Latest / APD Pod Squad / Season 2, Episode 16; Detective Phil Allen, Stephanie Bierce, Senior Police Officer Justin Lewis, and the History Minute with Hannah Silberman

Transcript

Season 2, Episode 16; Detective Phil Allen, Stephanie Bierce, Senior Police Officer Justin Lewis, and the History Minute with Hannah Silberman · APD Pod Squad

0:00
SPEAKER_02: This is the APD Pod Squad.
0:04
SPEAKER_02: I'm Rick Rice, and coming up in this episode, with April 30th being National Honesty Day, we'll get to know Detective Phil Allen, who has a way to determine if you are telling the truth.
0:16
SPEAKER_02: Yep, you guessed it administers the polygraph examinations at the Asheville Police Department.
0:21
SPEAKER_02: April is records and information management month, and I'm joined by the person who leads that department, Stephanie Beerce.
0:26
SPEAKER_02: From the Community Engagement Division, Senior Police Officer Justin Lewis.
0:30
SPEAKER_02: Updates in the Junior Police Academy signups, Coffee with a Cop, and Truck City at Tanger Outlets, which is April 18th.
0:37
SPEAKER_02: And we'll go back 125 years with Hannah Silverman, who returns for another history minute.
0:43
SPEAKER_02: If you think election integrity is something new, think again as we'll explore the allegations of a stolen election just after the turn of the 20th century.
0:52
SPEAKER_02: It's all coming up on season two, episode 16 of the APD Pod Squad.
0:59
SPEAKER_02: Getting to know Detective Phil Allen.
1:02
SPEAKER_02: Thanks for joining me, Phil.
1:03
SPEAKER_02: Glad to be here.
1:04
SPEAKER_02: You've been in the podcast once before, the episode when we told the life-saving stories from Helene, joined by two other detectives.
1:10
SPEAKER_02: I believe it was Detective Sam DeGrave that day and Detective Albert Ball.
1:14
SPEAKER_02: But we didn't have a chance, really, because of the focus of that episode, to talk too much about you and uh your life and what brought you to the Asheville Police Department.
1:22
SPEAKER_02: So let's do that today.
1:24
SPEAKER_02: Sounds good.
1:24
SPEAKER_02: Because we don't have much time left, because you're on the way to retirement.
1:28
SPEAKER_02: I mean, your foot's half out the door, but you're still putting in the work, still grinding, but you gotta be thinking about it, right?
1:33
SPEAKER_07: I'm definitely thinking about it.
1:34
SPEAKER_02: Do you got one of those calendars?
1:35
SPEAKER_02: You're checking that off every day.
1:37
SPEAKER_07: I do.
1:37
SPEAKER_02: So your day is is you said August 1st?
1:39
SPEAKER_02: August first.
1:40
SPEAKER_02: August first is your first day of retirement.
1:42
SPEAKER_07: That's correct.
1:43
SPEAKER_02: So what does that day look like?
1:44
SPEAKER_02: What does August first look like?
1:47
SPEAKER_07: Hopefully sleep in a little bit.
1:49
SPEAKER_07: That would be something a little different.
1:51
SPEAKER_07: Hopefully be on a river somewhere, maybe doing some fishing.
1:53
SPEAKER_07: All right.
1:54
SPEAKER_07: Or doing some camping or something to just relax and take about a a week of just doing, you know, just relaxing.
2:00
SPEAKER_02: Doing nothing.
2:01
SPEAKER_02: I mean, just not being obligated to do anything, right?
2:04
SPEAKER_07: No alarm clocks.
2:05
SPEAKER_07: Nope.
2:05
SPEAKER_07: Nothing like that.
2:06
SPEAKER_02: Nope.
2:06
SPEAKER_02: Have you thought about after that first week of retirement?
2:10
SPEAKER_02: Any plans to do anything else like after this, after your world of policing comes to a halt?
2:21
SPEAKER_07: If that's the case, then that'll be uh uh something we partake in.
2:25
SPEAKER_07: But uh either way, I'll I'll definitely be looking for some for something to keep me busy, some kind of part-time work doing something, maybe, maybe not police related, but I'll just kind of kind of looking to see what see see what's out there.
2:35
SPEAKER_02: So she's from South Carolina.
2:37
SPEAKER_02: Where's your uh where were you born?
2:39
SPEAKER_07: Uh I was born in Texas.
2:40
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
2:41
SPEAKER_07: Uh my dad was in the Air Force, so I was born in uh Shepherd's Air Force Base, which is in Wichita Falls, Texas.
2:46
SPEAKER_02: Wichita Falls, Texas.
2:48
SPEAKER_02: I don't I don't know where that is.
2:50
SPEAKER_07: It's like in the uh almost in the Oklahoma area, like the border, huh?
2:54
SPEAKER_07: Yeah.
2:55
SPEAKER_07: I've never been there, so I definitely plan on taking uh taking a trip at some point just uh just to see the area.
3:00
SPEAKER_02: For some reason, the state of Texas, based on who's been in the studio here doing the podcast, has come up multiple times now in the past couple of episodes.
3:06
SPEAKER_02: And we've talked a lot about Texas for whatever reason.
3:09
SPEAKER_02: And one of the things that always gets mentioned is how big it is.
3:12
SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
3:12
SPEAKER_02: And just like Texas as a state is so big and unique because of its size.
3:18
SPEAKER_02: It has like five distinct regions.
3:21
SPEAKER_02: You've got the coastal area, you've got the northern, which is more like a Midwest, and you've got the far west, which almost acts like the desert southwest.
3:28
SPEAKER_02: And then the far east, well, now you're almost a Mississippi and Alabama and all that, and that acts differently as well.
3:34
SPEAKER_02: So it's got like everything, doesn't it?
3:36
SPEAKER_07: It's huge, yeah.
3:36
SPEAKER_07: I was in the army and did basic training in El Paso, Texas, so seeing that part of it.
3:40
SPEAKER_07: And my brother lives in Houston right now, so I've seen that part of it.
3:44
SPEAKER_07: So it's just totally different.
3:45
SPEAKER_07: It's just a lot, a lot of area, and like you said, a lot of different areas.
3:49
SPEAKER_02: So a little bit of everything in Texas.
3:51
SPEAKER_02: All right.
3:51
SPEAKER_02: All right, so we've got you in here now, just because hey, one more time before you retire, but also because April 30th is National Honesty Day.
3:59
SPEAKER_02: I don't know if it was inspired by Abe Lincoln or not, but interesting.
4:03
SPEAKER_02: You are the man that can tell if somebody is lying or telling the truth because of the polygraph.
4:10
SPEAKER_07: Right.
4:10
SPEAKER_07: You utilizing the instrument.
4:11
SPEAKER_02: So how did you become our polygraph examiner?
4:14
SPEAKER_02: What's the origin story there?
4:15
SPEAKER_02: A very unique thing.
4:17
SPEAKER_07: Yeah, that was after I had been in uh CID for about uh ten years.
4:21
SPEAKER_07: And uh we had uh a polygraph examiner who was leaving to go to another agency.
4:26
SPEAKER_07: Uh he got he went to the SBI.
4:28
SPEAKER_07: And uh so they needed another one.
4:29
SPEAKER_07: And uh I had been interested in it for uh for a couple years at that point.
4:33
SPEAKER_07: So kind of threw my name in a hat and got selected and and uh went off to polygraph school.
4:37
SPEAKER_02: So the polygraph, I blame movies and TV for this.
4:40
SPEAKER_02: Everyone thinks it's this thing that almost looks like a seismograph.
4:43
SPEAKER_02: It's you know what I mean?
4:44
SPEAKER_02: It does the chip.
4:46
SPEAKER_07: Yeah, with the pins.
4:47
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, what did it actually do that way back in the day at its origins?
4:50
SPEAKER_07: Yeah, actually, when I did my polygraph here back in 2007, uh they were still utilizing it, it was called the chemograph.
4:57
SPEAKER_07: And so it was a box that had that fed paper and it had the uh ink pens on it or the ink uh needles.
5:03
SPEAKER_07: Yep.
5:03
SPEAKER_07: And they would go up and down and all that.
5:04
SPEAKER_07: And now, of course, we utilize uh laptop computer for that instead.
5:07
SPEAKER_02: Aaron Powell So how has the technology changed though?
5:10
SPEAKER_02: I mean it literally how you read responses, has that changed as well with the technology, or is it a similar process from your chair?
5:17
SPEAKER_07: No, it's uh it's the same.
5:18
SPEAKER_07: You still use the same uh scoring.
5:20
SPEAKER_07: Uh we do have with the uh with the laptop, there's also some software in there that you can kind of recheck after you've checked it to see if you've scored it right.
5:29
SPEAKER_07: So there's a program in there that'll actually score the charts as we call it, uh to let you know the results if you want to double, you know, to double check yourself, which is always a good practice.
5:38
SPEAKER_02: I've mentioned this to you uh just in conversation, but when I had to do my polygraph with you uh to get the job here at the APD, I was terrified.
5:46
SPEAKER_02: I don't know why.
5:47
SPEAKER_02: I really and I'm not a naturally nervous person.
5:50
SPEAKER_02: I'm not.
5:50
SPEAKER_02: I've like introduced rock bands in front of 20,000 people and not thought anything of it.
5:56
SPEAKER_02: But sitting down in the chair that day, and all these like probes that are like on you, and I I explained it to like my wife and other people afterwards.
6:04
SPEAKER_02: I'm like, I'm like, honey, they attach these things to your butt cheeks, basically.
6:08
SPEAKER_02: It's like it's like everything you do, your breathing, your pulse, it you know, does it go up, does it go down?
6:14
SPEAKER_02: It all factors into determining whether someone's telling the truth or not.
6:19
SPEAKER_07: Right.
6:19
SPEAKER_07: And you know, that's a normal to be nervous, you know, in that type of situation just because it's the unknown.
6:25
SPEAKER_07: You know, and I imagine most people, and I know I was, I was nervous when I went in there and felt like I had nothing to hide, but you still don't know what to expect.
6:33
SPEAKER_02: So I think part of it for me was it's like, okay, I'm telling the truth, but what if this thing, what if this machine and the person interpreting it thinks I'm not?
6:42
SPEAKER_07: Right.
6:42
SPEAKER_02: And then so how do you prove that?
6:44
SPEAKER_02: Because you're you're literally strapped to something that's telling you whether or not you're d saying the truth or not.
6:50
SPEAKER_02: And what if you are, but it says you're not?
6:52
SPEAKER_02: Right.
6:52
SPEAKER_02: So how often do false positives come in?
6:55
SPEAKER_02: I I know there's a process during it where you establish a baseline and all those different things.
