Latest / APD Pod Squad / Episode 12; Introducing The History Minute with Hannah Silberman, Getting to know Officer Emily Pontiakos and CRO Carrie Lee, plus Capt. Brandon Moore

Transcript

Episode 12; Introducing The History Minute with Hannah Silberman, Getting to know Officer Emily Pontiakos and CRO Carrie Lee, plus Capt. Brandon Moore · APD Pod Squad

0:00
SPEAKER_01: This is the APD Pod Squad.
0:04
SPEAKER_01: Coming up on this episode, we'll be getting to know Emily Pontiakos, one of the newest officers with the Asheville Police Department.
0:12
SPEAKER_01: We'll be introducing the History Minute with Hannes Silberman as we look back into the annals of the APD and pluck a moment from history as we celebrate our 150th anniversary this year from the Community Engagement Division, Officer Carrie Lee.
0:28
SPEAKER_01: And some exciting news from Captain Brandon Moore about our drone program.
0:33
SPEAKER_01: Thanks for joining us on the APD Pod Squad.
0:35
SPEAKER_01: Let's get it started.
0:37
SPEAKER_01: As we continue to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the Asheville Police Department, in the last episode, we featured the longest tenured officer.
0:46
SPEAKER_01: And on this episode, one of our newest officers.
0:48
SPEAKER_01: Thanks for joining us, Officer Emily Pontiakos.
0:51
SPEAKER_05: Thanks for having me.
0:52
SPEAKER_01: Did I get that right in the pronunciation?
0:54
SPEAKER_05: Yes, you did.
0:55
SPEAKER_01: All right, because that's kind of a tricky one, obviously, uh Greek in nature, I would guess, right?
1:00
SPEAKER_01: Correct.
1:00
SPEAKER_01: So we've spoken.
1:01
SPEAKER_01: I've bumped into a few times.
1:02
SPEAKER_01: We know each other a little bit, but our listeners may not.
1:05
SPEAKER_01: This is the getting to know segment.
1:08
SPEAKER_01: So we ask a couple of questions as a way to get to know you.
1:11
SPEAKER_01: First and foremost, where were you born?
1:14
SPEAKER_05: Uh I was born in New Jersey, but I was raised in California.
1:17
SPEAKER_05: And then I just moved here when I started working here about a a little over a year ago.
1:21
SPEAKER_01: So you went coast to coast and then landed in the southeast.
1:24
SPEAKER_05: Oh yeah.
1:25
SPEAKER_05: I gotta find the right state.
1:26
SPEAKER_05: And so far, North Carolina is doing it for me.
1:29
SPEAKER_01: I think you found it.
1:29
SPEAKER_01: So why Asheville?
1:31
SPEAKER_05: There was no specific reason.
1:32
SPEAKER_05: I was just looking for something that had a city feel, but wasn't too big because I came from a bigger city in California.
1:39
SPEAKER_05: But I was also ready to have the mountain folk and all the good stuff that North Carolina offers, and I was just like, all right, let's try this place.
1:47
SPEAKER_01: So it's just you here.
1:49
SPEAKER_01: So where's your family located now?
1:51
SPEAKER_05: I got my mom and two sisters out in California still.
1:55
SPEAKER_05: I got my brother in Texas.
1:57
SPEAKER_05: Oh, three sisters.
1:58
SPEAKER_05: She's she's about to move to Texas though with my brother.
2:01
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
2:01
SPEAKER_01: So wow, Texas too.
2:02
SPEAKER_01: So New Jersey, Texas, California.
2:05
SPEAKER_01: So let me ask you this uh why all the moving around when you were younger?
2:09
SPEAKER_05: See, I went to school in West Virginia and I enjoyed leaving California and experiencing the other side of the country and all the different types of people that I got to meet.
2:18
SPEAKER_05: And then I just moved to Florida, Tennessee, here, and I was just like, I just want to meet all the different kinds of people that there can be out here.
2:27
SPEAKER_01: West Virginia and Western North Carolina have a lot in common as far as at least uh what it looks like with the mountains, uh the topography of the land.
2:34
SPEAKER_01: And matter of fact, in our last episode while talking with uh Officer Kerry Lee, uh she actually was kind of raised in West Virginia where her father moved at one point.
2:43
SPEAKER_01: So what part of West Virginia were you going to school in?
2:46
SPEAKER_05: Uh it's called Salem.
2:47
SPEAKER_05: It's about 45 minutes south of Morganton.
2:50
SPEAKER_05: Oh.
2:50
SPEAKER_05: Morgantown.
2:51
SPEAKER_01: That's beautiful, right through there.
2:52
SPEAKER_01: That's not too far from the New River Gorge area.
2:55
SPEAKER_05: I played soccer in college, so we would always do a little whenever we go to a game, we'd be like, all right, what kind of hikes can we find today?
3:02
SPEAKER_05: And we'd make a day trip out of it instead of just for whatever time our game was.
3:06
SPEAKER_01: So has your family visited you here yet to see Asheville?
3:08
SPEAKER_05: Well, my brother and his girlfriend have been out here.
3:11
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
3:11
SPEAKER_05: Um they loved it when they came to visit, and then that's one of the reasons why I even looked at coming out here.
3:16
SPEAKER_05: And then I was like, okay.
3:17
SPEAKER_01: You're one of our newer officers.
3:19
SPEAKER_01: Uh I remember actually your swearing in was not too long ago.
3:22
SPEAKER_01: When was your official join date?
3:24
SPEAKER_05: Technically November of last year.
3:26
SPEAKER_05: No November was 23.
3:28
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
3:28
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
3:28
SPEAKER_01: So you were here.
3:29
SPEAKER_01: Okay, so you actually arrived a little before I did.
3:32
SPEAKER_01: Uh so we're both kind of on the same uh the same trajectory, I guess, right?
3:35
SPEAKER_01: Except that you'll be here longer because I'm much older.
3:37
SPEAKER_01: But now, if there's a certain area of the police department that you'd like to see yourself in at one point, what would that be?
3:44
SPEAKER_05: I'm really interested in trying to get on the ERT team.
3:46
SPEAKER_05: Um, there hasn't been a female yet.
3:48
SPEAKER_05: There are some other female officers that are trying to get onto it, and I'm root for them and hope that they make it.
3:53
SPEAKER_05: I hope that I get to be on it.
3:54
SPEAKER_05: If not, I love animals, canine officer, and all of my FTOs were canine officers, minus one.
4:01
SPEAKER_05: And I think they were just like, this is the path you want to go down, since they gave me every FTO as a canine officer.
4:07
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
4:07
SPEAKER_01: And well, see, here's the thing.
4:08
SPEAKER_01: I know that you love animals, and I know something about you that most people do not.
4:12
SPEAKER_01: So what is that one thing that most people don't know about you?
4:18
SPEAKER_05: When I lived down in Florida, I wanted to do the most Florida thing that a Florida person can do, so I worked at an alligator park.
4:24
SPEAKER_01: Of course you did.
4:25
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
4:27
unknown: Yes.
4:30
SPEAKER_01: If you're not wrangling manatees, I guess that would be the the other Florida thing.
4:34
SPEAKER_01: So you come in literal contact with alligators, like grabbing them and like wrestling them or so.
4:40
SPEAKER_05: We would do um little alligator shows.
4:42
SPEAKER_05: We had a little over a hundred alligators, and we would just have a few months old, up to about six to eight years, depending on how big they would get.
4:50
SPEAKER_05: Um and so we would do alligator shows.
4:51
SPEAKER_05: We had an albino alligator.
4:53
SPEAKER_05: She recently passed away a couple years ago.
4:55
SPEAKER_05: Yeah, she her name was Pearl.
4:56
SPEAKER_05: She was my favorite.
4:58
SPEAKER_05: I get to go hands-on all the time, do feeding shows.
5:01
SPEAKER_05: Everybody loved it, and I loved it.
5:03
SPEAKER_05: It was one of my favorite jobs.
5:05
SPEAKER_01: So how dangerous are they to people that now that live here, maybe they've been down to Florida or down to the coast, and they realize just kind of like like any other wild animal, you leave them alone, they leave you alone.
