ninja turtles.
22:58
SPEAKER_02: And so tell us all about that when you first heard about it and how you were actually chosen to lead the gang.
23:03
SPEAKER_07: It was a roller coaster of kind of what we were going to end up doing and what actually ended up happening.
23:09
SPEAKER_07: But um, it kind of just started my uh Sam DeGrave, who has been on the podcast before.
23:15
SPEAKER_07: He reached out to me because he knows that I am eccentric, is probably a good way to put it when it comes to fandoms and anything ninja oriented.
23:27
SPEAKER_02: You got a thing for ninjas.
23:28
SPEAKER_07: Yes.
23:29
SPEAKER_07: I've been training in martial arts my entire life.
23:31
SPEAKER_07: I always joke, I've been kicking as long as I could walk, basically.
23:35
SPEAKER_07: Um, so I've been training for this my entire life.
23:38
SPEAKER_02: So I guess Toby wasn't the only one that loved the teenage mutant ninja turtles.
23:42
SPEAKER_02: You probably watched it growing up.
23:43
SPEAKER_07: Yes.
23:44
SPEAKER_02: So if you had to step into their shell, so to speak, you got a favorite, who'd you like to be?
23:48
SPEAKER_07: Due to copyright reasons, I could not be Shredder, which is unfortunate.
23:53
SPEAKER_07: But uh, we can't all live our all of our dreams, you know.
23:56
SPEAKER_07: So I got to kind of create my own villain in a sense.
24:01
SPEAKER_07: Um luckily enough, it was accumulation of a Deadpool costume, some ninja costumes, and then some uh Mortal Kombat characters as well.
24:12
SPEAKER_07: And we just combined those together to make kind of the perfect little supervillain for this situation.
24:16
SPEAKER_02: So the backstory of this is uh Toby is seven years old.
24:20
SPEAKER_07: I think he's he is turning six at the end of the month.
24:22
SPEAKER_02: Okay, so turning six, and a few years ago was diagnosed with leukemia.
24:27
SPEAKER_02: So he worked with Make A Wish and they asked him what he wanted to do.
24:30
SPEAKER_02: Apparently, at some point in the last couple of years, he had seen the movie with the Teenage Ninja Turtles, where they uh combined forces with a local police SWAT team to take down the villains.
24:41
SPEAKER_02: Yes.
24:42
SPEAKER_02: And so that's what this scenario was, but he didn't know about all of it.
24:46
SPEAKER_02: Yes, he knew he was gonna help the Asheville Police Department SWAT team.
24:50
SPEAKER_02: He didn't know the ninja turtles would show up.
24:52
SPEAKER_07: Correct.
24:53
SPEAKER_02: Like the legit Nickelodeon Ninja Turtles.
24:56
SPEAKER_07: They kind of started when I was informed of what was going on.
24:59
SPEAKER_07: They kind of just let me know we're gonna have one of the ninja turtles flown in.
25:03
SPEAKER_07: Oh my gosh, I was beside myself.
25:04
SPEAKER_07: That's so cool.
25:05
SPEAKER_07: One of my heroes, you know.
25:07
SPEAKER_07: And I think it was maybe two days later, actually, we're having them all flown in.
25:12
SPEAKER_07: And Nickelodeon is gonna be a huge part of this.
25:15
SPEAKER_07: So that was just the opportunity in general was, you know, we were all awestruck as to how how big it started becoming and how much everybody cared.
25:23
SPEAKER_07: And of course we care, obviously, but the way that everybody just dropped everything to be able to be a part of this, including Nickelodeon themselves, you know, it was really it was incredible.
25:35
SPEAKER_02: It's just a special day for Toby.
25:37
SPEAKER_02: So he got to experience this and also a big birthday party in a whole lot of people there singing happy birthday.
25:45
SPEAKER_02: Then Chief Lamb slaps the badge on him.
25:47
SPEAKER_02: He gets honorary APD for the day.
25:50
SPEAKER_07: You can't beat that.
25:51
SPEAKER_02: I mean, hopefully it launches him health-wise into a good place as well.
25:55
SPEAKER_02: Yes.
25:55
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and sometimes that happens.
25:57
SPEAKER_02: Absolutely.
25:57
SPEAKER_02: You know, your your mind and your body can do amazing things on its own when it has the proper motivation.
26:02
SPEAKER_07: Make a wish was explaining to us that uh, you know, a lot of times people ask, you know, how much time do they have?
26:07
SPEAKER_07: And they really hold back as to saying how much time they have because a lot of times after these children get their wish granted, they recover.
26:16
SPEAKER_07: They have a miraculous recovery after that.
26:18
SPEAKER_07: So he lives here in Asheville.
26:21
SPEAKER_07: So we are of course going to be keeping tabs on how he's doing and his recovery.
26:26
SPEAKER_07: And um, we already have plans to uh, you know, his second up-and-coming moment for us where he maybe has to battle battle Stinky Annie again if he recovers.
26:37
SPEAKER_02: Well, major prayers up for Toby.
26:39
SPEAKER_02: We'll keep him in our prayers.
26:40
SPEAKER_02: And you know, if you haven't seen the video, really you do need to see it.
26:43
SPEAKER_02: I know that everyone says, Oh, you gotta see this video, and like that's uh that's great.
26:48
SPEAKER_02: Our our guy Will Shepherd worked very hard on it, and it's it is worth the watch.
26:53
SPEAKER_02: I'm not saying that I cried, but I cried.
26:55
SPEAKER_02: Yes.
26:56
SPEAKER_06: It was a room full of tears.
26:57
SPEAKER_06: Oh my gosh, the whole weekend, really.
26:58
SPEAKER_02: And you know what?
26:59
SPEAKER_02: And a thank you to WLOS, uh, because Taylor Thompson did a great job there too.
27:03
SPEAKER_02: She spent the whole day with us and produced that story.
27:06
SPEAKER_02: So go look on their Facebook page as well for what the piece that she put together.