6:59
SPEAKER_02: So you can determine the truth from the not truth, but do you occasionally like the person that says they can beat the polygraph?
7:07
SPEAKER_02: Does that actually happen?
7:08
SPEAKER_07: Generally for pre-employment, like what we do with you, according to the the technique that we utilize, it's supposed to be about 86% accurate.
7:15
SPEAKER_07: So uh and and for the most part, we're trying to get information that may not have been in the uh employment packet.
7:22
SPEAKER_07: So we're trying to get that information out first before the actual test.
7:25
SPEAKER_07: The failures are really minimal.
7:27
SPEAKER_07: And then there are some that we get what we call inconclusive.
7:30
SPEAKER_07: Not really had one where I thought was because generally if if they do fail and we dig into it, most of the time there was something that that they were holding on to.
7:38
SPEAKER_07: And then a lot of times we can clear that out and retest and they can pass.
7:42
SPEAKER_02: So does the fear of the polygraph sometimes create the answers that you want?
7:47
SPEAKER_02: Like you say, get to weed people out because they're just okay, this thing's gonna discover this.
7:51
SPEAKER_02: I'm gonna go ahead and just tell them.
7:53
SPEAKER_07: Yeah, I mean, uh and you know, that's pretty much how we start off with it, you know, just letting them know, you know, the best two things that you can do to pass the polygraph, and one of them is to be 100% truthful because you know it's a little different than most tests.
8:04
SPEAKER_07: You can be 99% truthful and still fail the test just from a psychological standpoint.
8:08
SPEAKER_07: That one little thing when you're talking to me in a chair is different than when you're actually sitting in the polygraph chair.
8:13
SPEAKER_07: Yeah.
8:13
SPEAKER_07: With that, like you said, with the components attached to you and me asking questions.
8:17
SPEAKER_02: So you've heard some things over the years.
8:20
SPEAKER_07: Yeah, I've heard a lot of things.
8:22
SPEAKER_02: You you've had some people confess some things I'm guessing you did not see coming.
8:27
SPEAKER_07: No, yeah, that's some things I wish I hadn't heard, actually.
8:30
SPEAKER_02: What's the strangest that just confession that you just did not see coming?
8:35
SPEAKER_07: I had one gentleman say that uh purchased prostitutes while he was in the military.
8:39
SPEAKER_07: And which, you know, that's not uncommon.
8:41
SPEAKER_07: I've not heard of that before.
8:43
SPEAKER_07: But then he mentioned that he'd went back to uh Europe at one point with his wife on like uh vacation, and while she was shopping, he went and did the same thing again.
8:51
SPEAKER_02: Oh, geez.
8:52
SPEAKER_07: Yeah, so I kind of thought that was a little unusual.
8:56
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I I mean I get it while you're maybe you know away from home and in the minute, but your wife's right there with she's on the trip.
9:03
SPEAKER_02: Detective Phil Allen joins us now as April 30th is National Honesty Day, and he administers the polygraph examinations for the Asheville Police Department.
9:11
SPEAKER_02: So you're gonna have to pass the torch, I would guess, right?
9:14
SPEAKER_07: Yes.
9:15
SPEAKER_02: So who is going to be uh the next in line to take care of the polygraph?
9:18
SPEAKER_07: Uh Detective Sean Parker.
9:20
SPEAKER_07: He's going to polygraph school next week.
9:22
SPEAKER_07: Uh say he should be uh ready to go sometime in uh end of June.
9:26
SPEAKER_07: All right.
9:26
SPEAKER_07: And then of course Lieutenant Brian Hogan is still assisting me and uh he's been doing it for a little while as well.
9:31
SPEAKER_02: Okay, so Lieutenant Hogan.
9:32
SPEAKER_02: Right, right.
9:33
SPEAKER_02: Parker will be the uh the headman.
9:35
SPEAKER_07: Yep, he'll be the he'll be the guy.
9:36
SPEAKER_02: So is it more for a pre-employment thing or do we do we use it to catch criminals as well?
9:41
SPEAKER_07: We utilize it for some investigations purposes.
9:44
SPEAKER_07: Mostly it's the opportunity of if someone feels like they've been falsely accused of something and they're really wanting to clear their name, uh, we've utilized that several times in the past for different cases such as child abuse, uh sexual assaults, questionable deaths, things of those natures.
9:58
SPEAKER_02: In North Carolina, is it usable?
10:00
SPEAKER_02: Can you use the polygraph exams in a court of law?
10:02
SPEAKER_07: You cannot use the test results.
10:04
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
10:04
SPEAKER_07: However, if they uh if a person was to obviously make an admission prior to sitting in the chair, it's just like an interview, then that's admissible.
10:12
SPEAKER_07: If they were to fail the exam and then post-polygraph, you know, when we do a interview as well after that, post-confession uh interview, if they confess during that time, then that would be admissible as well.
10:23
SPEAKER_07: Just not the test results.
10:24
SPEAKER_02: I gotcha.
10:25
SPEAKER_02: Do you know of states that do accept it as well?
10:27
SPEAKER_07: I think there are a couple.
10:29
SPEAKER_07: And I don't want to say I remember during polygraph school, they mentioned there was a couple of schools, I thought, in the country, that allow tests.
10:35
SPEAKER_07: But I believe that goes back to uh a federal case, U.S.
10:38
SPEAKER_07: versus Fry or something of that nature, where Polygraph Examiner had administered a test in a homicide case and they got past the test.
10:44
SPEAKER_07: Um, but they wouldn't use it as admissible because they got found guilty.
10:47
SPEAKER_07: So and funny enough, the person who administered that was named William Marston.
10:51
SPEAKER_07: So a lot of people will probably wouldn't know who that is.
10:53
SPEAKER_07: You know, it's kind of a name, random name.
10:54
SPEAKER_07: He kind of helped start, you know, some of the smaller things in Polygraph.
10:57
SPEAKER_07: He kind of helped pioneer it.
10:59
SPEAKER_07: Uh, but he also went on to uh create the uh character Wonder Woman.
11:03
SPEAKER_04: Ah Right.
11:04
SPEAKER_07: And so interesting thing about that is if you remember uh probably the old TV show you and I watched back with Linda Carter.
11:09
SPEAKER_07: She had the truth lasso.
11:10
SPEAKER_07: The truth lasso, exactly.
11:11
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
11:11
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
11:12
SPEAKER_02: I was wanting one of those.
11:13
SPEAKER_07: Yeah.
11:14
SPEAKER_07: Yeah, that and the invisible jet, right?
11:16
SPEAKER_02: Well, sure.
11:16
SPEAKER_02: So I always wondered about the invisible jet, though.
11:19
SPEAKER_02: They can see her.
11:20
SPEAKER_07: You can see, yeah.
11:20
SPEAKER_07: You just can't see it.
11:22
SPEAKER_02: It's just so what they did in the cartoon, they made it like an outline.
11:26
SPEAKER_02: So you could kind of see, so she's not just sitting in the middle of nothing and go, so it looked like there was an outline of a jet.
11:32
SPEAKER_02: But to the people like on the ground, aren't they just gonna see this lady just like looks like she's sitting.
11:37
SPEAKER_07: Right.
11:37
SPEAKER_02: But somehow, I always questioned that.
11:39
SPEAKER_07: Yeah, that was yeah.
11:41
SPEAKER_02: I guess they couldn't just make everything invisible, otherwise you wouldn't have much of a cartoon.
11:45
SPEAKER_07: Yeah, I wouldn't be able to know what's going on.
11:46
SPEAKER_02: So I need to see what she was doing in there.
11:48
SPEAKER_02: Detective Phil Allen joins me right now, who administers the polygraph examinations for the Asheville Police Department, and we'd mentioned April 30th, National Honesty Day.
11:58
SPEAKER_02: So neither of us has any probes attached.
12:01
SPEAKER_02: We are not using the polygraph machine right now, but we are going to play a round of true or false.
12:07
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
12:08
SPEAKER_02: Kind of turning the tables on you a little bit here.
12:10
SPEAKER_07: Get me back a little bit then.
12:12
SPEAKER_02: Maybe just a little bit, but you know, I it I I have the answers in front of me, so there's not much wiggle room here.
12:16
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
12:17
SPEAKER_02: I don't have to interpret anything, but let's see how good you do at this.
12:20
SPEAKER_02: True or false, a group of flamingos is called a flock.
12:24
SPEAKER_06: I would say it's true.
12:26
SPEAKER_02: And it's false.
12:28
SPEAKER_02: A group of flamingos is a flamboyance.
12:31
SPEAKER_07: Wow.
12:32
SPEAKER_07: Okay.
12:33
SPEAKER_07: I learned something today.
12:34
SPEAKER_07: That's interesting.
12:35
SPEAKER_07: Flamboyance.
12:36
SPEAKER_02: I didn't know that either until just a few minutes ago when I printed this out.
12:39
SPEAKER_02: So you can share that at the cocktail party.
12:41
SPEAKER_02: There you go.
12:42
SPEAKER_02: All right, so yawning is contagious even when you just read about it.
12:47
SPEAKER_02: True or false?
12:48
SPEAKER_06: True.
12:49
SPEAKER_02: That is true.
12:50
SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
12:51
SPEAKER_02: Research has shown that simply reading or thinking about yawning or seeing someone else yawn can trigger your own.
12:58
SPEAKER_07: Yeah, that was the only thing I was thinking about was seeing other people.
13:01
SPEAKER_07: I don't know about reading it, but if I I just took it, took a stab at it.
13:04
SPEAKER_02: Well, if one of us yawns during this, it's certainly not because we're bored, right?
13:07
SPEAKER_02: It's now that we're thinking about it.
13:08
SPEAKER_02: All right, so Russia shares a border with more countries than any other nation.
13:13
SPEAKER_02: True or false.
13:14
SPEAKER_02: It is big.
13:16
SPEAKER_07: Yeah.
13:16
SPEAKER_07: I'll I'll say true.
13:18
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that is true.
13:19
SPEAKER_02: Russia borders 14 countries.
13:21
SPEAKER_02: Wow.
13:22
SPEAKER_02: More than any other nation on Earth.
13:24
SPEAKER_02: In that same general vicinity, we've heard this since we've been kids, you can see the great wall of China with the naked eye from space.
13:31
SPEAKER_06: True.
13:33
SPEAKER_07: False.
13:33
SPEAKER_07: Oh, I thought you could.
13:34
SPEAKER_07: Well, the people at Artemis II.
13:36
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I guess the Artemis II people right now, they can't see it.
13:38
SPEAKER_02: I guess they're not.
13:39
SPEAKER_02: Oh, wow.
13:39
SPEAKER_02: The wall is long, but not wide enough to be seen from space without aid, according to multiple astronauts.