5:16
SPEAKER_01: Alligators can be a little more unpredictable, though.
5:18
SPEAKER_01: They can be, they've got a mean streak to them.
5:20
SPEAKER_01: Did you ever see that side?
5:21
SPEAKER_05: Yeah, the babies.
5:22
SPEAKER_05: I've been bit by the babies, but just feels like a little paper cut, but like a lot of them because they have about a hundred teeth.
5:29
SPEAKER_01: A lot of teeth.
5:30
SPEAKER_05: Um, but the worst kind of alligators are the ones that are used to people because they're they're not scared of you, like a squirrel.
5:36
SPEAKER_05: Squirrels are always going to run away unless they're used to you.
5:39
SPEAKER_05: Same thing with alligators.
5:40
SPEAKER_05: So the most dangerous alligator is the one that's used to people.
5:42
SPEAKER_05: So working with alligators that only know people and don't know wildlife, you're more likely to get bit by them than if you saw one in the wild.
5:49
SPEAKER_05: Unless you have everybody around the neighborhood that's like, oh yeah, that's my alligator Gale over there.
5:54
SPEAKER_05: I feed them every day.
5:56
SPEAKER_05: Then they're more likely to be like, Where's my food?
5:59
SPEAKER_01: Kind of like bears in a way.
6:00
SPEAKER_01: You're not supposed to feed them.
6:01
SPEAKER_01: Don't, you know, don't get them accustomed to people.
6:03
SPEAKER_01: We did have one in my backyard when I lived in Charleston, however, his name was Gary.
6:06
SPEAKER_01: Gary the Gator.
6:07
SPEAKER_05: Gary the Gator.
6:08
SPEAKER_01: He was about um uh I would say about six feet, you know, from from nose to tail.
6:13
SPEAKER_01: So average size, not big, you know, not small, probably a couple of years old.
6:17
SPEAKER_01: People said he'd been there for a few years.
6:19
SPEAKER_01: He was the only one, though.
6:21
SPEAKER_01: I don't know how he survives as the only alligator.
6:23
SPEAKER_01: You would think there'd be more than one, and there probably was, but he was the only one that we saw.
6:27
SPEAKER_05: Whenever I was learning about alligators to be able to do the shows as they're more educational base, they come all the way up, all the way up to North Carolina, is what we'd say.
6:35
SPEAKER_05: And it's just crazy.
6:37
SPEAKER_05: If there's water, they'll find a way.
6:39
SPEAKER_05: And they're overpopulated in Florida and Louisiana, so they'll just go and make their way.
6:43
SPEAKER_05: And if they feel like they can survive it, they'll live it.
6:46
SPEAKER_05: And it's weird.
6:47
SPEAKER_01: Honestly, I was fascinated by it.
6:49
SPEAKER_01: I wasn't afraid because I he wanted nothing to do with me.
6:51
SPEAKER_01: He wasn't big enough to, you know, look at us as anything.
6:54
SPEAKER_01: We didn't have any tiny dogs running around, so we didn't have anybody threatened there either.
6:58
SPEAKER_01: So my little backyard had a little canal, and so we had uh Gary the Gator.
7:02
SPEAKER_01: Uh we actually had a river otter that would come and go, which was pretty cool.
7:05
SPEAKER_05: That is pretty sick.
7:06
SPEAKER_01: We had all these birds of prey that were pretty awesome too.
7:08
SPEAKER_01: So uh Anhingas, which are like snake birds, if you've seen them before.
7:12
SPEAKER_01: Super cool to watch them fish, like to go down and get a fish and then come up and eat it.
7:16
SPEAKER_01: Uh, we had uh we had some owls that we saw like hunting at night, and of course hawks and then uh osprey and or osprey.
7:24
SPEAKER_01: Osprey?
7:25
SPEAKER_01: I think it's osprey.
7:27
SPEAKER_01: I always I pronounce it wrong every time.
7:29
SPEAKER_05: I can't.
7:30
SPEAKER_05: Once I moved to this side of the of the country, I was like, everyone pronounces everything weird, so I have no idea.
7:35
SPEAKER_01: Fair enough.
7:37
SPEAKER_01: So what other animals uh would you want to have like as a as a pet?
7:42
SPEAKER_01: Obviously not an alligator.
7:43
SPEAKER_01: You love animals.
7:44
SPEAKER_01: You mentioned the canine unit.
7:46
SPEAKER_01: So dogs, cats?
7:47
SPEAKER_05: Um well I currently have two dogs, three cats, two ferrets.
7:50
SPEAKER_01: Good gosh.
7:51
SPEAKER_05: And when I lived in Florida, I had an extra bedroom and I lived by myself, so I took in every animal I ever found, and every animal that someone would post on Facebook that they didn't want, and then somehow word got out and I was just like the local person they would give their animals to, and I'd take them to the vet, make sure they were good, and find them good good homes after.
8:11
SPEAKER_05: So I've had snakes, um bearded dragons, leopard geckos, tarantulas, and then your basic house pets and bunnies and stuff like that.
8:21
SPEAKER_01: And you live by yourself?
8:22
SPEAKER_05: Uh no, I live with my girlfriend and all my animals now.
8:24
SPEAKER_05: Oh, okay.
8:25
SPEAKER_01: So you at least have somebody else to help you out there.
8:27
SPEAKER_01: I was gonna say that is a lot for one person to handle.
8:29
SPEAKER_05: It is my little mini zoo.
8:31
SPEAKER_05: I love the I love those little guys, but it it is work.
8:34
SPEAKER_05: My favorites are about six years old, so getting a little older.
8:37
SPEAKER_05: So they have little special needs, but they're my babies.
8:41
SPEAKER_01: So you haven't been here that long in Asheville or as a member of the Asheville Police Department.
8:46
SPEAKER_01: So uh tell me some of your favorite things, things that you've discovered that you found.
8:49
SPEAKER_01: Maybe you've got a go-to restaurant or you just discovered this or this activity or this hike.
8:54
SPEAKER_01: What's your what's what's some of the things you've found that you're enjoying so far?
8:58
SPEAKER_05: Um I recently picked up mountain biking, so that's exciting because there's a lot of trails here.
9:02
SPEAKER_05: Um and then I discovered the Burn Peak Park, Mountain uh Mountain Bike Park out in Brevard.
9:09
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
9:10
SPEAKER_05: And so I love that because of the storm.
9:12
SPEAKER_05: It hasn't I don't think they've I don't know if they've opened up yet, but I love that guy.
9:16
SPEAKER_05: I love watching all his YouTube videos.
9:18
SPEAKER_05: So I've just gotten really big into mountain biking, plus my two dogs love to run, love to do outside things.
9:24
SPEAKER_05: So it's mainly olive um Pisca.
9:28
SPEAKER_05: I is it Pisca Nation?
9:29
SPEAKER_05: Pisca.
9:30
SPEAKER_05: Pisga.
9:30
SPEAKER_01: Kind of like a Z Pisga.
9:32
SPEAKER_05: Pisga.
9:32
SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
9:33
SPEAKER_05: The Pisgah force.
9:34
SPEAKER_05: I'm trying to just fully emerge and see all that I can find out there.
9:38
SPEAKER_05: And got a little rooftop tent, do some camping with our dogs.
9:42
SPEAKER_05: One of my cats, the other two cats are not too much of outdoor, but one of my little cats found him outside.
9:49
SPEAKER_05: So he loves the outside, so I take our two dogs and one of a cat's and go camping and do that fun stuff.
9:54
SPEAKER_01: So Bent Creek is right around the corner from my house.
9:56
SPEAKER_01: So I assume you've been mountain biking or running there.
9:59
SPEAKER_05: Oh yeah.
9:59
SPEAKER_01: That's where I like to go.
10:00
SPEAKER_01: I I go to the Hard Times Trail.
10:01
SPEAKER_01: It's one of the ones that I like to go to and whatnot.
10:04
SPEAKER_01: So yeah, I'm sure you've been out there.
10:05
SPEAKER_05: Oh yeah.
10:06
SPEAKER_05: I my first my first bike ride out there, I was like, oh, a double blue diamond.
