Latest / APD Pod Squad / Episode 17; Retired Officer Keith McCulloch, Sgt Scott Fry, Capt. Jonathan Brown, and The History Minute with Hannah Silberman

Transcript

Episode 17; Retired Officer Keith McCulloch, Sgt Scott Fry, Capt. Jonathan Brown, and The History Minute with Hannah Silberman · APD Pod Squad

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_06: This is the APD Pod Squad.
• 0:04
  SPEAKER_06: Coming up in this episode, did you know that April is Scottish American Heritage Month?
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_06: And Western North Carolina is home to one of the largest populations of Americans with Scottish ancestry.
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_06: It could be one of the reasons so many Scots and Irish settled in these mountains beginning in the early 1700s.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_06: Perhaps they felt at home.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_06: Joining me in this episode is Detective Keith McCullough, and he'll share a little about his Scottish heritage and his over three decades of service at the APD.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_06: April is also distracted driving awareness month.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_06: Sergeant Scott Fry joins me, and we'll get into the many, many distractions on the road and how you can avoid becoming a statistic.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_06: Captain Jonathan Brown from the Community Engagement Division is here to share the latest with his folks.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_06: And as we continue to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the Asheville Police Department, Hannah Silberman joins me for another History Minute.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_06: Thanks for listening.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_06: This is the APD Pod Squad.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_06: Detective Keith McCullough joins me right now.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_06: It's April, and April is Scottish American Heritage Month.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_06: And with the name McCullough, I would guess you've got Scottish Heritage, right?
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_06: Absolutely.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_06: All right, we're going to get into that a little bit and how many times you've watched Braveheart.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_06: But uh, welcome to the studio for the APD Pod Squad for the first time.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_06: Thank you.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you for having me.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_06: So as a little bit of the getting to know segment, because we've never spoken in this room before, a lot of the regular listeners know what I'm going to ask.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_06: There's two questions.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_06: The first is where were you born?
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_02: I was born here in the lovely land of the sky, Asheville, North Carolina, born and raised.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_06: So you're one of those locals, those natives that get those bragging rights.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_02: Absolutely.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_02: My family's born and bred right here in the mountains.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_06: So what part?
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_06: What part of Asheville?
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_02: West Asheville, right in the middle of Asheville.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_02: All my family moved here from originally was from South Carolina and they loved that the mountains and decided let's go here about the turn of the century, and here they came.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_06: My wife's family, uh also from Asheville, at least her generation of it.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_06: And uh when I met her, she lived in a family home on Vermont Avenue, which if you know West Asheville, you know where that is.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_06: Oh, yes.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_06: Uh so we had the uh first house on Vermont Avenue, so right there by Haywood Road, before West Asheville became what it is, with all the restaurants and all the whatever.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_06: It was still worst Asheville when I moved in there.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, yes.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_06: And one of the first places to go in uh was Burgermeister.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_06: I remember Burgermeister going in, which is like four restaurants ago in that particular building.
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_06: Uh it the church that she went to that I eventually became a member of was West Asheville Presbyterian, right there in Haywood Road.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_06: And we actually got our wedding cake from West End Bakery right there on Haywood Road, not long after they had opened.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_06: So she has some West Asheville history as well.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_06: Perhaps her family knew your family.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_06: We're no longer on that side of town.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_06: How about you?
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_06: What part of West Asheville did you live?
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_02: Far ends of West Asheville over towards uh Smoky Park Highway.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_02: Uh but the family was raised over on right in the middle off Haywood Road.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_02: So that's where they grew up, right next to Vance Elementary School.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_06: We're probably not too far from each other right now.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_06: I'm near the Buncombe County Sports Park and near the Anka Candler stretch, out that way.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_06: So also just a little bit off of Smokey Park Highway.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_06: So that is question number one.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_06: Question number two, and sometimes this can throw people for a little bit of a loop.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_06: We've heard some great answers.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_06: One thing about yourself that most people don't know.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_02: The one thing probably nobody knows is that I'm an avid gamer, especially on the virtual reality gaming platforms.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_02: Really?