13:46
SPEAKER_02: The astronauts have indeed looked and they haven't seen it.
13:49
SPEAKER_02: Here's something we've also heard.
13:51
SPEAKER_02: Honey never expires.
13:52
SPEAKER_02: True or false?
13:53
SPEAKER_07: I believe that to be true.
13:54
SPEAKER_02: That is true.
13:56
SPEAKER_02: Archaeologists have found 3,000-year-old honey in Egyptian tunes that is still edible.
14:02
SPEAKER_02: Wow.
14:02
SPEAKER_02: Apparently, the low moisture content and acidic pH prevent bacteria from growing.
14:08
SPEAKER_02: So honey is good forever.
14:09
SPEAKER_02: How about that?
14:10
SPEAKER_02: Tomatoes are legally classified as a vegetable in the United States.
14:16
SPEAKER_02: You know the old debate.
14:17
SPEAKER_02: Is it a vegetable?
14:18
SPEAKER_02: Is it a fruit?
14:19
SPEAKER_02: Tomatoes are legally classified as a vegetable in the United States.
14:24
SPEAKER_07: I'm going to say true.
14:25
SPEAKER_02: That is true.
14:27
SPEAKER_02: In 1893, the U.S.
14:30
SPEAKER_02: Supreme Court ruled in Nick's versus Hedden that tomatoes are legally vegetables for trade and tariff purposes, even though they are botanically fruits.
14:40
SPEAKER_07: Wow, Supreme Court ruling.
14:42
SPEAKER_02: Well, it had to get in because money was involved.
14:44
SPEAKER_02: Oh, of course.
14:46
SPEAKER_02: We'd mentioned Abe Lincoln, of course, honest Abe, right?
14:49
SPEAKER_02: Abe Lincoln was the tallest U.S.
14:51
SPEAKER_02: president.
14:52
SPEAKER_02: True or false?
14:53
SPEAKER_02: Not including the hat.
14:54
SPEAKER_02: He had the big stovepipe hat as well.
14:59
SPEAKER_07: I'll say false.
15:01
SPEAKER_02: It's true.
15:02
SPEAKER_02: Old Abe stood six foot four.
15:05
SPEAKER_07: Okay.
15:05
SPEAKER_02: He was a big man for back then, making him the tallest president in US history.
15:10
SPEAKER_07: Wow, okay.
15:11
SPEAKER_02: All right.
15:12
SPEAKER_02: Three more questions.
15:13
SPEAKER_02: The color orange was named after the fruit.
15:17
SPEAKER_02: So the color orange came after the fruit and was named after the fruit.
15:22
SPEAKER_06: True.
15:23
SPEAKER_02: That is true.
15:25
SPEAKER_02: Before the fruit reached Europe, the color was often described as yellow red.
15:29
SPEAKER_02: The English word orange came from the Sanskrit word naranga.
15:35
SPEAKER_02: One of the only words I learned in the Spanish language was naranja.
15:39
SPEAKER_02: Which is orange in Spanish.
15:41
SPEAKER_07: Interesting.
15:41
SPEAKER_02: I I took three years of it.
15:43
SPEAKER_02: I got like four or five words.
15:44
SPEAKER_02: That's like that's all I can do is that from it.
15:46
SPEAKER_02: That's one of them right there.
15:48
SPEAKER_02: So how about this?
15:49
SPEAKER_02: Someone says they're gonna be there in a jiffy?
15:50
SPEAKER_02: A jiffy is an actual unit of time.
15:54
SPEAKER_02: True or false.
15:55
SPEAKER_02: A jiffy.
15:56
SPEAKER_07: I don't want to say false.
15:58
SPEAKER_02: It's gonna be true.
15:59
SPEAKER_07: Oh wow.
16:00
SPEAKER_02: In physics, a jiffy is the time it takes light to travel one centimeter, about 33.4 picoseconds.
16:09
SPEAKER_02: And I didn't even know there was such a thing as a picosecond.
16:12
SPEAKER_07: Should have studied more physics, I guess.
16:13
SPEAKER_02: Well, or not.
16:14
SPEAKER_02: I mean, this is the only this is really the only time it comes in handy.
16:17
SPEAKER_02: Final question.
16:19
SPEAKER_02: It is illegal to own just one guinea pig in Switzerland.
16:24
SPEAKER_02: Illegal to own just one guinea pig in Switzerland.
16:29
SPEAKER_07: We'll say true.
16:30
SPEAKER_02: It is true.
16:31
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
16:32
SPEAKER_02: Because Swiss animal welfare laws recognize guinea pigs as social animals, so keeping one would be considered neglect.
16:41
SPEAKER_02: So you cannot have just one guinea pig.
16:44
SPEAKER_02: Can't eat just one lace potato chip.
16:46
SPEAKER_07: There you go.
16:46
SPEAKER_07: Can't have one guinea pig.
16:49
SPEAKER_02: Sure.
16:51
SPEAKER_02: So I appreciate you coming by.
16:53
SPEAKER_02: Best of luck in your next chapter.
16:55
SPEAKER_02: I expect a full report from your first day of retirement, whether you're on the lake, on the river, definitely the day after you retire.
17:02
SPEAKER_02: I want to know.
17:03
SPEAKER_02: I've often thought about what I would do in my very first day, and just like you sleeping in was Yeah, that's gotta be nice.
17:08
SPEAKER_02: I mean, you just ease into the day, right?
17:11
SPEAKER_02: Just got a cup of coffee, look out, just say to myself, I don't gotta be anywhere.
17:15
SPEAKER_07: No particular place to be.
17:17
SPEAKER_07: Yeah.
17:17
SPEAKER_02: That's that's part of retirement.
17:19
SPEAKER_02: Well, best of luck in your retirement, Detective Phil Allen.
17:22
SPEAKER_02: Thanks for joining me.
17:23
SPEAKER_07: Thanks so much.
17:23
SPEAKER_07: Thanks for having me.
17:25
SPEAKER_02: April is Records and Information Management Month.
17:28
SPEAKER_02: So we welcome into the studio.
17:29
SPEAKER_02: We'll be getting to know Stephanie Beerce.
17:32
SPEAKER_02: The sign outside your door says Records and Information Services, but your official title is Administrative Services Manager.
17:41
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, we got to get you a new business card.
17:44
SPEAKER_02: Because that way it's a little more descriptive on exactly what it is you guys do.
17:49
SPEAKER_02: Thank you so much for sitting down and talking a little shop with me on this, getting to know you a bit.
17:53
SPEAKER_02: I'm looking forward to hearing everything your department does, because I never really got a full explanation.
17:57
SPEAKER_02: I kind of get it based on the name.
17:59
SPEAKER_02: But you know, I blame TV and the movies for this image that when someone thinks police, right?
18:06
SPEAKER_02: They think patrol officer or detective, or maybe you've got a chief.
18:11
SPEAKER_02: But that's all there is to the police department, right?
18:13
SPEAKER_05: Right.
18:14
SPEAKER_02: That's it.
18:14
SPEAKER_02: There's there's nothing else out there except the support staff, of which in the Asheville Police Department, it's around, what is it, near 50, 45, 50 somewhere?
18:23
SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
18:23
SPEAKER_02: So you've got a lot of people that are supporting all the people that are going out there and doing those things.
18:30
SPEAKER_02: What is it exactly your department does?
18:33
SPEAKER_02: Let's just start right there, full explanation, nuts and bolts.
18:36
SPEAKER_05: We can do a lot.
18:37
SPEAKER_05: A call comes in, we can take your report as long as it's not in progress.
18:42
SPEAKER_05: We supply reports to other agencies, to the district attorney, um, the public, if someone wants a copy of a report, crash report, any kind of report really within parameters, you know.
18:56
SPEAKER_05: Um any report that we deal with.
18:59
SPEAKER_05: Uh we submit reports to the DMV, crash reports.
19:02
SPEAKER_05: They all get submitted to the DMV.
19:04
SPEAKER_05: We do monthly reports that we're responsible for.
19:08
SPEAKER_05: Traffic stop, racial profiling reports go to the state, and then we've got reports that we send to the FBI for crime, crime statistics.
19:15
SPEAKER_02: There's reports for everything in the There's reports for everything.
19:19
SPEAKER_02: And you got a governmental agency.
19:21
SPEAKER_02: There's reports of plenty.
19:23
SPEAKER_02: So when you say you take a call, though, not 911, not the non-emergency number, 252-1110.
19:30
SPEAKER_05: That goes to dispatch.
19:32
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
19:32
SPEAKER_05: We are uh 259-5870.
19:36
SPEAKER_05: That will get to our department.
19:37
SPEAKER_05: But our department is in 24 hours, so the 252-1110 will be answered.
19:42
SPEAKER_02: I got you.
19:43
SPEAKER_02: So that's when somebody has a hey, uh, I got this thing going on in my neighborhood.
19:46
SPEAKER_02: That's the that's the other number.
19:48
SPEAKER_02: Right.
19:48
SPEAKER_02: But if someone needs information from you, maybe even that's that's the number that they call and they've got to do it during regular hours to do it that way.
19:54
SPEAKER_05: Or you can call the other number and they'll transfer.
19:56
SPEAKER_02: Transfer you over.
19:57
SPEAKER_02: So you can always start with your number if that's the the easier one to remember, because it kind of is, and we always say it all the time.
20:03
SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
20:03
SPEAKER_02: So that's what you guys are doing.
20:04
SPEAKER_02: You're compiling all of those report, all this valuable information, some of it for the public, some of it from the public.
20:11
SPEAKER_05: Correct.
20:12
SPEAKER_02: And then disseminating it to whoever needs it because everyone's needing information.
20:16
SPEAKER_02: Information is power.
20:17
SPEAKER_05: It is.
20:18
SPEAKER_02: And it's a big month to celebrate with uh records and information management month, because without the support staff at the Asheville Police Department, the officers are it kind of flying blind blind a little bit in some cases.
20:29
SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
20:30
SPEAKER_02: You know, so what is a day in the life look like for you?
20:33
SPEAKER_02: What does your average day look like?
20:35
SPEAKER_02: What are you doing?
20:36
SPEAKER_05: I correct a lot of errors on reports.
20:38
SPEAKER_05: Because the officers, they either put too much information in reports, which is great, but I've got to make it fit the parameters of what the FBI needs reported.
20:47
SPEAKER_05: So it's sometimes just moving their boxes around that they check and all the boxes are checked, it needs to be checked a certain way to be compliant with the FBI, though.
20:56
SPEAKER_05: Trevor Burrus, Jr.
20:57
SPEAKER_02: Well, one little typo can change everything.
20:59
SPEAKER_05: That's exactly right.
21:00
SPEAKER_02: Quite frankly.