10:10
SPEAKER_05: It's fine.
10:11
SPEAKER_05: I can try it.
10:12
SPEAKER_05: And I definitely did not make it.
10:14
SPEAKER_05: My dog left me once I uh hit a tree.
10:17
SPEAKER_01: Oh, jeez.
10:18
SPEAKER_05: And I broke my phone.
10:19
SPEAKER_05: And my girlfriend at the time left her phone in the car.
10:22
SPEAKER_05: She didn't want to do any crazy trails, so I was like, Oh, I'm gonna try this.
10:25
SPEAKER_05: Broke my phone, she didn't have a phone, and we were there for like maybe three hours trying to I was trying to figure out how to find her and also get my dog back because my dog was like, see ya, I'm on my way.
10:35
SPEAKER_05: It was downhill.
10:36
SPEAKER_05: I hit a tree, he left me.
10:38
SPEAKER_01: Well, as anybody will tell you that has ever done any mountain biking.
10:41
SPEAKER_01: If you haven't crashed, you haven't been mountain biking.
10:43
SPEAKER_05: I feel like day one, I got initiated real good.
10:47
SPEAKER_01: See, I'm usually running out at Bend Creek, but there's a ton of mountain bikers.
10:51
SPEAKER_01: So there's a certain type of kind of awareness you have to have because some of those trails are really thin, like on the side of hills.
10:57
SPEAKER_01: So you're you're looking down so you don't trip.
11:00
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
11:00
SPEAKER_01: Because if you're looking up, you're gonna hit a rock and fall in your face.
11:03
SPEAKER_01: So you're looking down, but you occasionally have to look up.
11:05
SPEAKER_01: So you got to get into this rhythm because there's constantly bikes coming like at you and behind you.
11:10
SPEAKER_01: Oh, yeah.
11:11
SPEAKER_01: And it's a whole like experience.
11:13
SPEAKER_05: Yeah, especially when it's like I'm thankful that we have days off during the week because it doesn't seem as too busy.
11:19
SPEAKER_05: Whereas like on the weekends when we have the when we have days off, it's like everybody and their mother's there, and I'm like, I love it, but also like I'm gonna run into you, or you're gonna run into me.
11:27
SPEAKER_05: It's like a busy ski lift day, and I'm like, I can't do this.
11:30
SPEAKER_01: All right.
11:30
SPEAKER_01: So all you mountain bikers out there, if you see a little Greek girl on the course out there, that is Officer Emily Pontiakos.
11:37
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
11:37
SPEAKER_01: And we thank you for sitting down with us today and for joining the Asheville Police Department.
11:41
SPEAKER_01: We're glad to have you.
11:42
SPEAKER_05: Thank you.
11:43
SPEAKER_01: My latest guest is a loyal listener of the APD Pod Squad.
11:48
SPEAKER_01: So you know the drill.
11:49
SPEAKER_01: Name, rank, and department.
11:50
SPEAKER_03: My name is Carrie Lee.
11:52
SPEAKER_03: I'm a senior police officer and I work in the community engagement division.
11:56
SPEAKER_01: Community engagement.
11:58
SPEAKER_01: So tell us what that is all about.
11:59
SPEAKER_01: People ask me once in a while.
12:00
SPEAKER_01: I was like, well, it's got a cute name and everything.
12:02
SPEAKER_01: But what exactly do you guys do?
12:05
SPEAKER_03: We do a lot of different things.
12:06
SPEAKER_03: I specifically am assigned as a liaison for what we call Baker District.
12:11
SPEAKER_03: Uh it's kind of a big district now.
12:13
SPEAKER_03: So I'm over the east part of Asheville.
12:16
SPEAKER_03: And I'm a liaison for neighborhoods and businesses.
12:19
SPEAKER_03: If they have questions about crime that's occurring in their neighborhood, they might invite me to a business meeting or a community meeting.
12:27
SPEAKER_03: And on the flip side, we as a unit do a lot of stuff within the department.
12:32
SPEAKER_03: I have scheduled multiple field trips for people that want to come to the police station, whether it's a summer camp or somebody's third grade class that wants to come see what the police department does.
12:44
SPEAKER_03: And we also work on some internal programming for our officers as well.
12:48
SPEAKER_03: Uh like last summer we threw two cookouts for our patrol officers just as a fun little thing to get us through the summer.
12:56
SPEAKER_01: So there's a public safety element, there's uh there's getting to know the people in the community aspect, and there's actually uh getting to know your fellow officers aspect too.
13:04
SPEAKER_03: Yes.
13:05
SPEAKER_01: So all of that.
13:05
SPEAKER_01: All right, let's get right into it.
13:07
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
13:07
SPEAKER_01: First of all, this is a question we ask all the newbies, and this is your first time in the chair.
13:11
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
13:11
SPEAKER_01: So where are you from?
13:14
SPEAKER_03: I am from Santa Ana, California.
13:16
SPEAKER_01: Santa Ana, beautiful out there.
13:18
SPEAKER_03: Yes.
13:18
SPEAKER_01: Now uh were they affected at all by the fires?
13:20
SPEAKER_03: Uh not that area.
13:22
SPEAKER_01: So people that uh aren't familiar with California, describe kind of where that lands on the coast.
13:27
SPEAKER_03: It is between San Diego and LA.
13:29
SPEAKER_03: Okay, so not too far from Disneyland.
13:31
SPEAKER_01: All right, so south of Los Angeles.
13:33
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
13:33
SPEAKER_01: All right, so you would not be a Dodgers fan.
13:35
SPEAKER_01: You'd most likely be uh Angels?
13:37
SPEAKER_03: Uh yeah, I was an Angels fan.
13:39
SPEAKER_01: Angels fan?
13:40
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
13:40
SPEAKER_01: How about football?
13:41
SPEAKER_03: Not really, no, no.
13:42
SPEAKER_01: None of those out there, though?
13:43
SPEAKER_01: You got some to choose from?
13:44
SPEAKER_03: No.
13:45
SPEAKER_01: Seeing that you were born and raised there, and now you're here.
13:49
SPEAKER_01: The obvious next question is so what happened in between?
13:51
SPEAKER_01: What brought you to Asheville?
13:52
SPEAKER_03: Aaron Ross Powell, Jr.
13:53
SPEAKER_03: My parents and I I was the last uh child at home.
13:57
SPEAKER_03: Uh my dad took a job in West Virginia at a musical ministry doing musicals, performing arts for churches and missions, trips, and things like that.
14:09
SPEAKER_03: So we moved to West Virginia when I was a freshman in high school.
14:14
SPEAKER_01: You know, West Virginia catches a lot of grief.
14:17
SPEAKER_01: They do the especially Hollywood, you know, they with deliverance and all these different things and how it's so hillbilly and backwoods and whatever.
14:23
SPEAKER_01: But I tell anyone that is willing to listen how beautiful West Virginia is.
14:28
SPEAKER_01: Uh my family and I, with my brother and my nephew, we meet like in West Virginia, because they're living in Buffalo.
14:34
SPEAKER_01: I'm living here.
14:35
SPEAKER_01: We meet kind of in the semi-middle and we do, we try and do uh annual summer golf outings.
14:40
SPEAKER_01: They've got a great like national park system, like in their like ski lodges slash golf courses, and and they're all over the state.
14:47
SPEAKER_01: It's just great.
14:48
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, it's really beautiful country.
14:50
SPEAKER_03: When I was in high school, we were able to go rafting on uh bridge day, which is something really cool.
14:56
SPEAKER_03: So we actually were rafting underneath the bridge when people were base jumping off of it.
15:02
SPEAKER_03: One almost landed in our boat.
15:03
SPEAKER_01: You're talking about the New River Gorge, of course, which is I believe it's the largest or the tallest bridge in the uh I forget what what I'm saying.
15:10
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, either tallest or longest.
15:12
SPEAKER_03: I can't remember.
15:12
SPEAKER_01: I think it's one of those two, but it is one heck of a bridge if you've ever gone across it.