27:11
SPEAKER_02: Those two kind of do work hand in hand together.
27:13
SPEAKER_02: You get the full story.
27:15
SPEAKER_02: So that's that's awesome.
27:17
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
27:17
SPEAKER_02: So senior police officer Ann Aiken is with us.
27:20
SPEAKER_02: And the reason you're in here uh today is not just that, but the past six months to a year or give or take, you knew this was gonna happen.
27:27
SPEAKER_02: I knew it was gonna happen.
27:28
SPEAKER_02: You had way too high coal final of a year.
27:31
SPEAKER_02: You try and stay under the radar, it didn't, it didn't work.
27:33
SPEAKER_02: It's between this, the the effort with Make a Wish and Stinky Annie, and I was not able to attend this year's award ceremonies, the APD award ceremonies.
27:42
SPEAKER_02: And I wish I would have been there because you won a very important award this year.
27:46
SPEAKER_02: So you won, I believe it was the Medal of Honor, correct?
27:48
SPEAKER_02: Yes.
27:49
SPEAKER_02: Tell us about that.
27:50
SPEAKER_07: It's funny because I have my opinions on receiving awards is we're just doing our job, you know, and it's kind of oh, we don't need to get these awards, you know.
28:00
SPEAKER_07: Very few officers really crave that attention and to receive awards.
28:06
SPEAKER_07: And so when you do receive an award, you're almost embarrassed by it because it, you know, that day in particular is usually very intense.
28:13
SPEAKER_07: It's something you really don't want to look back on too often.
28:16
SPEAKER_07: Uh, this particular day was uh we were having a string of really, really terrible B-nees where teenagers were breaking into family homes and committing just incredibly violent acts on these families.
28:33
SPEAKER_07: And this was happening in West Asheville.
28:35
SPEAKER_07: I've I've worked in West Asheville on nights my entire career up until just a few months ago.
28:40
SPEAKER_07: And um so we have been following these teenagers with these BEs.
28:47
SPEAKER_07: Well, luckily enough, we were in the right place at the right time when one of them happened out in West Asheville, and while that was going on, we arrived on scene.
28:59
SPEAKER_07: So kind of stopped it in the act.
29:01
SPEAKER_07: And myself and my two partners, uh Officer Schindler and Officer Fadler, we all arrived on scene.
29:09
SPEAKER_07: Well, one of the offenders, once they heard us coming through the front door, ran out the back.
29:14
SPEAKER_07: They all ran out the back, but one decided to make the wrong turn and start coming at me.
29:19
SPEAKER_07: Unfortunately, this young boy also had a gun in his hand and pointed it at me.
29:25
SPEAKER_07: So those were one of those moments that you don't even have time to think.
29:29
SPEAKER_07: It's an immediate response.
29:32
SPEAKER_07: Training kicks in.
29:33
SPEAKER_07: Training kicks in immediately.
29:34
SPEAKER_07: You know, I've rewatched that body cam footage a hundred times.
29:38
SPEAKER_07: And every time my sergeant and lieutenant said, You did an amazing job, you did an awesome job in that situation.
29:45
SPEAKER_07: We had the victims were located right behind him at the time.
29:48
SPEAKER_07: You know, it was that quick response of how what how are we gonna handle this situation?
29:53
SPEAKER_07: So uh you can read the report about everything that happened.
29:57
SPEAKER_07: Uh, it was a very long day.
29:59
SPEAKER_07: He was a 16-year-old boy, and hopefully we'll never make that mistake again.
30:05
SPEAKER_07: But I'm grateful for what the outcome was.
30:08
SPEAKER_07: Everybody that was involved in those B and E's all were charged, which is incredible.
30:13
SPEAKER_07: Our detectives did an amazing work tracking down all the children um that were involved, and um, we have not had any B and E's like that since.
30:23
SPEAKER_07: So that is awesome.
30:25
SPEAKER_07: But yes, and then and then I ended up receiving an award with my with my partners with that.
30:29
SPEAKER_02: You know, I I've met all the all these officers that won awards and they say the exact same thing.
30:34
SPEAKER_02: It's like, yeah, I don't need an award, and you don't need it, but a lot of times too, when you win something like that, it's almost as much for your fellow officers as it is for the individual.
30:44
SPEAKER_02: It it's almost like it's a boost that you know we're all doing our job and doing it well and and we get to tell the story.
30:51
SPEAKER_02: Right.
30:51
SPEAKER_02: I think that's the important thing.
30:53
SPEAKER_02: And the great end result of what happened with you in that instance is a whole bunch of families and houses in West Asheville are no longer, you know, being victims or they're scared to go to bed at night or whatever because of this was happening.
31:06
SPEAKER_02: Yes.
31:06
SPEAKER_02: So that's so a lot of positives came out of that.
31:09
SPEAKER_02: Absolutely.
31:09
SPEAKER_02: And so I wish I could have been there to celebrate with you that I would have been the one that brought you up to the stage, actually.
31:14
SPEAKER_02: Maybe next year if you went something else.
31:16
SPEAKER_02: So we're gonna treat this a little bit as uh kind of our segment, which we call getting to know.
31:19
SPEAKER_02: Where are you from is a question we always ask.
31:22
SPEAKER_07: I'm from about an hour outside of Asheville called Franklin, North Carolina.
31:26
SPEAKER_02: God's country.
31:27
SPEAKER_07: Beautiful.
31:27
SPEAKER_07: I mean, I when I was a child, I would always cry to my mother that I just want to live somewhere where I can look and no mountains were blocking the way.
31:34
SPEAKER_07: And I moved away for a very short period of time to Florida, and then I came running back, basically.
31:39
SPEAKER_07: And now I never want to leave the mountains.
31:42
SPEAKER_02: Someone that's lived in flatlands and in mountains.
31:44
SPEAKER_02: I grew up in Buffalo.
31:45
SPEAKER_02: I lived in Missouri, Joplin, Missouri.