21:00
SPEAKER_02: And the of if the officers are writing things down quickly, it could easily put in a point one at the end of something and and that's not the case.
21:06
SPEAKER_02: Yep.
21:07
SPEAKER_02: You have to be very specific.
21:09
SPEAKER_02: So do you review every report that an officer submits?
21:12
SPEAKER_05: Every single report.
21:13
SPEAKER_02: So you personally or your staff?
21:14
SPEAKER_05: My staff.
21:15
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
21:15
SPEAKER_02: And how many other of you guys?
21:17
SPEAKER_05: There's four record clerks and there's one supervisor.
21:21
unknown: Okay.
21:21
SPEAKER_05: That answers straight to me.
21:22
SPEAKER_02: All right.
21:23
SPEAKER_02: And so then you're the big head honcho over there.
21:25
SPEAKER_05: I'm the head honcho.
21:27
SPEAKER_02: Pretty exciting stuff.
21:28
SPEAKER_02: Let's talk personally, because we ask all these questions for anyone that sits in that chair.
21:32
SPEAKER_02: Where were you born?
21:33
SPEAKER_05: I was born in Rhinebeck, New York.
21:35
SPEAKER_02: Ryanbeck?
21:36
SPEAKER_02: So that's okay.
21:37
SPEAKER_02: I'm from Buffalo, and I've heard that name, but I couldn't tell you where it is.
21:42
SPEAKER_02: Is that like the Adirondacks or where is that close to?
21:44
SPEAKER_05: It is the other side of the river from Albany.
21:47
SPEAKER_05: South of Albany.
21:48
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
21:49
SPEAKER_05: North of New York City.
21:50
SPEAKER_02: Gotcha.
21:51
SPEAKER_05: The other side of the river.
21:52
SPEAKER_02: All right.
21:52
SPEAKER_05: It's where FDR's house is, if you know that at all.
21:56
SPEAKER_05: Aaron Powell.
21:57
SPEAKER_02: I'm sure it's lovely.
22:00
SPEAKER_05: My mom worked there back eons ago.
22:02
SPEAKER_02: I almost took a job in Poughkeepsie.
22:04
SPEAKER_02: Is it near Poughkeepsie at all?
22:05
SPEAKER_05: It's north of Poughkeepsie.
22:06
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
22:07
SPEAKER_02: Years ago, I was living and working in Fayetteville, and I had two job offers at the exact same time, Poughkeepsie and Asheville.
22:14
SPEAKER_05: Oh wow.
22:14
SPEAKER_02: And that was 1999, and it was the middle of winter.
22:18
SPEAKER_05: Okay.
22:18
SPEAKER_02: And I really didn't want to travel to Poughkeepsie in the middle of winter growing up in Buffalo, I knew.
22:23
SPEAKER_02: And so I came here, and of course, I got an ice storm here.
22:26
SPEAKER_02: So it was like, what are the odds, right?
22:28
SPEAKER_02: But from what I got to see, I liked it.
22:30
SPEAKER_02: And I'm like, you know what?
22:32
SPEAKER_02: The only reason I would have taken the Poughkeepsie job would have been to be closer to the family.
22:37
SPEAKER_02: And then I'm just like, I'd read some things on Poughkeepsie.
22:39
SPEAKER_02: This is almost pre-internet.
22:40
SPEAKER_02: I'm like, that doesn't sound like a great place.
22:43
SPEAKER_02: I'm like, Asheville looks nice, and that's what brought me to Asheville in February of 1999.
22:48
SPEAKER_05: Wow.
22:48
SPEAKER_02: So did you like growing up there in New York State?
22:50
SPEAKER_05: I did.
22:51
SPEAKER_05: Um I was born in Rhineback, but I didn't live in Rhinebeck.
22:54
SPEAKER_05: My parents moved.
22:55
SPEAKER_05: We actually moved to Dansville, which is out closer to Buffalo, Rochester area.
23:00
SPEAKER_02: I know.
23:00
SPEAKER_05: Yep.
23:01
SPEAKER_05: And then after that, we moved down, we went back to the other side of the state, and we were back in Catskill.
23:06
SPEAKER_05: And that's where I spent the majority of my childhood, was the Catskill area.
23:09
SPEAKER_02: Did you move because of your parents' jobs and things like that?
23:12
SPEAKER_05: Yep.
23:12
SPEAKER_02: What did they do?
23:13
SPEAKER_05: My mom works for Social Security, retired from Social Security.
23:17
SPEAKER_05: My dad worked for Ag and Markets with New York State.
23:19
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
23:19
SPEAKER_02: So you had a little bit of a taste of a government employee in your So what got you thinking about possibly working like for a law enforcement organization?
23:27
SPEAKER_05: Aaron Ross Powell I went to college with the thought of being a lawyer.
23:31
SPEAKER_05: And that sounded expensive.
23:33
SPEAKER_05: Ended up being expensive.
23:35
SPEAKER_05: So then I went the paralegal route, and then a job opened up down here, and it's like, all right, it's kind of like you.
23:41
SPEAKER_05: Let's let's try Asheville.
23:42
SPEAKER_02: Give it a shot, right?
23:43
SPEAKER_05: Give it a shot.
23:43
SPEAKER_05: And you know what?
23:44
SPEAKER_05: That was 2004 for me.
23:45
SPEAKER_05: Trevor Burrus, Jr.
23:45
SPEAKER_02: With all due respect to the lawyers out there, some of which are wonderful people, nobody likes lawyers.
23:50
SPEAKER_02: So and everybody likes you.
23:52
SPEAKER_02: So you're always got a bubbling personality.
23:54
SPEAKER_02: You're always bringing smile to the job every single day.
23:57
SPEAKER_02: So you chose the right one.
24:00
SPEAKER_02: So did you think about the other question that I always ask, which is one thing that most people don't know about you?
24:04
SPEAKER_05: Aaron Ross Powell I did.
24:05
SPEAKER_05: I grew up with horses.
24:06
SPEAKER_05: I don't think most people knew that about me.
24:08
SPEAKER_05: I was an equestrian as a kid.
24:10
SPEAKER_05: That was uh my mom was an equestrian.
24:12
SPEAKER_05: She did more of the Western style.
24:14
SPEAKER_05: I got more into the English style when I was a kid, and all the way up till about the age when I started driving, and then I figured out I could get in a car and go places.
24:25
SPEAKER_02: Did you ever like compete?
24:26
SPEAKER_05: Like I did.
24:27
SPEAKER_05: Did you?
24:28
SPEAKER_05: I did.
24:28
SPEAKER_05: I did jumping and and uh I did that for a lot of years.
24:32
SPEAKER_02: That's kind of awesome.
24:33
SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
24:33
SPEAKER_02: So you know Debbie LaCroix, of course, was way into horses and stuff.
24:36
SPEAKER_02: Have you seen her like or like mini horses and all the rest?
24:39
SPEAKER_05: Yes.
24:39
SPEAKER_05: I'm very jealous.
24:40
SPEAKER_02: I so I've just been told about them.
24:42
SPEAKER_02: I've seen pictures, but I need to go down there.
24:45
SPEAKER_02: That's what they kind of look like.
24:47
SPEAKER_02: Like Cora and them are almost the same size.
24:50
SPEAKER_02: And so I need to get down there and see all of her horses.
24:53
SPEAKER_05: Yeah, that would be so much fun.
24:54
SPEAKER_02: We've actually got, don't we have like a program here at the Asheville Police Department?
24:58
SPEAKER_02: Like a there's like a wellness incentive program uh with some horse farm around here.
25:02
SPEAKER_05: Oh, yes, the horse forcent.
25:03
SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
25:04
SPEAKER_02: I believe it's called Horse Sense.
25:06
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, Horse Sense of the Carolinas.
25:07
SPEAKER_02: I got it right here.
25:08
SPEAKER_02: A nonprofit dedicated to providing professional equine assisted therapy and learning for survivors of trauma in western North Carolina.
25:16
SPEAKER_02: Which makes perfect sense.
25:17
SPEAKER_02: You know, and I've done a little bit of horseback riding.
25:19
SPEAKER_02: There's just something about sitting atop a horse.
25:23
SPEAKER_02: It's hard to describe, isn't it?
25:25
SPEAKER_02: Especially.
25:27
SPEAKER_02: Well, it so you're you're sitting high in the saddle for one.
25:30
SPEAKER_02: So you got this different perspective, right?
25:32
SPEAKER_02: You're anybody that's up there on a horse, you're taller than anyone that's, you know, walking along or whatever.
25:39
SPEAKER_02: You just got this different perspective.
25:40
SPEAKER_02: Yep.
25:41
SPEAKER_02: And there's just and if it was just you and your horse and you're out in the woods, there's something just incredibly peaceful about that, isn't it?
25:46
SPEAKER_05: Very peaceful.
25:47
SPEAKER_02: I mean, I'm sure in your competitions it wasn't quite that peaceful.
25:50
SPEAKER_02: No, no, no.
25:50
SPEAKER_02: That'd be kind of stressful.
25:51
SPEAKER_05: But I did the backwoods, you know, we we had woods behind our house, and my horse and I would just go, just go and hang out.
25:59
SPEAKER_02: Very peaceful.
26:00
SPEAKER_02: What was your horse's name?
26:01
SPEAKER_05: His name was Tom.
26:02
SPEAKER_02: Tom, you gave him a lot of people.
26:03
SPEAKER_05: He had a very fancy name that he was registered with, but he was Tom.
26:07
SPEAKER_02: So where'd the name come from?
26:09
SPEAKER_02: Where I mean how do you call him?
26:10
SPEAKER_05: He was born with yeah.
26:12
SPEAKER_02: So he was already Tom.
26:13
SPEAKER_05: Yeah, he was our well, he was Handy River Tom Handy River Thomas.
26:16
SPEAKER_05: So he was Tom.
26:17
SPEAKER_02: Tom, yeah, at that point you just call him Handy River Thomas is just that's a weird kind of name.
26:22
SPEAKER_02: I'm going with Tom.
26:23
SPEAKER_05: Yeah, he was Tom.
26:24
SPEAKER_02: So did you win any competitions with Tom?
26:26
SPEAKER_05: I did.
26:27
SPEAKER_05: I did win some competitions.
26:28
SPEAKER_02: You got some blue ribbons hanging to the house, huh?
26:30
SPEAKER_05: Well, you know, not anymore, but back in the day.
26:34
SPEAKER_02: So you don't ride anymore, huh?
26:35
SPEAKER_05: No, no.
26:36
SPEAKER_02: Now there's important.
26:36
SPEAKER_05: It's an expensive uh hobby.
26:38
SPEAKER_02: So where else have you been in your life besides upstate New York, Central New York, and Asheville?
26:44
SPEAKER_02: I just get the feeling you've been around a little bit.