15:17
SPEAKER_01: And all the times that I've driven from here to Buffalo, that's exactly where you go through, and you go over that bridge, which had major construction the last couple of years, and they had it like reduced to one lane, and it was just like it was good and bad.
15:31
SPEAKER_01: Depending on where you stop in that flow of traffic, you could be sitting on the bridge and looking over and actually get out of your car, which I did one time.
15:37
SPEAKER_01: And that is a long way down.
15:38
SPEAKER_01: It's a real long way down.
15:40
SPEAKER_01: So, next question that we ask everyone that's their first time in the room.
15:45
SPEAKER_01: Name one thing that most people don't know about you.
15:49
SPEAKER_03: I only have nine toes.
15:51
SPEAKER_01: So much for that career as a field goal kicker.
15:54
SPEAKER_01: So now was there another toe at one point or just okay?
15:59
SPEAKER_03: A series of uh medical issues with that foot that resulted in that toe being amputated for uh better health and wellness.
16:08
SPEAKER_01: So which piggy?
16:09
SPEAKER_01: Where where is it?
16:09
SPEAKER_01: Which which foot, which piggy?
16:11
SPEAKER_03: Right foot, the second toe.
16:13
SPEAKER_01: Right foot, second toe.
16:14
SPEAKER_01: So the the tall one kind of the or from that side?
16:17
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, so I can't I can't do flip-flops.
16:19
SPEAKER_03: No.
16:19
SPEAKER_03: If you can imagine there's quite the gap there.
16:21
SPEAKER_01: No, yeah, but you couldn't do like the tong ones.
16:23
SPEAKER_03: You could do the ones that slide, I can I can wear slide-ons, but I can't, yeah, I can't do your traditional flip-flops.
16:29
SPEAKER_01: No, the ones that with the tongue right in the middle, because that it would just move around too much.
16:32
SPEAKER_03: I tried one time like wearing it in between the other toes, but it just it doesn't work out.
16:37
SPEAKER_01: Safety issue.
16:38
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
16:38
SPEAKER_01: Now, if you found one that had like the thicker kind of tongue, or you could maybe wrap it in duct tape like in the middle, because that wouldn't look too geeky, right?
16:45
SPEAKER_03: I think I've just gotten so used to not wearing flip-flops that uh yeah, I don't think I'm gonna go for that fashion flopa.
16:52
SPEAKER_01: Okay, fair enough.
16:52
SPEAKER_01: All right, let's talk about the community engagement division and what they are doing in the community because we got some cool stuff coming up.
16:58
SPEAKER_03: Yes, we do.
16:58
SPEAKER_03: We have lots of things coming up, specifically in the month of February and just looking out into the future.
17:04
SPEAKER_01: All right.
17:05
SPEAKER_01: Tell us about it.
17:06
SPEAKER_03: So just here in a couple of short weeks or less, we have our first coffee with a cop of 2025.
17:13
SPEAKER_01: I do love coffee.
17:14
SPEAKER_03: Yes.
17:14
SPEAKER_03: Well, then you can come on out to Hotel Eris downtown on Valentine's Day, uh, which is February 14th, for those of you who can't remember what day Valentine's is.
17:25
SPEAKER_01: You're giving me a look.
17:26
SPEAKER_01: Kind of feels like you're talking to the guys out there.
17:28
SPEAKER_03: You know, those who might forget about that.
17:30
SPEAKER_03: Uh, come on out between 8 and 10 a.m.
17:33
SPEAKER_03: and you know, bring your sweetheart with you if you want to, and enjoy a free cup of coffee as well as chatting with just different officers.
17:41
SPEAKER_03: We'll be out there so you can come and ask all your burning questions.
17:44
SPEAKER_01: For those of you not familiar with where Hotel Eris is, it's right downtown Pack Square.
17:48
SPEAKER_01: That's the big one they made the big renovations to a few years back.
17:50
SPEAKER_01: Now you've been here long enough to remember the previous building and how ugly that thing was.
17:55
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
17:55
SPEAKER_01: What was it, the uh the BBT?
17:57
SPEAKER_01: Yep, BBT was a bank building.
17:58
SPEAKER_01: Then it was a bank building.
18:00
SPEAKER_01: It just it was just brown and just plain.
18:04
SPEAKER_01: And now with everything they did to that building now, it's like a showpiece for for downtown.
18:09
SPEAKER_01: It is truly a beautiful building.
18:11
SPEAKER_03: And when the sun hits it just right, glinting off of there, it's gorgeous.
18:14
SPEAKER_01: It probably won't be warm enough to hang out in the nice uh patio they've got out front.
18:19
SPEAKER_03: Sometimes with those little fires lit, it might be warm enough.
18:22
SPEAKER_03: Might be.
18:22
SPEAKER_03: We'll see.
18:22
SPEAKER_01: February 14th.
18:23
SPEAKER_01: You know what day of the week that lands?
18:25
SPEAKER_03: Uh that is a Friday.
18:26
SPEAKER_01: Friday?
18:27
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
18:27
SPEAKER_01: Oh, so a three-day weekend out there.
18:29
SPEAKER_01: Okay, yeah.
18:30
SPEAKER_01: So kick it off uh by joining us, Coffee with the Cop.
18:32
SPEAKER_01: The coffee's complimentary.
18:33
SPEAKER_01: We're not making you spend a bunch of money.
18:35
SPEAKER_01: Uh, if you'd like to get a fancy coffee, you sure as you sure as heck can.
18:39
SPEAKER_03: If you want a breakfast at the restaurant, go for it.
18:41
SPEAKER_01: Yep, they've got all that there at the Hotel Eris.
18:43
SPEAKER_01: So that's Coffee with the Cop.
18:44
SPEAKER_01: I know we did a bunch last year.
18:45
SPEAKER_01: I enjoyed them.
18:46
SPEAKER_01: That's the first one for this year.
18:48
SPEAKER_01: So what else we got?
18:49
SPEAKER_03: We also have the Battle of the Badges Blood Drive, which will be on February 19th.
18:54
SPEAKER_03: This is put on by the American Red Cross.
18:57
SPEAKER_03: It is just a fun competition that they run every year to try to garner blood donations.
19:04
SPEAKER_03: So anybody can come and donate who's eligible to donate blood.
19:07
SPEAKER_03: And what happens is when you come to donate, you get a ticket to make a vote.
19:12
SPEAKER_03: And if you happen to do a power red donation, which is two pints, you get two tickets.
19:18
SPEAKER_03: And then you get to decide which local public service agency you would like to vote for.
19:23
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
19:24
SPEAKER_01: So it's basically is it just fire and police?
19:26
SPEAKER_01: Is that the just is that it?
19:27
SPEAKER_03: No, the uh Bunkham EMS as well as the highway patrol.
19:30
SPEAKER_03: Oh, okay.
19:31
SPEAKER_03: Uh so we would love for y'all to come out and donate and vote for Asheville PD because last year we only beat Buncombe County Sheriff's Department by a couple of uh tickets.
19:41
SPEAKER_03: So we had a fun little rivalry with them for sure.
19:44
SPEAKER_01: To clarify, we won.
19:46
SPEAKER_03: Yes, we won last year.
19:48
SPEAKER_01: Just so we know.
19:48
SPEAKER_03: Yes, yes.
19:49
SPEAKER_01: Okay, so that we got that coming up as well.
19:51
SPEAKER_01: What's the date for that one again?
19:52
SPEAKER_03: It's gonna be February 19th, and it's at First Baptist Church downtown at 5 Oak Street.
19:58
SPEAKER_03: We encourage you to sign up ahead of time, but we also welcome walk-ins that day.
20:03
SPEAKER_01: Fantastic.
20:04
SPEAKER_01: Couple cool things coming up.
20:05
SPEAKER_01: Anything else uh the next few weeks that we're needing to know about?
20:07
SPEAKER_03: If you are a high school student or know a high school student that attends Irwin High School, Inca High, or TC Robertson, we will be out there in the month of February at some different career fairs.
20:21
SPEAKER_01: Awesome.
20:21
SPEAKER_03: So come on and check out our table.
20:23
SPEAKER_01: Consider the APD uh for your career.
20:26
SPEAKER_03: Yes.