31:47
SPEAKER_02: So I've been to Kansas.
31:48
SPEAKER_02: But you want flat?
31:50
SPEAKER_07: There's flat right there.
31:51
SPEAKER_02: You you can see for 50 miles out in Kansas.
31:53
SPEAKER_02: See, Florida, at least it's blocked by the condominiums.
31:56
SPEAKER_02: Absolutely.
31:56
SPEAKER_02: But in Kansas, there's nothing but a bunch of hay, corn, and there's not much out there.
32:02
SPEAKER_02: And so I always kind of I never lived in the mountains until here.
32:05
SPEAKER_02: And now every time we go away, even for a weekend, and we're driving back, and the first time you see it coming up I-26 or wherever it is, like my wife is usually right there next to me.
32:15
SPEAKER_02: I said, honey, there's your mountains because she is also a native like you.
32:19
SPEAKER_02: And there's there's not as many out there as you would think, right?
32:22
SPEAKER_07: And it's that sense of relief of coming back to the mountains, and you're just ah, finally, you know, back home.
32:29
SPEAKER_02: So your whole family is still in Franklin?
32:32
SPEAKER_07: Pretty much everybody, my my entire family for the most part lives within uh three blocks of each other in Franklin.
32:38
SPEAKER_07: The town is a four-mile-long town.
32:40
SPEAKER_07: So there's small, there's not a lot of options.
32:43
SPEAKER_07: But um my whole family are originally from Long Island in New York.
32:47
SPEAKER_07: And I always joke, how did we end up?
32:49
SPEAKER_07: How did we end up here?
32:50
SPEAKER_07: But my m my grandmother was just planning to retire in Franklin, and that was just kind of the plan, and we followed her up.
32:57
SPEAKER_07: And um, I'm so grateful for us finding our way here because it really has become such such a home.
33:03
SPEAKER_07: I've I mean, I've lived here my entire life, so but even for them, it's it's become such a home.
33:09
SPEAKER_02: Do you know why she chose Franklin?
33:11
SPEAKER_02: Was there any other tie?
33:12
SPEAKER_07: She, I'm pretty sure at that time frame it was one of those pick a place on the map to retire.
33:17
SPEAKER_07: She had never even visited Franklin.
33:20
SPEAKER_07: She just let the realtor kind of do the choosing for her, and they bought the house and moved before even seeing the town.
33:28
SPEAKER_02: That was pre-internet.
33:29
SPEAKER_07: Yes, pre-internet.
33:31
SPEAKER_07: And really, it was just a plan for her to retire there.
33:33
SPEAKER_07: We ended up, I mean, settling in and building such a great community out there.
33:38
SPEAKER_07: And Asheville, of course, was the big city that we would always travel to, though, you know, a whole hour away.
33:44
SPEAKER_07: Um, so we would always come here for the fun culture and the, you know, drum circles and everything.
33:51
SPEAKER_02: Okay, so putting you on the spot, the other question we also ask is what's one thing that most people don't know about you?
33:58
SPEAKER_02: You're pretty forthcoming with everything.
34:00
SPEAKER_02: Challenge.
34:01
SPEAKER_02: I know, because you're you're out there.
34:03
SPEAKER_02: I say that in them with all the love in the world.
34:05
SPEAKER_07: Yes.
34:05
SPEAKER_07: I there there's not an inch of nonchalantness about me.
34:09
SPEAKER_07: No, truly.
34:10
SPEAKER_02: You're not the casual observer.
34:11
SPEAKER_02: No.
34:11
SPEAKER_02: So we we we know a lot about you already.
34:13
SPEAKER_02: For people that don't know what you look like, your hair is kind of your signature.
34:17
SPEAKER_02: Yes.
34:18
SPEAKER_02: I guess you would say it is kind of uh I don't mean to say Cruella de Bill, but it it's they get it a lot.
34:23
SPEAKER_02: Well, it's the thing that's because it's two colors.
34:25
SPEAKER_06: Yes.
34:25
SPEAKER_02: It's part blonde, part black, or or dark, dark, whatever you want to call it.
34:29
SPEAKER_02: So they know that.
34:30
SPEAKER_02: You know, some of your fellow officers that you're known for that.
34:33
SPEAKER_02: It's got some mad ninja skills, all those things.
34:36
SPEAKER_02: Is there just something back there that something you do privately, something you do on your own, something it's so hard when your life is an open book, you know?
34:43
SPEAKER_02: It it's and people struggle with this sometimes.
34:46
SPEAKER_02: Uh it just a factoid something.
34:49
SPEAKER_07: I've been thinking about this, and it would be hard.
34:51
SPEAKER_07: I had to dig dig deep because of course I'm a huge fan of the podcast.
34:55
SPEAKER_07: So I I knew this was coming, which thank God that I was prepared for this because I would have blank entirely.
35:02
SPEAKER_07: But my little tidbit of information, I have a few things, but this is the one that I've chosen to give to everybody.
35:09
SPEAKER_02: I'm on the edge of my seat here.
35:10
SPEAKER_07: Are you ready?
35:10
SPEAKER_07: Yeah, I am there was a point in my life where I taught Zumba classes.
35:16
SPEAKER_02: A Zumba instructor?
35:18
unknown: Yes.
35:19
SPEAKER_02: So when was that?
35:20
SPEAKER_07: That was a lifetime ago.
35:21
SPEAKER_07: That was, let's see, I was probably 21.
35:25
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I know you're athletic and strong, and I see you in the gym and everything else, and with the ninja skills, it's not that much of a stretch.
35:31
SPEAKER_02: Right.
35:32
SPEAKER_02: That being said, I still wouldn't pick you as a Zumba instructor.
35:35
SPEAKER_07: There was that time frame at that point in time where Zoom is really cool.
35:38
SPEAKER_07: Okay, it was cool.
35:39
SPEAKER_07: You have to trust me on this.