26:46
SPEAKER_02: Trevor Burrus, Jr.
26:46
SPEAKER_05: That is the only two places I've lived.
26:48
SPEAKER_02: Is that right?
26:48
SPEAKER_02: Yep.
26:49
SPEAKER_02: You seem like something.
26:50
SPEAKER_05: I went to college in Rochester, so I lived there for a while.
26:52
SPEAKER_02: Where'd you go in Rochester?
26:54
SPEAKER_05: The college I went to was R.T.
26:55
SPEAKER_02: You went to R.T.
26:57
SPEAKER_05: I did.
26:58
SPEAKER_02: That's impressive.
26:59
SPEAKER_05: For criminal justice.
27:00
SPEAKER_05: Which is kind of silly.
27:01
SPEAKER_02: So it's an engineering school.
27:02
SPEAKER_05: It is an engineering school.
27:03
SPEAKER_02: It's a very, very good one.
27:05
SPEAKER_05: And I went for liberal arts.
27:07
SPEAKER_02: Well, you know, but still you got that degree.
27:09
SPEAKER_02: If you had that RIT degree, that people look at that.
27:11
SPEAKER_05: Yep.
27:12
SPEAKER_02: So people don't know it's a Rochester Institute of Technology.
27:14
SPEAKER_05: Yep.
27:14
SPEAKER_02: Uh it's a very impressive school up there.
27:16
SPEAKER_02: Trevor Burrus, Jr.
27:17
SPEAKER_05: It was a very good school.
27:18
SPEAKER_05: Uh so I had a great experience.
27:20
SPEAKER_05: I have nothing bad to say about that at all.
27:21
SPEAKER_02: Aaron Ross Powell So how much more time you got left with the APD?
27:24
SPEAKER_02: Everyone that's here, that's been here a while, you start to think about that uh the magic number for retirement?
27:29
SPEAKER_05: Aaron Powell I've been here 21 years, so at most eight and a half years.
27:34
SPEAKER_05: Right.
27:35
SPEAKER_02: So you're starting to think about it?
27:36
SPEAKER_02: Like what you're doing later?
27:37
SPEAKER_05: Yeah, I don't know what I'm gonna do.
27:38
SPEAKER_05: Travel.
27:39
SPEAKER_05: I want to travel more.
27:40
SPEAKER_05: I don't feel like I've traveled enough in my life.
27:42
SPEAKER_05: Got my passport, I want to fill it.
27:44
SPEAKER_02: So so what are your top five destinations?
27:47
SPEAKER_05: Probably Italy.
27:48
SPEAKER_05: Italy's probably the top, top of my list.
27:51
SPEAKER_02: My mom has been there a couple times and she says it's just wonderful.
27:54
SPEAKER_05: I want to go to Costa Rica.
27:56
SPEAKER_05: Okay.
27:56
SPEAKER_05: I want to go probably Belize or, you know, down in the Caribbean.
28:01
SPEAKER_02: Tropical, getting tropical.
28:02
SPEAKER_05: Yep.
28:02
SPEAKER_05: I'm gonna do tropical.
28:04
SPEAKER_05: I'm gonna get back to Alaska.
28:05
SPEAKER_05: I don't really need I don't need the passport for that.
28:07
SPEAKER_05: Alaska and Hawaii.
28:08
SPEAKER_02: So you've been to Alaska?
28:09
SPEAKER_05: I've been to Alaska.
28:10
SPEAKER_02: So did you do the cruise to get there?
28:12
SPEAKER_05: I did both.
28:13
SPEAKER_05: I did a cruise, um bus, cruise, and boat.
28:17
SPEAKER_02: I have a friend that works in Alaska and he's always inviting me up.
28:21
SPEAKER_02: Oh you gotta go.
28:22
SPEAKER_02: He lives uh outside of Anchorage, uh, which they don't they only have a couple big cities up there.
28:26
SPEAKER_02: Anchorage is like the only one that's really a big city.
28:29
SPEAKER_02: Uh what Juneau, I guess, is also pretty good size.
28:31
SPEAKER_05: Yeah, Fairbanks is pretty good size.
28:33
SPEAKER_02: So they've got a few cities up there, but people don't quite realize how big Alaska is.
28:38
SPEAKER_05: Aaron Ross Powell They told us when we were up there, if you take the state of Alaska and put it in the center of the United States, it'll about touch both coasts.
28:45
SPEAKER_05: You can't conceptualize that it's that big.
28:47
SPEAKER_05: Trevor Burrus, Jr.
28:48
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, they think Texas is big.
28:49
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
28:49
SPEAKER_02: Texas would be like the little corner of Alaska.
28:51
SPEAKER_05: Right.
28:52
SPEAKER_05: It's just massive.
28:53
SPEAKER_05: Alaska's huge.
28:54
SPEAKER_02: Now most of it is uninhabited, mind you.
28:56
SPEAKER_02: But in the summer, of course the horse flies are the size of my fist, I understand.
29:01
SPEAKER_02: But in the summer, it's just beautiful.
29:03
SPEAKER_05: Trevor Burrus, Jr.: It is incredible.
29:04
SPEAKER_02: Even though it's brief.
29:06
SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
29:06
SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
29:07
SPEAKER_05: You have a small window when you're you can actually get up there and do anything.
29:10
SPEAKER_02: Aaron Powell So when you visited, was it a time of all sunlight, or was it just the were the hours normal then?
29:16
SPEAKER_05: Aaron Powell It was the end of July 2006.
29:20
SPEAKER_05: Okay.
29:20
SPEAKER_05: So it's been a while.
29:21
SPEAKER_05: I haven't been up there in a long time.
29:22
SPEAKER_02: Aaron Powell Because there's a certain time of the year that lasts, what, a few weeks or something where it is 24 hours of sunlight.
29:28
SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
29:28
SPEAKER_05: When we were up there, it was you'd look out at three o'clock in the morning and it was daylight.
29:33
SPEAKER_05: It wasn't bright sunny daylight, but you could see across the street.
29:36
SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
29:36
SPEAKER_05: It was very weird.
29:38
SPEAKER_02: You'd have to have complete blackout drapes or something on your windows to keep your body in a regular rhythm.
29:43
SPEAKER_02: Otherwise, it's not going to know what to do.
29:45
SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
29:46
SPEAKER_02: So did you go up there just to just just to tour or to fish, anything like that?
29:50
SPEAKER_05: Nope, just to do the tour.
29:54
SPEAKER_02: That's a long way away.
29:55
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
29:56
SPEAKER_02: Just getting there takes a couple of days.
29:58
SPEAKER_02: It did.
29:59
SPEAKER_02: Where else do you want to see?
30:00
SPEAKER_05: Probably Portugal, Spain.
30:01
SPEAKER_05: I mean, there's not really a I don't have a limit.
30:03
SPEAKER_02: I'd go anywhere.
30:04
SPEAKER_02: See, I'd like to travel more, but I really don't think I need to go that international.
30:08
SPEAKER_02: There's so much to see here.
30:10
SPEAKER_02: There is.
30:10
SPEAKER_02: I I've never been west.
30:12
SPEAKER_02: Well, I've barely been west of the Mississippi.
30:14
SPEAKER_02: I live in Joplin, Missouri for a little while.
30:15
SPEAKER_02: But that's as far west as I've ever gotten.
30:18
SPEAKER_02: So I've never gotten to uh like Denver in the Rocky Mountains.
30:21
SPEAKER_04: Okay.
30:22
SPEAKER_02: Never seen the Rocky Mountains.
30:23
SPEAKER_02: I've never seen the obviously the West Coast.
30:25
SPEAKER_02: I've never seen you know the Pacific Ocean, never seen any of that, or the desert southwest, or uh or even really the Midwest, that much.
30:32
SPEAKER_05: You gotta rent an RV and just go then.
30:34
SPEAKER_02: You know what?
30:34
SPEAKER_02: I was talking about that with somebody this weekend.
30:37
SPEAKER_02: Uh, because so we were at uh Hillman Beard, which is down there in Biltmore Village, which is one of my favorite places for my wife and I to go, and we met a man from Grand Forks, North Dakota.
30:47
SPEAKER_02: It was just him and his two dogs, Weyland and George, named after Waylon Jennings and George Jones.
30:54
SPEAKER_02: And he was in an RV and just traveling the country, visiting friends in various locales and seeing things.
31:01
SPEAKER_02: And that sounded awesome.
31:03
SPEAKER_02: Because that's the way to see America.
31:04
SPEAKER_05: I would think so.
31:05
SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
31:06
SPEAKER_05: It sounds like fun.
31:07
SPEAKER_02: Especially if you did it like in the summer or the right time of the year where it was nice enough you could be outside all the time everywhere.
31:13
SPEAKER_04: Yep.
31:14
SPEAKER_02: You know, or you just you time it out right.
31:16
SPEAKER_02: So you're maybe you're maybe you start in the Pacific Northwest when it's summer, and then by the time you get down to Florida all the way, and then it's the winter.
31:23
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and you could spend like months just doing that.
31:26
SPEAKER_02: But that's something to think about.
31:27
SPEAKER_02: I'm not much of a hop in a plane guy.
31:29
SPEAKER_05: Aaron Powell Yeah, and then you still have to rent a car, and then you gotta know where you're going, where if you know, I feel like you get an RV, you can just go.
31:36
SPEAKER_02: So getting her head out of the clouds and uh back to work, as they say, with April being records and information management month.
31:43
SPEAKER_02: What is the most challenging part of your job?
31:45
SPEAKER_05: Aaron Powell Probably when I can't fulfill the request that I've got.
31:50
SPEAKER_05: You know, whether it be an officer hasn't done the report yet, and you know, someone wants an ASAP, but you know, the incident just happened, so they haven't even had a chance to write the report that starts getting stressful there.
32:01
SPEAKER_02: Aaron Powell And sometimes I'm guessing just the sheer volume.
32:03
SPEAKER_05: Yeah, yeah.
32:04
SPEAKER_02: As we all know, in this business, there's definitely times of the year where it's busier than others, like you know, any business, I guess.
32:11
SPEAKER_03: Yep.
32:12
SPEAKER_02: And we know around here the wintertime tends to things to slow down a little bit.
32:15
SPEAKER_02: In the summer, everything picks up for you, for me, for for everybody involved.
32:21
SPEAKER_02: So I I'm guessing you like everyone else, the summer is probably the busiest time for you.
32:25
SPEAKER_05: Yep, all the tourists that come in and cars get broken into and all kinds of stuff.
32:29
SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
32:30
SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
32:30
SPEAKER_02: So people lock your doors.
32:31
SPEAKER_02: Just lock Please.
32:33
SPEAKER_02: Just please lock your doors.