20:27
SPEAKER_01: Good option for you.
20:28
SPEAKER_01: Okay, so that's what we got coming up in the next couple of weeks.
20:30
SPEAKER_01: Also, I think it's starting in is it March or April, the Citizens Police Academy, I believe.
20:35
SPEAKER_03: In March.
20:35
SPEAKER_03: March 18th is when the Citizens Police Academy begins.
20:39
SPEAKER_01: And I think the signups end pretty soon.
20:42
SPEAKER_03: Yes, the deadlines are creeping up on us.
20:44
SPEAKER_03: It's going to be February 20th, is when the deadline closes for those uh Citizens Police Academy applications.
20:50
SPEAKER_01: So if you've been thinking about doing it, just putting it off.
20:52
SPEAKER_01: You've been busy planning for Valentine's Day, perhaps.
20:54
SPEAKER_01: Then so make sure you get to there.
20:56
SPEAKER_01: Uh how do they do that?
20:57
SPEAKER_01: Where do they go?
20:58
SPEAKER_03: Just you can go to the Asheville Police Department website, asheville nc.gov slash police, or you can just Google Asheville PD Citizens Police Academy.
21:06
SPEAKER_01: Just one last question.
21:07
SPEAKER_01: Uh Did you do anything with that little nub of a toe?
21:10
SPEAKER_01: Did you like memorialize it in some way?
21:11
SPEAKER_03: It's funny you should ask that.
21:13
SPEAKER_03: Um I asked if I could keep it, but was told that it's biohazard.
21:18
SPEAKER_03: So unfortunately, no.
21:20
SPEAKER_01: There's no way to preserve that?
21:22
SPEAKER_01: Like a no?
21:22
SPEAKER_03: No.
21:23
SPEAKER_01: Wear it on a pendant?
21:24
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I've had lots of suggestions over over the years on what I could have done with it.
21:29
SPEAKER_03: And one was a pendant, yes.
21:30
SPEAKER_01: I mean, I mean, taxidermy has come a long way.
21:33
SPEAKER_03: Make a paperweight.
21:34
SPEAKER_01: Something that is a conversation starter, isn't it?
21:37
SPEAKER_01: Officer Kerry Lee from the Community Engagement Division.
21:39
SPEAKER_01: Thank you for the lively conversation and for joining us on the APD Pod Squad.
21:44
SPEAKER_01: We enjoyed our conversation in the last episode so much, we have brought back accreditation manager and APD unofficial historian, Hannah Silberman, for a new segment we're calling the History Minute with Hannah Silberman.
22:00
SPEAKER_01: Thank you for coming.
22:00
SPEAKER_01: And do you like the name?
22:02
SPEAKER_02: Yes.
22:02
SPEAKER_01: Hannah's given her seal of approval for the History Minute.
22:05
SPEAKER_01: We should say, though, the History Minute is not in and of itself 60 seconds necessarily.
22:12
SPEAKER_01: So it's just the best name I could come up with.
22:14
SPEAKER_04: I was about to say it might be more than a minute.
22:17
SPEAKER_01: But you were telling me about this.
22:18
SPEAKER_01: And here's what we're going to do with the History Minute as we introduce this segment that we hope to bring to every episode throughout this year as we continue to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the APD.
22:27
SPEAKER_01: We're going to try and kind of line up historical events that occur about the same time as the episode of the podcast is released.
22:35
SPEAKER_01: So seeing as how this one is about the first week of February, we're going to look back throughout history into the first week of February in the past 150 years.
22:46
SPEAKER_01: So surely you can find something to talk about in the History Minute.
22:52
SPEAKER_04: Absolutely.
22:52
SPEAKER_04: There's actually a very uh prominent crime in the history of Asheville and Buncombe County that happened on February 8th, 1901.
23:00
SPEAKER_01: Oh do tell.
23:00
SPEAKER_04: In the Emma community, which is actually just across the river from Asheville, there was a little general store with a post office inside, and one of the clerks slept inside of the store.
23:10
SPEAKER_04: And as he was retiring for the night, there was a knock at the door.
23:12
SPEAKER_04: He went to answer it, and it was robbers.
23:15
SPEAKER_04: So these people busted in with guns and wanted to rob the safe.
23:18
SPEAKER_04: He couldn't get into the post office, so he had to let them into the store safe.
23:22
SPEAKER_04: And as the story goes, as they were emptying out the safe, a cat knocked something over inside of the store, which distracted a robber.
23:30
SPEAKER_04: He was able to grab a gun and a struggle ensued.
23:33
SPEAKER_04: During the struggle, two of the robbers got shot, the poor store clerk got shot as well.
23:38
SPEAKER_04: And the robbers who had two scouts outside took off.
23:42
SPEAKER_04: And the the clerk was able to call for help before he passed out.
23:45
SPEAKER_04: But a manhunt ensued, which included a number of APD officers.
23:50
SPEAKER_01: The way that it went was So for people that are not familiar with the area, I mean they just moved here.
23:55
SPEAKER_01: Emma is essentially just a little bit north northwest of uh I would call it West Asheville, across Patton Avenue where the old Kmart's located.
24:04
SPEAKER_01: You take Louisiana Avenue up that way, and that's basically the Emma community.
24:09
SPEAKER_01: Uh so kind of uh somewhere between uh the river and Leicester.
24:13
SPEAKER_01: So kind of that general area and not a large area.
24:16
SPEAKER_04: Well the the robbers uh made it to Depot Street in Asheville and tried to hijack a wagon to to get away, but they weren't successful.
24:24
SPEAKER_04: But that alerted the APD officers at the time, that would have been Captain Frank Jordan, officers Nicholas Collins and Bill Taylor, who both later became our chief of the police.
24:34
SPEAKER_04: And they went along with the sheriff at the time and deputies to to track it down, and they did some really classic detective work like tracking footprints along the railroad tracks and a trail of blood until they found all the four of the robbers.
24:47
SPEAKER_01: Okay, so what year was this now?
24:49
SPEAKER_04: 1901.
24:50
SPEAKER_01: Okay, so we're still talking horseback.
24:51
SPEAKER_01: Right.
24:52
SPEAKER_01: So Depot Street is quite a ways from the Emma community, actually, several miles.
24:56
SPEAKER_01: So it would have taken him some time to get there, I would imagine.
24:58
SPEAKER_04: Well, the the fame of it is that uh it happened at 10 o'clock, but by one o'clock in the morning they had captured the robbers, and it was incredible detective work on the part of the actual police officers that took part.
25:12
SPEAKER_04: Um I think the newspaper said the brilliant piece of work for brilliant it was was done by Captain Jordan, Patrolman Collins, and Patrolman Taylor.
25:19
SPEAKER_04: So at the time it was a capital crime to do first degree burglary.
25:23
SPEAKER_04: And so actually, initially all four robbers were sentenced to death.
25:27
SPEAKER_04: But after the appeals were exhausted, two of them were sentenced to life in prison, and two of them were sentenced to death.
25:32
SPEAKER_04: And at the time, the sheriff of Buncombe County was responsible for executions.
25:36
SPEAKER_04: So these two robbers were the last two to be hung at the gallows on Marjorie Street.
25:41
SPEAKER_01: So that was a hundred and well, the they would have been hung in 1902.
25:46
SPEAKER_01: So we're talking one hundred and twenty-three years ago was the last execution in the town square, so to speak.
25:53
SPEAKER_01: Is the what did they use a tree back then?
25:54
SPEAKER_04: Or did they use a actually had a gallows now?
25:58
SPEAKER_01: So and that's the kind of thing that wouldn't just be lingering, that would make the gallows for the occasion.
26:03
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, there actually um are articles in the newspaper where they let the gallows stand for a few extra days because people wanted to come and look at them.
26:10
SPEAKER_01: Now, from what I understand from just watching Westerns and things about nature, it used to be like an entertainment thing.
26:15
SPEAKER_01: People would come and pretend like they were all aghast, but meanwhile they're like selling like peanuts, popcorn, and cracker jacks like on the side.
26:22
SPEAKER_01: Like it was like a come on downtown to watch the hanging type thing.