35:40
SPEAKER_02: I I'm with you.
35:42
SPEAKER_02: I haven't done it myself.
35:43
SPEAKER_07: It was really cool.
35:44
SPEAKER_02: Zumba was in.
35:45
SPEAKER_02: It was the it was the thing.
35:47
SPEAKER_02: Every we go through these stages, and Zumba was the thing.
35:49
SPEAKER_02: Right, exactly.
35:50
SPEAKER_07: Right.
35:50
SPEAKER_07: So yes, I was a I was a part of that, and that was here in Asheville.
35:54
SPEAKER_07: I honestly really loved it, but I had a lot more fun kicking and punching people, so I've kind of moved back to that hobby.
36:01
SPEAKER_02: I yeah, I hear Zumba and I think about that little uh automated vacuum that runs around the room.
36:06
SPEAKER_02: Yes, but that's that's Roomba, totally different.
36:09
SPEAKER_07: I'm sure you could contribute them together at some point to be semi-speaking.
36:13
SPEAKER_02: Somebody ought to the Roomba into the Zumba?
36:15
SPEAKER_02: Yes.
36:16
SPEAKER_02: Okay, I think you'd be the person to pull that off.
36:18
SPEAKER_07: I really love cleaning floors, so me too.
36:21
SPEAKER_02: Strangely, that has actually come up in the podcast before.
36:24
SPEAKER_02: When we talked, we had a post-Helene episode on things that kind of are therapeutic.
36:28
SPEAKER_02: And so Joel and Ryindris, I was talking with Joelan about things, and I and somehow it came up my passion for vacuuming carpet.
36:38
SPEAKER_02: I feel that it is just it's one of those instant gratification things that where you see the lines when you hear it picking stuff up.
36:46
SPEAKER_02: It's one of those things that doesn't take long.
36:48
SPEAKER_02: We're on the same page.
36:49
SPEAKER_07: You know we're getting old when these are the things.
36:51
SPEAKER_02: Well, no, I'm getting old.
36:53
SPEAKER_07: I'm getting up there.
36:54
SPEAKER_02: You're you're growing a uh old gracefully.
36:56
SPEAKER_02: Thank you.
36:57
SPEAKER_07: Thank you.
36:57
SPEAKER_07: So far, if I have another six-year-old beat me up again, I don't know how much grace he was.
37:03
SPEAKER_07: He was a that's a yes, he is.
37:05
SPEAKER_07: That is a tough child.
37:07
SPEAKER_02: So how long have you been with the department?
37:10
SPEAKER_07: I started, I was hired in the end of 2019.
37:14
SPEAKER_07: So started my career in 2020.
37:16
SPEAKER_02: Got some ways to go.
37:18
SPEAKER_07: Oh, yes, absolutely.
37:19
SPEAKER_02: I say that in in the best possible terms because that means I get to see you uh reach deli rise a level of sergeant, perhaps, maybe lieutenant, captain, chief, Annie Aiken.
37:31
SPEAKER_07: See what they uh what they're willing to let me do.
37:35
SPEAKER_07: I know.
37:35
SPEAKER_02: It's just you never know, do you?
37:37
SPEAKER_07: I've already put myself out there enough, I suppose.
37:40
SPEAKER_07: Something's gonna come out of it.
37:42
SPEAKER_02: Is that what it is?
37:43
SPEAKER_06: Yep.
37:44
SPEAKER_02: And so I now I know you're kind of in the recruitment and development area uh under uh James Boyce and and others, Mike McClanahan and things of that nature.
37:51
SPEAKER_02: Are you enjoying that?
37:53
SPEAKER_07: Very concerned about coming off the road.
37:55
SPEAKER_07: You know, I've worked night shift out west in West Asheville in a very, very busy area.
38:01
SPEAKER_07: Yeah.
38:02
SPEAKER_07: And I was very nervous about coming off the road and kind of working in an office.
38:09
SPEAKER_07: I've really never had a desk job per se.
38:13
SPEAKER_07: And but I also, you know, I explained to DC, it's gonna be really hard to find something I'm not gonna fall in love with.
38:22
SPEAKER_07: I I found, you know, in some of the worst jobs you could imagine, I've just I've found the the positives in it.
38:28
SPEAKER_07: And luckily enough, it didn't take too long for this, you know.
38:31
SPEAKER_07: It there's so much passion behind training us, you know, and us learning and educating officers and making sure that we're getting the experience that we need to get.
38:43
SPEAKER_07: I've kind of shifted shifted my focus from helping everyone else in the community to now we're focused on within our department.
38:53
SPEAKER_07: And so the other officers making sure that they are getting the training they need and the training they want and doing whatever we can in that sense.
39:00
SPEAKER_07: So it's it's been a lot of fun.
39:02
SPEAKER_07: It's very different.
39:03
SPEAKER_07: I definitely I work a lot of extra over the weekends so that I can still do the same cowboy stuff.
39:09
SPEAKER_02: But at a time when APD is experiencing a bit of a renaissance after being down in numbers, we were down to almost half of our force at one point.
39:17
SPEAKER_02: But now to see it growing again, yes, uh, to see the recent B L E T graduates, we've got 15.
39:22
SPEAKER_02: They're gonna be doing training now here, and then you know, at some point on the road by themselves solo, another class of 20 about to begin.
39:31
SPEAKER_02: If we keep keep having that, that's nothing but good for us and the community.
39:35
SPEAKER_02: And to be a part of that, that's gotta be exciting.
39:37
SPEAKER_07: Oh, yes, it really is.
39:38
SPEAKER_07: I mean, to see the department growing again.
39:41
SPEAKER_07: I mean, I started in 2020 and I had a lot of people say, Man, you really picked an interesting time to be, you know, in law enforcement.
39:49
SPEAKER_07: But I would always tell them it's honestly was the best time to start because that really shows who wanted to be in law enforcement and who actually wanted to be there for all the right reasons.