32:34
SPEAKER_05: Don't leave your valuables on your front seat.
32:36
SPEAKER_02: I I get asked that all the time just by people.
32:39
SPEAKER_02: It's like, uh well, what's one thing you would tell anybody that lives in Ashe film?
32:42
SPEAKER_02: Like, lock your doors.
32:44
SPEAKER_05: Yep, don't leave your keys in the car.
32:45
SPEAKER_05: No.
32:46
SPEAKER_02: I ever.
32:47
SPEAKER_05: Ever.
32:48
SPEAKER_02: Don't do the walk outside, start it, and go back in because it's cold out.
32:51
SPEAKER_05: Don't pull up to Starbucks or any of the coffee places and leave your keys, your car running.
32:56
SPEAKER_02: And so if we've learned anything from this conversation, it's lock your door.
33:00
SPEAKER_02: That's it.
33:01
SPEAKER_05: Yes, definitely.
33:02
SPEAKER_02: Stephanie Beers, thank you so much for sitting down and talking a little bit with me today.
33:06
SPEAKER_05: Anytime.
33:07
SPEAKER_02: Appreciate you.
33:09
SPEAKER_02: Joined now by senior police officer Justin Lewis.
33:12
SPEAKER_02: Welcome back, Justin.
33:13
SPEAKER_02: Oh, thank you.
33:14
SPEAKER_02: And the weather is warmer, very warm, actually.
33:17
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
33:18
SPEAKER_01: I'm ready for this summer.
33:20
SPEAKER_02: I think it's here.
33:21
SPEAKER_02: And uh that means you guys being out and about and a lot more active.
33:24
SPEAKER_02: We got some cool stuff coming up, including something uh like, depending on when this drops, this episode, either like uh the next day or that day, talking about Truck City, my friend.
33:34
SPEAKER_01: Yes, Truck City uh is gonna be at 800 Bavard Road, the Tanker Outlets.
33:39
SPEAKER_01: If you haven't got the experience it, it's great.
33:41
SPEAKER_01: You're gonna have vehicles, Asheville Parks and Recs put this on every year.
33:44
SPEAKER_01: You're gonna have all sorts of vehicles, dump trucks, fire trucks.
33:48
SPEAKER_01: You're gonna have all the police vehicles there of different types.
33:50
SPEAKER_01: And the first hour from 1 to 2 p.m.
33:53
SPEAKER_01: is gonna be specifically for anybody with sensory needs.
33:57
SPEAKER_01: So no horns, no sirens, none of that.
34:00
SPEAKER_01: The kids can come out and enjoy without having to worry about those issues for anything.
34:05
SPEAKER_01: No lights being set off.
34:06
SPEAKER_01: Perfect for fun and families.
34:07
SPEAKER_01: It's gonna be from 1 p.m.
34:08
SPEAKER_01: to 4 p.m.
34:09
SPEAKER_01: Like I said, one to two will be sensory needed only.
34:13
SPEAKER_02: I have always wanted a truck my entire life.
34:16
SPEAKER_02: Not like a dump truck or something like that, but like a pickup truck.
34:20
SPEAKER_02: I've wanted a pickup truck my whole life.
34:22
SPEAKER_02: Something about trucks.
34:23
SPEAKER_01: They're versatile.
34:24
SPEAKER_02: You can haul stuff, do all these things.
34:26
SPEAKER_02: I just haven't been able to pull the trigger because with my lifestyle and our with our traveling, a truck is almost it would have to be like an extra thing because we still need like an SUV to like haul stuff and move stuff in that way, like when you're traveling.
34:39
SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
34:39
SPEAKER_02: The the pickup truck's not great for that.
34:42
SPEAKER_02: That makes sense.
34:42
SPEAKER_02: You'd have to have like a cover or something, then you're buying extra stuff, and that's how they get you.
34:46
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
34:46
SPEAKER_01: Well, I mean, like I live out in the county, so I don't got trash pickup.
34:49
SPEAKER_01: I have to take it to a discount.
34:50
SPEAKER_01: Oh, so you gotta have a pickup truck.
34:51
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I gotta have a pickup truck.
34:53
SPEAKER_01: You don't want to put any of that.
34:54
SPEAKER_01: Throw that in the back seat of your car.
34:55
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, no, it's gonna ruin it.
34:57
SPEAKER_02: So what time is the uh truck city, my friend?
34:59
SPEAKER_01: All right, it's again April 18th, this Saturday, from 1 p.m.
35:02
SPEAKER_01: to 4 p.m.
35:03
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
35:04
SPEAKER_01: The first hour from one to two will be specifically set aside for those with sensory needs.
35:09
SPEAKER_02: All right.
35:10
SPEAKER_02: April eighteenth.
35:11
SPEAKER_02: So depending on when you are listening to this, if you hear this Saturday, don't just jump over if it's after April 18th.
35:17
SPEAKER_02: So April 18th.
35:18
SPEAKER_02: And you can check out our brand new resource center while you're there.
35:21
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
35:22
SPEAKER_02: Because it's kind of in the back parking lot of Tanger Outlets, is where they do it, I believe, correct?
35:26
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's actually gonna be right there at it.
35:27
SPEAKER_02: Okay, so it'll be right there at the new Asheville Police Department Resource Center.
35:31
SPEAKER_02: Very cool.
35:31
SPEAKER_02: All right, what else we got coming up?
35:32
SPEAKER_02: I know we're kind of winding down with the signups for the junior police academy.
35:36
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so juice junior police academy applications close May 1st.
35:41
SPEAKER_01: It's a bit of a process, so once you get the applications in, they're gonna go through and make sure we can accommodate those that put in.
35:46
SPEAKER_01: Uh, here lately with the application process, we've been getting a lot of interest.
35:50
SPEAKER_01: So uh sometimes it's a little competitive.
35:52
SPEAKER_01: We're gonna try to get everybody in, but it's not always gonna happen.
35:55
SPEAKER_01: And that's gonna be from June 15th to June 19th.
35:58
SPEAKER_01: We're gonna have a blast that week, get kids into some stuff, have them sit there and see what the police department's about and all everything within it.
36:05
SPEAKER_02: What's the age group we're looking for for the June or something?
36:07
SPEAKER_01: I wanted to say is between 14 and 18.
36:09
SPEAKER_01: That's what I think.
36:10
SPEAKER_01: It's like the high schooler age.
36:11
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, because the post-18, those are the ones we're pushing toward the immersion academy.
36:15
SPEAKER_01: Yes, yes, that's gonna be for those that are seeking to go into that career profession a little bit later to give them a little bit more experience and in-depth trial run at what goes on that week.
36:25
SPEAKER_02: Awesome.
36:25
SPEAKER_02: And something a lot of people have been talking about, especially this week.
36:28
SPEAKER_02: A lot of chatter about the new downtown initiative.
36:31
SPEAKER_02: Let's talk about that just a little bit here.
36:33
SPEAKER_02: What is going on downtown with the Asheville Police Department with additional presence?
36:37
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so we're gonna sit there and do this 30-day initiative.
36:40
SPEAKER_01: So from now, and like I said, we got the Emergent Academy, so that week's got to set aside for the Emergent Academy, and then we're gonna go right back into the initiative.
36:48
SPEAKER_01: But this is gonna focus strictly on repeat offenders.
36:51
SPEAKER_01: These are the folks that are consistently downtown causing the issues, the larcenies, trespassing issues, it's turned focus on the overall impact of safety and general calls for service that affect quality of life.
37:04
SPEAKER_02: And this was the business owners and and the business folks coming to us, going to the cities and saying, listen, we need this.
37:11
SPEAKER_02: Can you help us out here?
37:12
SPEAKER_02: Trevor Burrus, Jr.
37:12
SPEAKER_01: You know, we're taking the appropriate enforcement actions when violations occur to help enhance accountability.
37:18
SPEAKER_01: But you know, it's like I said, we're we're gonna get out there, we're gonna be very visible.
37:22
SPEAKER_01: Vehicle patrol, bike patrol, foot patrol.
37:25
SPEAKER_01: I'm looking forward to getting back on the bike.
37:27
SPEAKER_01: And you'll even see us out there in the golf cart.
37:29
SPEAKER_01: We have an APD golf cart.
37:30
SPEAKER_02: Can I borrow that for my next round that I go on the course with?
37:33
SPEAKER_02: Is it I I would love to just is there like a little like a siren I could put on top?
37:37
SPEAKER_02: You know, like they put it.
37:39
SPEAKER_02: Like the old cop shows.
37:40
SPEAKER_02: Remember the detectives would like they'd have it in their car and then they'd put it on their the roof like when they got to go somewhere fast.
37:46
SPEAKER_02: Do we have that in the golf cart?
37:48
SPEAKER_01: That's gonna have to probably be a logistics request.
37:50
SPEAKER_01: I'm pretty sure we could do that.
37:51
SPEAKER_01: You know?
37:52
SPEAKER_02: Talk to buyers about that.
37:53
SPEAKER_02: See if you see if we can get uh get on there.
37:55
SPEAKER_02: So we'll probably just have like an air horn.
37:56
SPEAKER_02: That's the version of the siren, I would guess.
37:58
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, we we do got a little red air horn button.
38:00
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
38:00
SPEAKER_01: So we do have that.
38:01
SPEAKER_02: We can't go.
38:03
SPEAKER_02: It's not gonna be a good one.
38:05
SPEAKER_02: I was gonna say, because the meep that's not very intimidating.
38:07
SPEAKER_02: It's not that's not gonna scare anybody.
38:09
SPEAKER_01: I guess it's you know, I'm just gonna have to use my wee woo voice.
38:12
SPEAKER_02: Yes.
38:13
SPEAKER_02: Yes, we would like that.
38:15
SPEAKER_02: So I understand uh coffee with a cop.
38:16
SPEAKER_02: We're working on that.
38:18
SPEAKER_01: It's still tentative right now.
38:19
SPEAKER_01: We're uh with the downtown initiative and us shift in our focus, the entire community engagement division.
38:25
SPEAKER_01: Uh all of us are gonna be kind of repositioned to this downtown initiative that way so we can help get things back on track and kind of improve the quality of life in that area.
38:33
SPEAKER_01: Aaron Ross Powell, Jr.
38:34
SPEAKER_02: You know, and we started this conversation by mentioning summer and the warmer weather, and let me say this in conjunction with that, because you're ready for the warmer weather with the beach pod, too.
38:44
SPEAKER_02: Let me just say this in all seriousness, you look fantastic.
38:47
SPEAKER_02: I appreciate it.
38:48
SPEAKER_02: And I know you've been working really hard at it.
38:50
SPEAKER_02: Yes.
38:51
SPEAKER_02: So it give people just a quick kind of A to Z your health journey in the past, say, year or so, where you were where you are.