26:25
SPEAKER_04: It was a big it was a big deal in the community and it was uh a very infamous and well-known crime for a very, very long time.
26:35
SPEAKER_04: Yep.
26:35
SPEAKER_04: And the the hanging took place in February of nineteen oh two, so a full year later.
26:39
SPEAKER_01: So they were much more efficient back in the day when it came to their uh execution of their capital crimes.
26:44
SPEAKER_01: Because now someone's on death row for any number of years.
26:46
SPEAKER_01: I mean it until they exhaust all their appeals.
26:49
SPEAKER_01: It can be ten, fifteen, twenty years or more.
26:52
SPEAKER_01: I mean, uh Charles Manson was on death row for his entire existence, I think.
26:57
SPEAKER_01: And he was obviously never executed.
26:59
SPEAKER_01: So uh back then there were much more it's like, listen, we gotta pay to feed this guy.
27:05
SPEAKER_01: Which was no small thing back in nineteen oh one.
27:07
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, the the court processes I think were uh mu much, much faster.
27:10
SPEAKER_04: There's actually a sheriff's deputy who died in the line of duty, and I think within the week they had convicted the the shooter like a full week.
27:18
SPEAKER_01: I mean, you did have a whole lot less people that would be the you know, round up the usual suspects type thing.
27:23
SPEAKER_01: The population was much smaller.
27:24
SPEAKER_01: Uh I'm guessing maybe people were more willing to talk if they knew anything.
27:28
SPEAKER_01: So it was probably gonna be hard to just get away with anything back then.
27:32
SPEAKER_01: Unless you were like passing through, maybe?
27:34
SPEAKER_01: And even then?
27:35
SPEAKER_01: Uh yeah, I'm just theorizing.
27:36
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, if you were a person known in the community, it was a lot harder.
27:39
SPEAKER_04: It was probably a lot easier to get away with certain things if you were actually a s a savvy criminal because the the police technology and the the practices at the time were less much less sophisticated.
27:50
SPEAKER_01: Oh, sure.
27:51
SPEAKER_01: I mean, there's no DNA, there's no fingerprinting, there's certainly no surveillance cameras, there's nothing.
27:56
SPEAKER_01: There's no ring doorbell back in 1901.
27:59
SPEAKER_04: Exactly.
27:59
SPEAKER_04: So that that good old-fashioned detective work of following the trail of blood and finding the tracks and going and finding those criminals right away is what the the great detective work that everyone was so excited about in 1901.
28:11
SPEAKER_01: That was the case of the great Emma post office robbery.
28:15
SPEAKER_01: What was that called again?
28:17
SPEAKER_01: Okay, see there you go.
28:18
SPEAKER_01: From 1901, our first history minute with Hannah Silberman.
28:22
SPEAKER_01: It seems I need I gotta find some music for this.
28:24
SPEAKER_01: I think I need I need to get us some music in and out to increase the drama.
28:30
SPEAKER_01: What do you think?
28:30
SPEAKER_04: Sure.
28:31
SPEAKER_04: Maybe the the Jeopardy theme would be a good one.
28:33
SPEAKER_01: I think that's copyrighted.
28:34
SPEAKER_01: We'll find something for you, Hannah.
28:35
SPEAKER_01: Hannah Silberman, thank you for joining us for the History Minute.
28:37
SPEAKER_01: We'll do this again next time.
28:38
SPEAKER_04: Thank you.
28:40
SPEAKER_01: Taking a seat in the chair right now is Captain Brandon Moore, who leads our impressive drone program at the Asheville Police Department.
28:48
SPEAKER_01: We've got a big announcement, something that just happened with your department recently that is going to help with public safety.
28:54
SPEAKER_01: Tell us all about the BVLOS waiver.
28:57
SPEAKER_01: I know it's another acronym.
28:58
SPEAKER_00: Cops love their acronyms.
29:00
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, everybody loves when you get to put just letters to something and then you got to figure it out.
29:04
SPEAKER_00: Something else for you to remember.
29:05
SPEAKER_00: But BVLOS stands for beyond visual line of sight.
29:08
SPEAKER_00: Anybody in the drone world or any connotation to what's been coming or spinning around kind of knows and understands this.
29:13
SPEAKER_00: Bottom line of what it does is it reduces what I have to use for pilots and visual observers to just pilots.
29:19
SPEAKER_00: Uh we had to go through a pretty lengthy process to get this waiver.
29:23
SPEAKER_00: We had to work with the FAA since June of 2024, providing them data based on what we have been doing.
29:29
SPEAKER_00: Uh, but what we utilize as an employment strategy in the downtown area to put drones in the air.
29:35
SPEAKER_00: And if I don't have to have a guy standing on a roof making sure the airway is safe because of other mitigation we can put in place, it just saves me the ability to take that person and put them inside and fly another drone.
29:45
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
29:46
SPEAKER_00: So it exponentially increases what we can do.
29:48
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't decrease the amount of manning that we need, it just helps us put more service out there.
29:53
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
29:53
SPEAKER_01: And for our community, bottom line is it means a quicker reaction time.
29:58
SPEAKER_01: It means that we can be somewhere faster and we can help people quicker.
30:03
SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
30:03
SPEAKER_00: You know, anybody internally knows that we've had a drone program and we have two facets of that program.
30:09
SPEAKER_00: One is patrol led.
30:10
SPEAKER_00: That's an officer with a drone in their car that upon a scene realizes it's useful and deploys it themselves.
30:15
SPEAKER_00: That takes that officer out of that call for service.
30:18
SPEAKER_00: It gives us an exponential ability to deal with it, but it then takes and removes them.
30:23
SPEAKER_00: And we have a drone first responder or DFR program that works directly from this building.
30:28
SPEAKER_00: That waiver and other waivers that we've had to obtain allow them to systematically place docks or drones in places all around the city.
30:37
SPEAKER_00: Currently, we employ eight.
30:39
SPEAKER_00: Because of this waiver, we've exponentially increased that.
30:41
SPEAKER_00: And if we have our way based on partnerships that we've gained, we will have 10 by the end of the month.
30:46
SPEAKER_00: That gives us, if placed correctly, an ability to almost cover the entire city that the FAA allows us to fly with a dock.
30:54
SPEAKER_01: So I know that you see this huge elephant sitting in the room with us.
30:58
SPEAKER_01: So let's just go ahead and talk to this guy over here, this huge elephant.
31:01
SPEAKER_01: There are certain members of the community, and it's a small but loud faction, of course, that think that the drone program is there to spy on them.
31:10
SPEAKER_01: Can you say something to them?
31:12
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, absolutely.
31:13
SPEAKER_00: I think it's a it's a healthy fear, right?
31:15
SPEAKER_00: We fear technology.
31:16
SPEAKER_00: We're always concerned about it.
31:18
SPEAKER_00: But if we're honest about where we go anywhere today, we're monitored everywhere we go.
31:22
SPEAKER_00: From individuals with cameras to businesses with their own camera systems to license plate readers, uh, to satellites that are in the sky, to that Google car that's driving by and catches you in your driveway.
31:34
SPEAKER_00: It's out there.
31:35
SPEAKER_00: Uh we can fight it or we can embrace it and we can restrict it.
31:39
SPEAKER_00: And so thankfully, in in instituting this program, the city manager was very clear of how she wanted to ensure that we were transparent, open, and that our policies covered as much as a policy can.
31:50
SPEAKER_00: It's really hard to cover all facets, but mandated we work through one to make sure that the policy in SOP guided what our pilots will do with this technology.
31:58
SPEAKER_00: That never alleviates everybody's concern, right?
32:00
SPEAKER_00: There's always going to be someone that never wants to be caught on camera.
32:04
SPEAKER_00: I don't like it myself.
32:05
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
32:06
SPEAKER_00: However, if this technology helps any of our officers save a missing child or help an elderly person that wandered from home, help the fire department fight a fire that they otherwise couldn't in a different way, and or just track a violent offender that's going to hurt someone else, it's absolutely the right tool for us to be putting in place.
32:24
SPEAKER_01: Captain Brandon Moore is uh joining me right now.
32:27
SPEAKER_01: We're talking about the drone program.