39:59
SPEAKER_07: And so to watch that shift from um really no one wanted to be involved in this career to now it's coming back.
40:09
SPEAKER_07: People want to be involved, they want to be that change and really want to make an impact.
40:13
SPEAKER_07: And these two groups that we have in you know, post B LT who just graduated, and then the group that's going in, which we actually we have more than 20.
40:22
SPEAKER_07: We're pushing 21, hopefully maybe even more than that.
40:25
SPEAKER_07: Nice, um, which is awesome.
40:27
SPEAKER_07: But it's it's such an awesome, you know, everyone is just fully dedicated.
40:32
SPEAKER_07: You can tell they really want to to do so much.
40:36
SPEAKER_07: Yes.
40:38
SPEAKER_02: I I mean ages and sexes and races and everything.
40:42
SPEAKER_07: I always will want more women, of course.
40:45
SPEAKER_07: And I until I have like a class full of all women, I'm not gonna be satisfied.
40:51
SPEAKER_07: But um, I think it's hard because you it's hard to talk to a female police officer and get their perspective because you hear all the goods and the bads.
41:00
SPEAKER_07: If you're ever interested in being in law enforcement and you are a female, come talk to me.
41:05
SPEAKER_07: Yeah, and I will give you the perspective for sure.
41:08
SPEAKER_07: And this is the department to work for as a female for sure.
41:12
SPEAKER_02: Chief Lamb himself has said it in that particular year, 2020, and right afterwards.
41:18
SPEAKER_02: Those that stayed behind were the ones that would he knew would be most committed.
41:22
SPEAKER_02: Yes.
41:22
SPEAKER_02: And so what we have right now is not just a a force that's growing, but a committed force that's growing.
41:29
SPEAKER_02: And and so the ones that left were the ones that maybe they weren't meant to do that forever.
41:34
SPEAKER_02: Uh, and so I think we've got a great group.
41:36
SPEAKER_02: Our group is growing, and you're a big part of it.
41:38
SPEAKER_02: And thank you so much for sitting down with us today.
41:40
SPEAKER_07: Yeah, I knew it was gonna happen.
41:42
SPEAKER_02: You did.
41:42
SPEAKER_02: You did one of those, you were just gonna get that knock on the door.
41:45
SPEAKER_02: Oh, there he is.
41:46
SPEAKER_07: It's us having our offices right next door.
41:48
SPEAKER_07: It's true.
41:49
SPEAKER_02: I need to fight for this, though.
41:50
SPEAKER_02: Tried to say no two or three times.
41:52
SPEAKER_02: So thank you for finally doing and and uh thank you for being part of the Asheville Police Department.
41:58
SPEAKER_02: It's time now for another History Minute.
42:00
SPEAKER_02: Let's welcome Hannah Silberman.
42:02
SPEAKER_02: Thanks for joining me again.
42:03
SPEAKER_00: Glad to be here.
42:04
SPEAKER_02: You know, it's uh it's hot now, right?
42:06
SPEAKER_02: Middle of summer, long days, a cold, refreshing beverage is what we need right about now, right?
42:12
SPEAKER_02: So let's talk about that universe because there's several unique tie-ins in the history of the Asheville Police Department involving refreshing beverages, including our very first chief.
42:25
SPEAKER_00: That's right.
42:25
SPEAKER_00: He could have served you a very refreshing beverage at his saloon because he was a saloon keeper.
42:31
SPEAKER_02: Aaron Powell, so where would that have been located?
42:32
SPEAKER_02: Do you know?
42:33
SPEAKER_00: It's on Court Square, which is now Pack Square.
42:36
SPEAKER_00: And it would have been quite close to where Patton Avenue intersects with Biltmore Avenue today, kind of in that that little grouping of buildings.
42:44
SPEAKER_02: Aaron Powell Okay, that general area where Vance Monument used to be kind of right the buildings that surround it.
42:49
SPEAKER_02: So somewhere right there in the thick of things.
42:52
SPEAKER_02: Now, did he continue to be the owner while he became the chief of police, or is it something he had to kind of walk away from?
42:58
SPEAKER_00: Aaron Powell Absolutely not.
42:59
SPEAKER_00: He was the saloon keeper first and chief of police second.
43:02
SPEAKER_00: The chief of police job was kind of more part-time.
43:04
SPEAKER_02: So after a shift, he'd go in behind the bar?
43:07
SPEAKER_00: Aaron Powell On the 1880s census, it actually has him listed because he became chief in 1880 and it his occupation is listed saloon keeper, and then they pencil chief of police and over above it.
43:19
SPEAKER_02: So that's awesome.
43:20
SPEAKER_02: And did he continue with that like uh as long as he lived, so to speak?
43:24
SPEAKER_02: I mean, was that his thing?
43:25
SPEAKER_00: Aaron Powell His name was Ambrose Featherston.
43:28
SPEAKER_00: Aaron Powell Yeah.
43:28
SPEAKER_02: Or remember, we've talked about him before as the first chief.
43:30
SPEAKER_02: Trevor Burrus, Jr.
43:31
SPEAKER_00: And he it wasn't just a saloon, it was a merch mercantile, so he sold lots of things like tobacco and cigarettes and but he it also was a saloon.
43:41
SPEAKER_00: Uh he ran it with a man named James Hampton, so it was the Hampton and Featherston Saloon.
43:45
SPEAKER_00: And it did move around.
43:47
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes it moved to different places on Main Street, which is now Butmore Avenue, but it was up on the square.
43:53
SPEAKER_00: But his saloon was closed in 1908 when North Carolina enacted prohibitions, so he he changed it to a General store.
44:00
SPEAKER_02: I was gonna ask about that.
44:02
SPEAKER_02: Uh if he still kind of had it when prohibition kicked in, because in North Carolina it started before the rest of the country.
44:09
SPEAKER_02: That's right.
44:09
SPEAKER_02: Uh for people that aren't aware, the prohibition went state by state by state for the longest time.