38:58
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so like in uh in December of 23, I actually weighed 330 pounds.
39:03
SPEAKER_01: Yikes.
39:04
SPEAKER_01: Uh and like it it just got to me.
39:06
SPEAKER_01: I wasn't taking care of myself well.
39:08
SPEAKER_01: And you know, I went to see my endocrinologist, and they basically told me, they're like, Are you wanting to one day see your kids grow up or have grandkids?
39:15
SPEAKER_01: I was like, Yeah, absolutely.
39:16
SPEAKER_01: They're like, change something.
39:17
SPEAKER_01: And I was like, uh noted, like I get the point now, appreciate that.
39:21
SPEAKER_02: Scared straight moment, huh?
39:22
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and like that's one of the great things about Asheville.
39:25
SPEAKER_01: We have this well-known program.
39:26
SPEAKER_01: They're taking officers' health into serious consideration for the longevity, not just in the job, but when you retire.
39:33
SPEAKER_01: So I started taking advantage of that.
39:36
SPEAKER_01: My best friend Smitty, uh, the canine handler.
39:38
SPEAKER_01: We've been best friends even before uh we started here.
39:41
SPEAKER_01: He is like, all right, we're working out every time.
39:43
SPEAKER_01: So we go work out on shift together, doing jujitsu and things like that.
39:47
SPEAKER_02: I'm seeing you in the gym too.
39:48
SPEAKER_02: I've seen you down there doing the cardio, doing the weights.
39:51
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, started doing Spartans.
39:52
SPEAKER_01: I just finished a 10K on the fourth.
39:54
SPEAKER_01: That's awesome.
39:55
SPEAKER_01: That was uh I don't know how you do it, Rick.
39:58
SPEAKER_01: But uh if y'all don't know, Rick is like a uh Spartan enthusiast.
40:02
SPEAKER_01: The man's completed a lot.
40:04
SPEAKER_01: That's a way to it's a good way to put it, enthusiast.
40:06
SPEAKER_02: I really enjoy doing them.
40:07
SPEAKER_02: I know it seems like torture to a lot of people, but I enjoy doing them.
40:10
SPEAKER_02: Aaron Powell I never thought I'd say it, but I actually enjoy it too.
40:13
SPEAKER_02: Trevor Burrus There's just something about being an adult and getting muddy and just pushing yourself too.
40:18
SPEAKER_02: Yes.
40:18
SPEAKER_02: Because I mean you're doing that as a kid all day, every day, right?
40:21
SPEAKER_02: It's literally what you do.
40:22
SPEAKER_02: My parents used to just kick us out of the house, come home when the streetlights come on, and work we come home bloody, battered, muddy.
40:28
SPEAKER_02: Yep.
40:29
SPEAKER_02: They clean you up, throw you a meal, and then you're back at it the next day.
40:32
SPEAKER_02: But you don't get to do that as an adult.
40:34
SPEAKER_02: No, not really.
40:35
SPEAKER_02: Not really.
40:35
SPEAKER_02: I mean, it's you know, make sure working in the yard or whatever.
40:38
SPEAKER_02: Not the same.
40:39
SPEAKER_02: Not the same.
40:39
SPEAKER_02: So this is literally dunk walls and going over mud mountains and climbing ropes and all the things.
40:46
SPEAKER_01: I'm almost 40 and like I never thought this would be something I'd do or enjoy being able to challenge myself and see that I could still do this, and my oldest, my 16-year-old, he's running them with me.
40:56
SPEAKER_01: That's great.
40:56
SPEAKER_01: And you know, that's a check off my bucket list right there.
40:59
SPEAKER_01: I'm able to do this with my kids.
41:00
SPEAKER_01: Making memories.
41:01
SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
41:02
SPEAKER_01: And uh it it's bringing that health and wellness to them as well.
41:06
SPEAKER_01: So is is very important, not only for me to get my health and wellness under control, but for my family.
41:12
SPEAKER_02: So you started at 330.
41:13
SPEAKER_02: Where are you now?
41:14
SPEAKER_01: Uh 214 pounds.
41:16
SPEAKER_02: My man.
41:16
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
41:17
SPEAKER_01: It's uh it's definitely been a journey.
41:19
SPEAKER_01: Uh probably one of the hardest things to deal with is having uh request new uniforms.
41:24
SPEAKER_02: You probably had to request a few, I would guess.
41:27
SPEAKER_02: That's how many sizes, man.
41:28
SPEAKER_02: That's a drop.
41:29
SPEAKER_01: Even a new vest.
41:31
SPEAKER_01: Uh, but the department, they've been very good uh about helping me through that and very supportive.
41:36
SPEAKER_01: Uh it's it's just been an awesome journey.
41:38
SPEAKER_01: Uh the fact that they take our health into this much consideration is a big thing, and it's not just physical, it's mental.
41:44
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
41:45
SPEAKER_01: Very important.
41:46
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, sometimes it takes getting that scared straight moment though to really buckle down.
41:50
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
41:51
SPEAKER_02: Because a similar thing is kind of part of my journey.
41:53
SPEAKER_02: I got up to about 290.
41:56
SPEAKER_02: I wasn't quite to 330, but at 6'4, I was 290.
42:00
SPEAKER_02: And and I just all of a sudden my neighbor had just came come home diagnosed with diabetes.
42:05
SPEAKER_01: Oh, wow.
42:05
SPEAKER_02: Uh and really because it was a weight thing, really, it was what prompted that, right?
42:09
SPEAKER_02: Yep.
42:09
SPEAKER_02: And I'm like, you know what?
42:11
SPEAKER_02: I'm not there yet.
42:11
SPEAKER_02: I'm still healthy with my doctor, but I don't want them telling me what I can't eat.
42:16
SPEAKER_02: Exactly.
42:16
SPEAKER_02: You know, I want me to tell me.
42:18
SPEAKER_02: And so I'm like, that's it.
42:19
SPEAKER_02: I it was that day I said, I'm just I'm doing it.
42:22
SPEAKER_02: You know, I just got into it, ate better, exercised, and that's when I started doing the Spartan races.
42:27
SPEAKER_02: And so the lowest that I got to was about 210.
42:30
SPEAKER_02: And 210 was a little light for the same.
42:32
SPEAKER_01: I was gonna say on a 6'4 frame.
42:34
SPEAKER_02: It was a little light, and my wife told me so.
42:36
SPEAKER_02: She goes, Okay, now it's time to build back some muscle.
42:38
SPEAKER_02: And I'm like, Oh, thanks, coach.
42:40
SPEAKER_02: And so sure enough, and I'm right now I'm at 230.
42:42
SPEAKER_02: I like two twenty-five, but I usually get there in the summer because warmer weather, I'm doing more stuff.
42:46
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
42:47
SPEAKER_02: You know, winter, you know, you got the holidays and all those things.
42:50
SPEAKER_02: Just sit around a little more.
42:51
SPEAKER_01: Well, you know, we'll we'll blame it on the SoCon SOCON tournament.
42:54
SPEAKER_02: SoCon tournament, we'll do it.
42:56
SPEAKER_02: There are all the free gummy bears you can eat while you're so yeah, I'm about I'm about uh two twenty-nine right now.
43:00
SPEAKER_02: I'll be I'll be two twenty-five in the next month or so.
43:03
SPEAKER_02: And I like to hang out there.
43:04
SPEAKER_01: I'm hoping not to drop any more because at this point I'm burning muscle off.
43:08
SPEAKER_01: Like I I want to stay as a decently big guy.
43:11
SPEAKER_01: I I love weightlifting and I'm hoping to actually attempt my first Highland games this year, so we'll see.
43:17
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
43:18
SPEAKER_02: Okay, you're going full kilt or uh Oh yes, come on now.
43:20
SPEAKER_02: All right.
43:21
SPEAKER_02: I gotta represent right.
43:22
SPEAKER_02: That's awesome.
43:23
SPEAKER_02: That's fantastic.
43:24
SPEAKER_02: And I will see you at the next Spartan race, or at least the one in Tryon.
43:27
SPEAKER_02: I'm doing the one in Triple.
43:28
SPEAKER_01: That's right.
43:28
SPEAKER_01: August 2nd.
43:29
SPEAKER_02: I'll do the one in Tryon.
43:30
SPEAKER_02: I'll see you out there getting muddy.
43:31
SPEAKER_01: That's right.
43:31
SPEAKER_01: Hopefully, we have a lot sign up.
43:33
SPEAKER_01: We had a good amount last year.
43:34
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, we had a great group, didn't we?
43:35
SPEAKER_01: Oh gosh.
43:36
SPEAKER_01: It's it's gonna be a blast.
43:37
SPEAKER_02: It is.
43:38
SPEAKER_02: Senior police officer Justin Lewis, thank you so much.
43:40
SPEAKER_02: Thank you for having me.
43:43
SPEAKER_02: Welcome back, Hannah Silberman.
43:44
SPEAKER_02: It's time for another History Minute.
43:46
SPEAKER_02: Thanks for joining me.
43:48
SPEAKER_00: Glad to be back.
43:49
SPEAKER_02: I want to share a quote from 1905.
43:52
SPEAKER_02: Those that do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it.
43:56
SPEAKER_02: Philosopher George Santayana, a lot of people say it's Winston Churchill.
44:00
SPEAKER_02: It's been attributed to other people.
44:01
SPEAKER_02: That year was 1905.
44:03
SPEAKER_02: We're going back to a few years prior to that for today's History Minute.
44:08
SPEAKER_02: You'll understand why I mentioned that here in a moment, because the subject of election integrity has been a big one.
44:16
SPEAKER_02: Like lately, last, I don't know, year, five years, ten years, decade, couple of decades, but this is nothing new.
44:23
SPEAKER_02: Tell us what happened in 1901, 125 years ago, with the Asheville Police Department.
44:30
SPEAKER_00: So in 1901, it was the time where we elected our chiefs of police.
44:36
SPEAKER_00: And they were directly elected by the citizens of Asheville.
44:39
SPEAKER_00: And there was a hot contest between the Republicans and Democrats.
44:43
SPEAKER_00: There were two candidates.
44:45
SPEAKER_00: There was John S.
44:45
SPEAKER_00: Fulham, who was a firefighter, who had led a coup against the city because they refused to replace the firemen's fire gear.
44:52
SPEAKER_00: They had to pay out of their own pocket.
44:54
SPEAKER_00: So he led a mass resignation of firemen because they were volunteers.
44:58
SPEAKER_02: Okay, sure, yeah.
44:59
SPEAKER_00: And so he was very popular for doing that.
45:02
SPEAKER_00: So he was the Republican candidate, and Frank Jordan, who had been a longtime captain of our department, was the Democratic candidate.