32:28
SPEAKER_01: You gave kind of some some examples right there, some brief examples.
32:31
SPEAKER_01: Let's give some specific examples, some success stories, things that our drone program has done, ways that we have helped people.
32:39
SPEAKER_01: One of the things that jumps to mind in me immediately is the great work that we did during Hurricane Helene.
32:43
SPEAKER_00: Oh, absolutely.
32:44
SPEAKER_00: It's uh it's tough to talk about that event.
32:46
SPEAKER_00: Everybody has a different feeling that they get when they hear it.
32:49
SPEAKER_00: Uh but what we did and were able to utilize in that event exponentially not only helped search and rescue crews, which we can talk about, but also is continuing now, months later, in providing the best foot forward in how we recover.
33:05
SPEAKER_00: Recovery efforts are underway.
33:06
SPEAKER_00: We are mapping the riverways for the Army Corps of Engineer for Ashbritt, the recovery system that has been put in place with our own insurance companies to make sure not only are we doing it the safe, most effective way, but also in a way that we will get reimbursed for.
33:20
SPEAKER_00: Obviously, that's gonna be a huge concern.
33:22
SPEAKER_00: There's a lot of money that's spent to get the city better than it was before, not back to what it was before.
33:27
SPEAKER_00: Right.
33:27
SPEAKER_00: From a search and rescue perspective, the drones were here and available.
33:31
SPEAKER_00: Officers deployed them in the field on day one.
33:34
SPEAKER_00: Uh, and then when FEMA arrived, the search and rescue crews from both Ohio, New Jersey, and California, you know, the New Jersey crew immediately told me they didn't need us.
33:42
SPEAKER_00: Uh, and so we didn't we didn't back down because we we knew that really what those guys didn't know is what they didn't know.
33:49
SPEAKER_00: Right.
33:49
SPEAKER_00: And that was they don't train with this equipment, so they didn't know how it could be utilized based on their training and experience.
33:55
SPEAKER_00: It wasn't based on ego or they didn't want to use it.
33:57
SPEAKER_00: It just hadn't been a component of what they do.
33:59
SPEAKER_00: We hope to change that because while they were here, they came back the next day and said, hey, we could really utilize what you guys were showing up on that big screen.
34:06
SPEAKER_00: Because we're feeding those images back to the commanders.
34:09
SPEAKER_00: And if those commanders have that, they can look forward of where they're currently operating, they can overwatch what conditions they are in, and then they can go back and review that footage for something we may have missed.
34:20
SPEAKER_00: You otherwise don't have access to any of what we just described.
34:23
SPEAKER_00: That changes.
34:25
SPEAKER_00: And then because of that, we are putting in place what would hopefully be a response unit that can go to the next disaster wherever it may be, God forbid, here, and help in the same way that we needed the help that was provided us.
34:36
SPEAKER_00: That's the pay it forward we hope to do with what we have been given in this equipment.
34:40
SPEAKER_01: Here's something that everybody can relate to.
34:42
SPEAKER_01: Okay, just about all of us lost water, unless you had a well or something of so so many people, a hundred thousand people or more, were affected by the loss of water for months.
34:52
SPEAKER_01: The fine work that was done by the drone program, we were able to send drones out to the North Fork Reservoir long before it could be accessed by vehicles on the ground, enabling them to see the damage and be able to plan for what needed to be done.
35:08
SPEAKER_01: I I don't know how much longer it would have taken for vehicles to get up there, but a lot longer.
35:13
SPEAKER_00: Oh, absolutely.
35:14
SPEAKER_00: You know, you you remind me of things we did during that time that, you know, I often forget about because most of it's impressing on some of the immediate things.
35:20
SPEAKER_00: But that was a huge request that was made from another city department.
35:24
SPEAKER_00: And we've seen very rapidly from the event and even till now, from streets to water to planning on utilizing the footage we can provide.
35:33
SPEAKER_00: Specific to that event, the request was made that they get eyes on.
35:36
SPEAKER_00: They needed to see the dam.
35:38
SPEAKER_00: They needed to see the amount of damage that the reservoir had had, because yes, they can get somebody to where they normally enter, but they can't get any further.
35:45
SPEAKER_00: And how how else do we describe and show the immediacy need of what where do we start?
35:50
SPEAKER_00: Uh some state, local, and federal representatives came into town and they couldn't drive all the way to the reservoir to not get anywhere.
35:57
SPEAKER_00: So they asked, how do we see it?
35:59
SPEAKER_00: Well, they could fly an airplane, but the limited view of they have even on a Zoom camera is limited.
36:04
SPEAKER_00: So we gave them a live feed while they were touring other locations.
36:06
SPEAKER_00: And I remember when that live feed was was given, I started getting tings on my phone with all of the individuals thanking for that imagery because otherwise they wouldn't have been able to show the damage to get the immediate response from those officials to get us the help we needed.
36:21
SPEAKER_01: Let's thank some folks with this waiver that you just got that we started our conversation with, because you guys didn't do this by yourself.
36:27
SPEAKER_01: We have partners, and because of them, we're able to move things along faster and get that expertise that we don't have.
36:33
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, we we absolutely, you and I would be here all day to thank the law enforcement agencies that showed up to help us during the event.
36:38
SPEAKER_00: And we have uh tried to do our best to make sure we thanked them for what they did, honor them for the service that they provided us, and and those groups will continue to work with us hopefully in training.
36:48
SPEAKER_00: But we had some private partners that really stepped up during that time.
36:51
SPEAKER_00: Uh we we partner with drone management companies like Paladin and Drone Sense, uh, Overwatch Airworks, who provides all of our drones.
36:58
SPEAKER_00: We also had internal visits from those partners like SkyDio.
37:03
SPEAKER_00: Um we had Armada that provided us Starlinks.
37:06
SPEAKER_00: Um we got Starlink flown into us from Greg Biffle, uh just a private entity NASCAR driver in North Carolina that wanted to help.
37:13
SPEAKER_00: He his own helicopter flew us Starlink's.
37:15
SPEAKER_00: You know, uh Tony Khan with um Jacksonville Jaguars and AEW.
37:19
SPEAKER_00: They not only provided us equipment, but they also were willing to allow um Adam Copeland, the Edge, the wrestler, him and his family came out and fed officers two different days and spent some time with emergency responders just to really give some sort of uplift if there was one during a really down time.
37:37
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and one of those partners really helped you with this waiver.
37:40
SPEAKER_00: That was AirWorks, right?
37:41
SPEAKER_00: That's correct.
37:42
SPEAKER_00: Airworks and Paladin have been a long-term partner of ours, and we endeavored to create the opportunity for this waiver way back when we first started.
37:49
SPEAKER_00: And it took that long through Paladin Airworks and AirSight, who is our drone management mitigation for the airways.
37:57
SPEAKER_00: They provide us a radar system that sits on Mission's roof, which by the way, don't forget about Mission as a partner.
38:02
SPEAKER_00: They've been good to us as well.
38:04
SPEAKER_00: To give us this holistic view of the downtown area to assure the FAA and the Tower of Asheville that we can fly safely in a manner that they would approve to do the emergency work that we do for calls for service.
38:17
SPEAKER_01: That's amazing.
38:18
SPEAKER_01: Now we've also got uh Tanger outlets.
38:20
SPEAKER_01: We have uh we've been working with them a lot.
38:22
SPEAKER_01: Want to thank them, of course, right?
38:23
SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
38:24
SPEAKER_00: Tanger stepped up in a big way.
38:25
SPEAKER_00: Uh they found that there was a need.
38:28
SPEAKER_00: There was a service we couldn't provide uh from the perspective of how do we provide assets, how do we deliver products, how do we get sensors into a location, how do we communication medicine, how do we get something to somebody who's stranded?
38:40
SPEAKER_00: We found ways, unique ways of using the equipment in manners that it wasn't necessarily in uh corresponding to manufacturers' recommendations, but we had to.
38:48
SPEAKER_00: We had to do it.
38:49
SPEAKER_00: But then we realized there was a there was a solution to that.
38:52
SPEAKER_00: And Tanger provided that.