44:14
SPEAKER_02: There was quite a few states that had done it on their own before the national uh amendment came to outlaw alcohol, which lasted, I think, about ten or twelve years in the country.
44:24
SPEAKER_02: So we were one of the first, I would imagine, being 1908.
44:26
SPEAKER_00: I don't know if we were one of the first, but we were very early.
44:29
SPEAKER_00: So he he uh he had to close down his bar and uh transition to a general store until 1913 when he died.
44:36
SPEAKER_02: Is there any chance that you could knock on a certain door within the establishment and get into a back room where alcohol may have been allowed, the old speakeasies.
44:46
SPEAKER_00: I have no evidence of that, but it's very very likely.
44:50
SPEAKER_00: Um another interesting fact about him, I mean, at at the time our chiefs were elected or appointed every year, so he only served as our chief from 1880 to 1881.
44:59
SPEAKER_00: But he also was a f an early bail bondsman, which was unusual.
45:04
SPEAKER_00: It was a very fledgling sort of industry.
45:07
SPEAKER_00: It was created in the 1880s in San Francisco.
45:10
SPEAKER_00: But because he lived near the courthouse and he had a lot of liquid money, he would go bail you out for a fee if you got arrested and pay your your fines and fees up front.
45:20
SPEAKER_00: But he also wasn't afraid to go hunt you down.
45:22
SPEAKER_02: So the bail bondsman was the chief of police, was the bartender.
45:26
SPEAKER_02: That guy had a lot of irons in the fire.
45:27
SPEAKER_00: I have a picture of him, but he looks like I'm looking at it now.
45:30
SPEAKER_02: He looks very much like uh the name you would describe, Ambrose Featherston.
45:35
SPEAKER_02: He just looks like an Ambrose.
45:37
SPEAKER_02: There is such a thing as looks like an Ambrose, he looks like an Ambrose.
45:41
SPEAKER_02: So seeing as how prohibition in North Carolina, which would have meant Asheville, lasted from 1908 till I believe the year was 1933 when the uh the amendment to reintroduce alcohol legally into the country.
45:54
SPEAKER_02: So you're talking about 15 years.
45:57
SPEAKER_02: Any unique stories that occurred during that time uh involving prohibition in Asheville?
46:02
SPEAKER_00: Well, prohibition was definitely a hot topic for police officers during the time because they were either blamed for there being too many drunk people in the streets or praised for arresting all the drunk people in the streets.
46:14
SPEAKER_02: So was Asheville still a tourist destination then?
46:16
SPEAKER_02: People were coming here, they were wanting a good time, that type of thing.
46:19
SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
46:20
SPEAKER_00: So the alcohol was always flowing one way or the other, and it was very hard with the limited staffing that we had for our officers to pursue it wholeheartedly.
46:29
SPEAKER_02: We could assume there was no Lazoom party bus at the time.
46:32
SPEAKER_02: However, you could probably get a drink uh quite easily, I would imagine, around town.
46:36
SPEAKER_02: Just gotta know the right guy.
46:38
SPEAKER_00: The way they refer to the speakeasies where it was blind tigers.
46:41
SPEAKER_00: So our officers would try to go quote unquote tiger hunting to take care of those.
46:45
SPEAKER_02: Do you know the origins of that?
46:46
SPEAKER_02: That's an interesting term.
46:47
SPEAKER_00: I think it had to do with the signs or signals that they used to put out in front of speakeasies, and they would have like uh different toys or items in the window, and one of them was a tiger.
46:56
SPEAKER_00: But seeing so everybody knew Yeah, I think that went away and it just became the term.
47:01
SPEAKER_02: There's actually uh a tavern in Charleston, maybe some people have been to it called the Blind Tiger.
47:05
SPEAKER_02: I was there a couple times myself, and uh I'm sure it's not the only town that has one of those since the term is out there.
47:10
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, they they did lots of interesting raids.
47:13
SPEAKER_00: Um there was a whole police commission that was established and abolished after two years kind of to encourage our police officers to enforce prohibitions.
47:21
SPEAKER_00: But kind of an interesting tie-in.
47:23
SPEAKER_00: And um in May of 1911, our department executed a raid on a liquor stash in town.
47:28
SPEAKER_00: It was headed by a Captain Frank Jordan, and he raided one and built more that had 150 barrels of whiskey, which would have been a lot.
47:37
SPEAKER_02: That's gotta be a big facility.
47:39
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and it happens that it was owned by a Mr.
47:41
SPEAKER_00: Thrash, who is the same man who shot Chief James in 1898.
47:45
SPEAKER_02: We talked about that story.
47:47
SPEAKER_02: Everything coming full circle.
47:48
SPEAKER_00: It was a small town.
47:49
SPEAKER_02: Well, that's true.
47:50
SPEAKER_02: So much like uh people like Al Capone got wealthy by selling alcohol and things like that.
47:56
SPEAKER_02: Was there anybody here in town that was just kind of suggesting a Vanderbilt?
48:00
SPEAKER_02: I'm just saying someone got rich on it.
48:02
SPEAKER_02: Was there like a one name that stood above the rest that we know of?
48:05
SPEAKER_02: Maybe that guy.
48:06
SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
48:07
SPEAKER_00: There's very possible that makes something up for us right now.
48:10
SPEAKER_00: I know about police history, I don't know.
48:12
SPEAKER_02: Something along those lines.
48:13
SPEAKER_02: Well, we've come a long way since.
48:15
SPEAKER_02: Obviously, uh Asheville is one of the beer cities in the country when it comes to craft beer, having multiple times won the title of beer city USA.
48:24
SPEAKER_02: I think it was three years in a row we did that, and then we let other people win because we were just winning it over and over and over.
48:30
SPEAKER_02: We have more craft breweries per capita than any other city in the country.
48:34
SPEAKER_02: So clearly we have turned our backs on the era of uh non-legal alcohol and gone full bore into the legal beer business.