45:09
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
45:09
SPEAKER_00: And so there were multiple city precincts.
45:12
SPEAKER_00: We had, I think, a little over a thousand voters at the time.
45:15
SPEAKER_00: After the votes were tallied and the election returns were made, there was an allegation about the tally.
45:21
SPEAKER_02: Had they tallied up votes and given an initial number at that point?
45:24
SPEAKER_00: Well, what they did was they had two judges.
45:27
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
45:27
SPEAKER_00: They had a citizens' judge.
45:28
SPEAKER_00: It was kind of a nonpartisan group of people who were meant to root out corruption in local governments.
45:35
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
45:35
SPEAKER_00: And that was Judge Thomas Harkins, who was the son of Chief Herschel Harkins.
45:39
SPEAKER_00: Trevor Burrus, Jr.
45:39
SPEAKER_02: Ah, we like that guy.
45:40
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
45:42
SPEAKER_00: And Democratic judge, I don't know his first name, his last name is Hollis.
45:46
SPEAKER_00: So these two judges counted the ballots, they wrote down the initial tally on an election return.
45:51
SPEAKER_00: They put all of the ballots in the boxes for each of the precincts, and then they were s secured, quote unquote, right?
45:56
SPEAKER_00: Trevor Burrus, Jr.
45:57
SPEAKER_02: Okay, but these weren't announced to the public then.
45:59
SPEAKER_02: They were not announced.
46:00
SPEAKER_00: They had not been certified.
46:01
SPEAKER_00: And they were going to be certified by the town's aldermen who were the canvassing board the next day.
46:07
SPEAKER_00: There was an allegation.
46:08
SPEAKER_00: The race was incredibly close.
46:10
SPEAKER_00: I mean like less than 10 votes between Fulham and Chief Jordan.
46:14
SPEAKER_02: So they're so certain people knew the numbers, or at least the Trevor Burrus, Jr.
46:17
SPEAKER_00: Yes, they knew that it was incredibly tight.
46:20
SPEAKER_00: Right.
46:21
SPEAKER_00: So in the ninth precinct, Fulham received allegedly received 122 votes.
46:28
SPEAKER_00: But the Republicans said the Democrats stole it by changing the number on the count to 112 votes.
46:36
SPEAKER_00: They changed the number in between.
46:38
SPEAKER_02: Yes.
46:39
SPEAKER_02: It's a tough switch.
46:40
SPEAKER_02: A two is kind of curvy.
46:42
SPEAKER_00: Right.
46:42
SPEAKER_02: A one is rather straight.
46:44
SPEAKER_00: Well, what happened was after they counted those votes and they wrote the returns, they put the locked box into an office in the city hall by the city clerk.
46:53
SPEAKER_00: But that judge, the Democratic judge Hollis, had a key to the lock box, and he admitted that he went in in the middle of the night in that room with somebody else because he was curious and quote, just wanted to see.
47:05
SPEAKER_00: So he said that he went in, opened the box, and looked, but he swore that he did not change the number on the return.
47:11
SPEAKER_02: No, nothing suspicious there at all.
47:14
SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
47:16
SPEAKER_00: So the uh city town aldermen met to discuss this, and I will read you a quote from the Ashville Register.
47:22
SPEAKER_00: Said, quote, the air was charged with electricity and not of the cutler kind, which would be the stuff in the walls, but of that kind which comes from the indignation of honest people when the sacred rights of the majority are about to be overthrown.
47:36
SPEAKER_00: This is for their local chief selections.
47:38
SPEAKER_02: I get that.
47:38
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
47:39
SPEAKER_02: Powerful stuff.
47:40
SPEAKER_00: So there was a whole hubbub at the aldermen's meeting.
47:44
SPEAKER_00: So the judge Harkins got up and he swore up and down the original tally was 122 for Chief Fulham.
47:52
SPEAKER_00: But before it could go any further, Frank Jordan stormed in and he said, I will concede defeat because he would not have the office unless he was honestly elected.
48:00
SPEAKER_00: But he said that Harkins made a mistake and he meant to write down 112, but wrote 122.
48:06
SPEAKER_00: And then they proceeded to fight.
48:07
SPEAKER_00: They used the word the term some plain talking was indulged in.
48:14
SPEAKER_00: Secretary of the board eventually intervened, said, okay, I'm just going to correct this to 122, and Fulham's the chief, and that was the end of it.
48:23
SPEAKER_02: Nothing to see here.
48:24
SPEAKER_02: Just go about your business, move along.
48:27
SPEAKER_00: Well, um Fulham still appointed Jordan to be his captain of the police.
48:31
SPEAKER_00: So I mean there clearly weren't hard feelings there.
48:34
SPEAKER_00: And it was significant because that year they had a total sweep of Democrats and city offices.
48:38
SPEAKER_00: So all the city clerk, the city, all of the police officers except for Jordan, the city attorney, were considered Democrats.
48:45
SPEAKER_00: But Fulham was a Republican.
48:47
SPEAKER_00: So it was a significant that he got his position.
48:50
SPEAKER_00: So it was Let me ask you.
48:58
SPEAKER_00: He probably knew everybody in town, to be honest.
48:59
SPEAKER_02: Aaron Powell So what would have been the the process for just a for an election back then?
49:04
SPEAKER_02: I mean, how does that work?
49:06
SPEAKER_02: Is it literally just the hand ballots people would go?
49:09
SPEAKER_00: Would they write a name in, or would it be like check a box or uh well just in reading, I went back and reread all of these articles or else I wouldn't have known, but I think it was check a box, but you could scratch it out and write it in.
49:20
SPEAKER_04: Okay.
49:20
SPEAKER_00: So there were but they literally sat and those two judges sat and they double checked and they tally literally tallied up the votes on the pieces of paper and the palette box.
49:30
SPEAKER_00: And then that's what they would write down the totals on that that paper.
49:33
SPEAKER_02: Aaron Powell I would imagine a lot of the elections back then would have been like super close with recounts and all of that just because of populations.
49:41
SPEAKER_02: So many less people then, so little room for error.
49:45
SPEAKER_02: Trevor Burrus, Jr.
49:45
SPEAKER_00: Just on the totals, because Fulham only won by three votes out of this entire thing.
49:50
SPEAKER_02: Well, allegedly.
49:52
SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
49:53
SPEAKER_00: The total number of votes, I think, in all the election tallies from the newspaper were like 2,000, but there were a lot more than 2,000 people who lived in the city.
50:01
SPEAKER_00: So I don't imagine a ton of people were just like today.
50:04
SPEAKER_02: Right.
50:04
SPEAKER_00: Very many people came out to vote.
50:06
SPEAKER_02: So you said Fulham was the winner.
50:08
SPEAKER_00: He was.
50:08
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
50:09
SPEAKER_02: Did he run again?
50:10
SPEAKER_02: Are are you allowed to run again?
50:11
SPEAKER_02: How how'd the next election go?
50:13
SPEAKER_02: Any idea?
50:14
SPEAKER_00: Uh yeah.
50:14
SPEAKER_00: So the terms were one year at that time.
50:16
SPEAKER_00: It flip-flopped between one and two years.
50:18
SPEAKER_00: They were one year.
50:19
SPEAKER_00: He did not run the next year.
50:20
SPEAKER_00: I can't remember what he went on to do.
50:22
SPEAKER_00: I think he went into private business.
50:24
SPEAKER_00: Um Frank Jordan won the next election and the election after that.
50:27
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
50:27
SPEAKER_02: So he he got to be chief again after that.
50:30
SPEAKER_02: So how much longer do we continue that with the election every, you know, from the general public to elect chief of police until we kind of moved into a more you know a process that we're in now kind of similar to that.
50:41
SPEAKER_00: 1923 is when we have our current system where the off the chiefs don't have term limits.
50:46
SPEAKER_04: Okay.
50:47
SPEAKER_00: I don't remember when they stopped the elections.
50:49
SPEAKER_00: I think it was the nineteen teens where it went back to the aldermen appointed them, but they still only served a term of two years.
50:55
SPEAKER_02: I gotcha.
50:56
SPEAKER_02: So for about a hundred years we've had our current system in place.
50:59
SPEAKER_02: Yes.
51:00
SPEAKER_02: Which is a good amount of time, I suppose.
51:02
SPEAKER_02: But uh the upheaval of just electing a new person every single year.
51:06
SPEAKER_02: I mean, I get that when a city is young and you know, but once you get established, that's just gotta be for the officers.
51:12
SPEAKER_02: I mean, it could be a new guy every single year, wild policy swings every single year.
51:18
SPEAKER_00: Well, I think I I brought this up before, but the police officers were also elected on term limits and were appointed, and it was very much based on their politics.
51:27
SPEAKER_02: Aaron Powell Which is just crazy.
51:28
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
51:28
SPEAKER_00: The electing police officers are said the whole police force were Democrats except for the chief who they elected as a Republican.
51:34
SPEAKER_00: Trevor Burrus, Jr.
51:35
SPEAKER_02: That's wild.
51:35
SPEAKER_02: So that year was 1901.
51:37
SPEAKER_02: We're now in 2026 and still talking about election integrity to this day.
51:42
SPEAKER_02: So for anyone out there that just maybe the younger generation, we have any of the Gen Z or the Gen Alphas that happen to be listening to the APD pod squad that think this whole election thing is brand new, how people have never, you know, agreed, gotten along, tried to scam, tried to steal, whatever it is.
51:58
SPEAKER_02: Proof in the pudding right there that this has gone on for a long, long time.
52:04
SPEAKER_00: I think the nice way to look at it is it's our democratic process working, and that there is a mechanism by which you could say, hey, I don't think this is right, and let's go count the ballots.
52:15
SPEAKER_02: Eternal optimist to Hannah Silberman, ladies and gentlemen, with the history minute.
52:22
SPEAKER_02: That does it for another episode.
52:23
SPEAKER_02: Thank you so much to my guests, Detective Phil Allen, Stephanie Beers, Senior Police Officer Justin Lewis, and Hannah Silberman with the History Minute.
52:32
SPEAKER_02: And thank you for listening.
52:34
SPEAKER_02: Couldn't do it without you.
52:35
SPEAKER_02: If you got a question or a topic you'd like discussed, or someone you'd like to hear from, call 828-250-8800 and leave a voicemail.
52:44
SPEAKER_02: 828-250-8800.
52:46
SPEAKER_02: Love getting those suggestions.
52:47
SPEAKER_02: You can also email me at APD Podcast Feedback.
52:52
SPEAKER_02: That is all one word.
52:54
SPEAKER_02: APD Podcast Feedback at AshevilleNC.gov.
52:59
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53:00
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53:04
SPEAKER_02: I'm Rick Rice, and this is the APD Podcast.