38:53
SPEAKER_00: They provided uh what's called a fly cart.
38:55
SPEAKER_00: It's a heavy lift drone.
38:56
SPEAKER_00: It allows us to carry packages, to hoist objects, and we could immediately send it, and we did the moment of out to the county in an effort to help in an area that had otherwise been untouched.
39:06
SPEAKER_00: So thankfully to it, not only during this event and the ways we'll continue to use it, but in future events, it's ready and able because of what Tanger saw as a need.
39:16
SPEAKER_00: Um, we have a drone on their roof as well to cover the West Asheville side of town.
39:20
SPEAKER_00: It is a project that they're working on for themselves from a security perspective, but it gives us another location.
39:25
SPEAKER_00: We have to have those partnerships to place these in order to provide the best coverage for the whole city.
39:31
SPEAKER_01: And so with this waiver, as our staffing is still not at 100 percent, essentially it's that old uh if you say it in a Boston accent, working smada, not Hada, right?
39:39
SPEAKER_00: Is this what we're doing now?
39:40
SPEAKER_00: It is.
39:41
SPEAKER_00: You know, we are still uh not only looking to increase our staffing, we never are gonna turn that down because we're still low.
39:46
SPEAKER_00: We're still finding unique ways of showing.
39:48
SPEAKER_00: And I hope the drone program is something that somebody hears about and says, hey, never thought about joining the police department.
39:53
SPEAKER_00: Right.
39:53
SPEAKER_00: But I want to do that at a different level.
39:55
SPEAKER_00: I don't want to be the hobbyist that's out doing it in the park.
39:57
SPEAKER_00: I want to go do it and get paid.
39:59
SPEAKER_00: And we are doing that.
40:00
SPEAKER_00: We are hiring two public safety analysts that will um complement the staff that we already have in our retiree part-time seasonals that fly for us and hopefully cover that larger area of calls for service.
40:11
SPEAKER_00: But to your point, we have to find unique ways to get to places.
40:15
SPEAKER_00: And if if very least, we cancel calls for service with a drone that don't need an officer to respond.
40:22
SPEAKER_00: And that officer is available for that 911 call that came in on the other side of town.
40:26
SPEAKER_00: We have drastically increased our manning without even having the person here.
40:30
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, public safety is the focus, and with this, it allows us to be out there in the public quicker, faster, respond to things.
40:37
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, absolutely.
40:38
SPEAKER_00: And you know, we'd be remiss if we didn't mention we'd done this project jointly with the fire department, and the guy stayed on a fire for three hours this morning, helping the fire department with thermal imagery.
40:48
SPEAKER_00: And so there is a uh a small component of this that is not as widely used, and I will see it over the next couple of years where what we saw over the last couple of years with police departments increasing the drone usage, fire departments gonna exponentially increase it.
41:00
SPEAKER_00: If you want to talk about saving apparatus responding to calls, saving the number of firefighters you need to put somewhere.
41:05
SPEAKER_00: A drone gets on scene in under a minute and can show you exactly what you need to see.
41:09
SPEAKER_00: I think that we're gonna continue to see those pilots come in and work with us daily for mornings like today, unfortunately, a house fire.
41:15
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you can imagine uh I've been talking with our resident historian Hannah Silbermann about some old time stories as we celebrate the 150th anniversary.
41:22
SPEAKER_01: She has shared with me some stories about firefighting back in the day.
41:27
SPEAKER_01: You'd see like a plume of smoke.
41:29
SPEAKER_01: One of the spotter buildings that they would actually perch atop to keep an eye on the entire area was the Jackson building right next to our building.
41:37
SPEAKER_01: They would have people that were assigned to look for plumes of smoke because fire's more frequent back then.
41:41
SPEAKER_01: Well, sometimes it was just someone having a fire, but they'd have to send a horse out there.
41:45
SPEAKER_01: And how long does that take to figure it?
41:47
SPEAKER_01: And now we can send a drone and either determine is it a fire or is it not a fire or what kind of a fire is it?
41:54
SPEAKER_01: And once again, manpower, reaction time, all those things.
41:56
SPEAKER_00: Well, safety and security of our roadways, right?
41:59
SPEAKER_00: We are sending fire trucks halfway across the town that we don't need to.
42:02
SPEAKER_00: It changes the dynamic a little bit.
42:04
SPEAKER_00: It also allows them to better respond.
42:06
SPEAKER_00: If that truck's out of the house and something happens in their zone, well, they're away.
42:10
SPEAKER_00: They're on something that maybe they didn't need to go to.
42:12
SPEAKER_00: And so if we can change that the same way on a smaller scale for PD with a car, you think about a whole engine company having to respond to something that empties out the house and now they're not available.
42:22
SPEAKER_00: They're not even available here in the downtown area if they have to go somewhere else.
42:25
SPEAKER_00: So I think we developed the program in an effort that they would be right alongside us.
42:30
SPEAKER_00: We would fly for them, they would fly for us, and we exponentially changed the way in which we do this.
42:34
SPEAKER_01: Aaron Powell So we know that technology is scary for people, so we're here to assure them.
42:38
SPEAKER_01: I mean, this little cell phone thing I'm holding right, people were afraid of this, you know, when they came around.
42:44
SPEAKER_01: But does everyone that you know have a cell phone now?
42:47
SPEAKER_01: I don't know anyone that doesn't.
42:48
SPEAKER_01: At least one.
42:49
SPEAKER_01: So we're hoping that as time passes, people become more and more comfortable with the technology, the evolving technology that is helping with public safety with the Asheville Police Department.
42:58
SPEAKER_00: And we encourage, ask questions.
43:00
SPEAKER_00: You know, we are we are hoping to start working with A B Tech, start working with local high schools to their curriculum that is already there.
43:07
SPEAKER_00: It's already existing.
43:08
SPEAKER_00: You can become a Part 107 pilot via the FAA at at the age of 16.
43:13
SPEAKER_00: So, from a technology standpoint, why wouldn't we be training younger people to be able to utilize this technology?
43:18
SPEAKER_00: And if it's something that gets them excited, if it's an avenue in which they can take this, man, we want to be there.
43:23
SPEAKER_00: That's just one opportunity that we can have, again, to better develop younger people and giving them tools that they will use way into the future.
43:31
SPEAKER_01: And now's a good time.
43:32
SPEAKER_01: If you have that question, since you mentioned that, just go ahead and email us APDpodcastfeedback at ashevillenc.gov.
43:40
SPEAKER_01: That's like a direct link to our leadership, to Captain Moore, to uh Chief Lamb.
43:44
SPEAKER_01: We can answer your questions that way through the APD Pod Squad.
43:47
SPEAKER_01: APD Podcastfeedback at AshevilleNC.gov.
43:51
SPEAKER_01: Captain Moore, thanks for joining us today.
43:53
SPEAKER_01: Thank you for having me.
43:54
SPEAKER_01: And that concludes another episode of the APD Pod Squad.
43:58
SPEAKER_01: We'd like to thank Officer Emily Pontiakos for joining me.
44:01
SPEAKER_01: Hannah Silberman with the History Minute, which we'll be doing in each episode this year as we celebrate the 150th anniversary of the APD.
44:09
SPEAKER_01: From community engagement to Officer Carrie Lee, and of course, Captain Brandon Moore great news from our drone program.
44:15
SPEAKER_01: Don't forget to like, subscribe, whatever it takes to make sure you don't miss a single minute, a single episode of the APD Pod Squad.
44:23
SPEAKER_01: And if you've got a question for Chief Mike Lamb, then ask the Chief.
44:27
SPEAKER_01: You can make a phone call, leave a voicemail at 828-250-8800.
44:32
SPEAKER_01: That's 828-250-8800.
44:35
SPEAKER_01: We'll play that back and we'll present that question to the Chief in a future episode, which he'll answer.
44:40
SPEAKER_01: Or you can email us APD Podcastfeedback at AshevilleNC.gov.
44:46
SPEAKER_01: That is APD Podcastfeedback at Ashevillenc.gov.
44:52
SPEAKER_01: My name is Rick Rice, and this is the APD Pod Squad.