48:41
SPEAKER_02: And we have several distilleries here as well.
48:43
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and I I will put another pitch in for Mr.
48:45
SPEAKER_00: Featherston.
48:46
SPEAKER_00: He was an original craft brewer.
48:47
SPEAKER_00: He very briefly owned a brewery called the Featherston and Freck Brewery.
48:53
SPEAKER_02: Featherston and Freck.
48:55
SPEAKER_02: Yes.
48:55
SPEAKER_02: I love the name of that.
48:56
SPEAKER_02: There's something about that that just kind of rolls off the tongue, doesn't it?
48:58
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
48:59
SPEAKER_02: Somebody should recreate that.
49:00
SPEAKER_02: The new Featherston and Freck, FNF beer.
49:02
SPEAKER_00: There you go.
49:03
SPEAKER_00: See?
49:03
SPEAKER_02: It's got a great ring to it.
49:04
SPEAKER_02: So tying it all together once again with Beer City USA.
49:08
SPEAKER_02: And as we celebrate the 150th anniversary of the Asheville Police Department, I am loving all these stories.
49:14
SPEAKER_02: Hannah Silberman, thank you again.
49:16
SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
49:25
SPEAKER_02: Well, thank you for having me.
49:26
SPEAKER_02: It's your second time in the chair, so your old hat at this now.
49:29
SPEAKER_01: Uh don't know about old hat, but yeah, um second time around.
49:32
SPEAKER_01: We'll see if it gets any better.
49:34
SPEAKER_02: Okay, so uh we've now passed the summer stolstice.
49:37
SPEAKER_02: Sur solstice.
49:39
SPEAKER_02: Yes.
49:40
SPEAKER_02: Easy for me to say, right?
49:41
SPEAKER_01: The longest day of the year.
49:42
SPEAKER_02: Yes, we got the long days, the hot days lately.
49:46
SPEAKER_02: So what do you guys got got going on?
49:47
SPEAKER_02: You got things to beat the heat.
49:49
SPEAKER_02: I know community engagement's always doing stuff.
49:51
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, we just wrapped up our uh second junior police academy.
49:55
SPEAKER_01: That was a week of a lot of different events.
49:59
SPEAKER_01: We're hoping to grow it to possibly do two academies next year, so be on the lookout for that as that comes up.
50:07
SPEAKER_02: I was out there for the day that we were at we had the uh bomb squad out there and the canines.
50:11
SPEAKER_02: And and I could tell the kids were not quite expecting uh some of the things that occurred from the bomb squad when they used the water jet on the watermelon.
50:22
SPEAKER_02: Right?
50:22
SPEAKER_02: They that thing blew up like it was an explosive device, and I don't think they saw that coming.
50:28
SPEAKER_02: So the element of surprise was key to that.
50:30
SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
50:31
SPEAKER_01: I mean, everything that we had they they seemed to always enjoy.
50:35
SPEAKER_01: I asked them multiple times, like what could we do better?
50:38
SPEAKER_01: And they never one had anything of what they can do better.
50:40
SPEAKER_01: They just enjoyed all of the aspects that we keep trying to do for them.
50:43
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it seems like they all had a really good time, and let's hope that program keeps growing.
50:47
SPEAKER_02: So, what else you got?
50:48
SPEAKER_01: Aaron Powell The big thing that we have coming up at the first Tuesday of August is the national night outs.
50:55
SPEAKER_01: That's right.
50:55
SPEAKER_01: We're promoting that now to try to get communities that that want to participate to go ahead and fill out that form to let us know, and we will try our best to have representation at your National Night Out block party.
51:10
SPEAKER_01: So where do they get that form?
51:11
SPEAKER_01: Where do they go?
51:11
SPEAKER_01: You can go to our website or you can reach out to anyone in community engagement and we can send that out to you.
51:16
SPEAKER_01: Um Senior Officer Debbie LaCroix is the officer that's actually controlling or managing that list.
51:23
SPEAKER_01: So she's the one that lets us know who submitted the forms, who has not.
51:28
SPEAKER_01: And we're just right now trying to get a hold of of communities that want to participate.
51:34
SPEAKER_01: Do you get any special requests for officer Cora to come out parties?
51:38
SPEAKER_01: Cora gets her own request daily.
51:40
SPEAKER_01: It seems like everybody wants her to come out.
51:43
SPEAKER_01: So I'm not quite sure where Debbie's gonna try to get Cora to go out to.
51:47
SPEAKER_01: We last year we had several different neighborhoods that that wanted to have their own block party, and I think I went to four or five myself, and maybe I can't stay for the whole time, but I'll make an appearance to a few people and then have to leave to go to another one.
52:02
SPEAKER_02: It's a fun day, uh not just for the communities, but also for you and the officers of community engagement.
52:07
SPEAKER_02: You get to meet different people, a lot of them in one day in different places throughout town.
52:12
SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
52:12
SPEAKER_01: We try to show up to the neighborhood uh meetings whenever we can, but not everybody that's in the neighborhood shows up to their meetings, whether it's monthly, quarterly, or annually.
52:22
SPEAKER_01: And this is a way that some of the people that don't show up to the meetings get to see us and get to interact with us and we get to talk to them about what's going on in in in their neck neck of the wood woods.
52:34
SPEAKER_02: Did anybody go the extra mile last year, like uh bring out like a DJ and have a dance party or like an ice cream social or something?
52:41
SPEAKER_01: Not of the ones I went to.
52:42
SPEAKER_01: I heard uh Shiloh and uh Biltmore Park had a lot of stuff and then Kilworth Force also had a big block party.
52:53
SPEAKER_02: I went to Biltmore Park.
52:54
SPEAKER_02: They had uh live music and everything right there by the uh I think it was by the YMCA, I think it was.
52:58
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
52:58
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that was fun.
53:00
SPEAKER_01: I went to a lot smaller events.
53:02
SPEAKER_01: Um the ones I went to were the neighborhoods that I was a part of last year, and so it was more the downtown neighborhoods, and uh he had a couple in North Asheville.
53:12
SPEAKER_01: And they only had a few people, but everybody that that was that there had a great time and and uh really enjoyed themselves.
53:19
SPEAKER_01: Aaron Powell And it's always the first Tuesday in August, so that is coming up pretty soon.
53:22
SPEAKER_01: It is, and that's why we're trying to push it out and see which neighborhoods want to participate so we can figure out how we can split our resources to uh make sure that we have representation at all of them.
53:34
SPEAKER_02: All right, so go to the Asheville Police Department page and invite us out.
53:37
SPEAKER_02: We'll come join you at your party.
53:38
SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
53:39
SPEAKER_01: Um I believe it's either five or six is usually when the first one starts.
53:44
SPEAKER_01: But we can adjust to uh to whenever you guys want to have your your blog party.
53:49
SPEAKER_02: Awesome.
53:50
SPEAKER_02: So that's in August, and that's coming up here in just a few weeks.
53:53
SPEAKER_02: And what's after that?
53:54
SPEAKER_01: Before that, we have just several different summer camps wanting to do um tours of the police department, and I just got another request today for one next month.
54:05
SPEAKER_01: And so we got several was school out, and there's all kinds of summer camps, and get I think in July we have two of them in one week, and then we just got another one the next week.
54:17
SPEAKER_01: So if anybody's running a summer camp and interested in a tour, or you have your own group, Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, any of the clubs, and they want to do a tour of the department and get uh to see the inner workings of it, um, by all means, that's something that we do.
54:35
SPEAKER_01: We just did a homeschool tour, I think, uh a couple weeks ago, the week before our junior police academy.
54:42
SPEAKER_01: So that's another thing that keeps us busy, especially with the the summer, is doing tours of the police department.
54:47
SPEAKER_01: Give me a heads up when those land so I can clean up my desk.
54:50
SPEAKER_01: It's kind of a mess in there right now.
54:52
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, we we try to let people know.
54:54
SPEAKER_01: Some of them are bigger and want to see the department, and some of them are just, hey, we only have uh an hour or a half hour, and we'll get them in the room and we'll just have a few people go and talk to them about about and show them the police car.
55:08
SPEAKER_02: So when it comes to these tour groups, what's the one thing that they all want to see or want to do the most?
55:14
SPEAKER_02: Is it like I want to meet the chief or I want to see his office or I want to see the can you show me inside a squad car?
55:19
SPEAKER_02: What's the what's the big thing they all want to do?
55:21
SPEAKER_01: Aaron Powell Well, since we work with K9 Corus, she's always the big hate.
55:25
SPEAKER_01: And lately, um whenever we bring out a drone, the kids always enjoy the drone information that seeing the drone.
55:33
SPEAKER_01: Um a lot of them, if we had the drone hooked up to a monitor, they like to be able to see themselves in the mo in in the uh TV or monitor, uh, the showing the kit how the camera works.
55:44
SPEAKER_01: And most of the kids will end up saying, Oh, that sounds like a fun job.
55:47
SPEAKER_01: And even some of the parents will say, Hey, I think I could do that.
55:52
SPEAKER_02: No, you guys are always planning some things out like a month, two months in advance.
55:55
SPEAKER_02: So, what else we got going on down the road a bit?
55:57
SPEAKER_01: We haven't scheduled our next Coffee with a Cop yet, but that should be coming out in the next couple months.
56:03
SPEAKER_01: Uh once we get that out, we'll let you guys know about when Coffee with a cop is.
56:07
SPEAKER_01: And we just had a blood drive also in the middle of the junior police academy.
56:12
SPEAKER_01: We had a blood drive.
56:13
SPEAKER_01: They came and put a bus in front of headquarters.
56:16
SPEAKER_01: And we had a, I guess, a really good turnout with that there.
56:20
SPEAKER_01: So and probably next next quarter we'll do another blood drive as well.
56:24
SPEAKER_01: Got a point for me.
56:25
SPEAKER_01: I was too busy with the junior police academy, or I would have donated to.
56:29
SPEAKER_02: You know, for summers instead of coffee with a cop, maybe we should do like slushy with a cop or like milkshake with a cop.
56:34
SPEAKER_01: I'm all down for that or snow comb.
56:36
SPEAKER_01: I'm a big snow comb thing.
56:38
SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
56:39
SPEAKER_01: So I like that.
56:41
SPEAKER_01: I'm game for anything, especially ice cream or anything cold like that, especially when it's hot.
56:47
SPEAKER_01: Um, but we'll see what we can do.
56:49
SPEAKER_01: Officer Dennis Pace, thank you again.
56:50
SPEAKER_02: All right, thank you.
56:52
SPEAKER_02: Thanks for listening to the APD Pod Squad, and thank you to my guests, Officer Ryan Begley, Officer Ann Aiken, Officer Dennis Pace, and Hannah Silberman with The History Minute.
57:04
SPEAKER_02: Make sure you subscribe, like, add to your library or playlist, make it a favorite, and spread the word.
57:09
SPEAKER_02: Post a link in your socials, tell a friend or neighbor, the nice old lady at church, or even the young man bagging your groceries.
57:15
SPEAKER_02: If you have a question about, well, almost anything, call 250-8800, leave a message, and ask the chief.
57:22
SPEAKER_02: That's 250-8800.
57:25
SPEAKER_02: Or you can email APD Podcastfeedback at AshevilleNC.gov.
57:31
SPEAKER_02: Same goes if you have a topic suggestion or something you'd like to hear discussed.
57:35
SPEAKER_02: You can use that same number, 250-8800, and leave a voicemail, or email apdpodcastfeedback at ashevillenc.gov.
57:44
SPEAKER_02: So, got an idea?
57:45
SPEAKER_02: Let me know.
57:46
SPEAKER_02: I'm Rick Rice, and this is the APD Pod Squad.