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_02: Uh I got into that a few years back, and uh it's been about seven or eight years, and I started playing it.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_02: I had no interest in it.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_02: I thought I've been a, you know, the standard game, and you know, when for me having Pong and Atari.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_02: But I started uh my daughter got me into that playing virtual reality, and then I just took it and ran with it.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_02: And so I've been playing that.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_02: I do it like every single day.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_06: So you don't think this the wrong way, but that's a young man's game.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_06: It is the newer stuff's it is.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_06: People wouldn't expect people of your age and my age to be playing those games.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_06: Honestly, I gotta be honest with you, I'm a joystick and a button guy.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_06: Like back in the day, I gave it up when it got too complicated with the hold this down to jump and move, and now you got all the, I mean, you're wearing the ocular glasses and all the different things and whatnot.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_06: We were the first ones on the block to get Pong.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_06: You had mentioned Pong.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, yes.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, yeah.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_06: And if you think back to that, how cool was that and how primitive too at the same time.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_06: All it did was go beep, beep, it would pick up speed, and that was it.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_06: But we'd sit in front of that thing for hours.
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_02: And now the graphics are just unbelievable.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_02: And that's the enjoyment of it is at the end of the day, I I have to make a joke with the kids that I have to take, you know, Gerital and Tylenol to to relieve the pain because it's a very active game.
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, but it it really keeps you young, and I love doing that and just keeping keeping in with my daughter who's 15 and going on 30, and it's really a great bond between us.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_02: Trevor Burrus, Jr.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_06: So are you playing like the World of Warcraft and all those things, or are you doing more of the sports stuff?
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_06: What's kind of your your jam, your favorites?
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_02: Uh mine's pretty much the the active player games where you're actually interacting with each other as a team, a lot of the mission games, stuff like that.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_06: So you could be online with anybody in the world.
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_02: Oh yeah.
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_02: Oh yeah.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_02: Last night I was on with people from it was a Middle Eastern country, don't know which one, but uh we had a little tough time communicating, but they got the gist of it.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_06: That's a good question.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_06: Is there is there any kind of translation device within these things where somebody with another language needs to speak to you and the computer will translate it into English, for example.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_02: No, there's not, but a lot of the players have like, you know, different translation programs on their phones and they can hear it and it'll translate it.
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_02: And uh I don't have one, but like I say, most of the times you can pretty much communicate and know what each other's gonna do.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_06: Aaron Powell I mean I just think back to the days, the early days of video games when first they got the big stand-up ones in the game rooms and stuff, like you're playing Pac-Man and Donkey Kong and Galaga and all of those things, and Centipede, and they seem so primitive by today's standards.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_06: But you know what?
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_06: There's a couple of places that I still go in town that have little game rooms, like Galactic Pizza on Sardis Road.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_06: Okay, they've got a little game room with like four games, right?
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_06: And but my wife and I will go in there and we'll play like the games that are in there, like Miss Pac-Man or something like that.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_02: And it's still fun.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_02: It is.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_02: And that's the way I grew up is you know, playing the video games, playing the commercial video games, but also the home video games.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_02: And then I would buy all the different systems that would come out, and it was great, but then you kind of get out of it when you get married and have kids, and it's kind of like okay.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_02: But now I'm starting to get back into it, especially with the new technology.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_02: It's just it's just amazing to me.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_06: Detective Keith McCullough joins me right now.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_06: It is Scottish American Heritage Month.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_06: We'd mentioned that at the outset, and by the name McCullough, I would gather you were Scottish and you had mentioned to it.
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_06: You are, and you know a little bit about your history as well.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_06: Tell me about that.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_02: My family originally came over from Glasgow, Scotland, and they came over right after the um early 19th century, about 1870s, 1860s, 1870s.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_02: And they came over as laborers.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_02: You know, a lot of times during that period they were looking for for laborers, and I come from a long line of uh carpenters and contractors.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_02: My you know, my great-great-grandfather was a was a carpenter, and my great-grandfather, my my father even was a carpenter, and they all had these trades, and then I threw a wrench into it and wanted to go in law enforcement.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_02: Um But my dad, you know, that's that was what they came here for, and they passed it down through the the family.
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_02: And my dad did the same thing, you know, passed it down to me.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_02: And it was a great way to get into the country and you know, come here because of the skilled labor they were leading, and then they raised their families and and went from there.
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_02: And I did some heritage looking up my family crest.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, you know, the McCullough family crest, the it's Latin, their motto was V et anemo, which means with strength and courage, which I always thought it was kind of neat.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_02: And so when I pulled that up years ago, my dad showed me the crest, and he said this is what our crest is, and you know, we have our own kilt and everything.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_02: I don't have that.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_02: But but I have the crest, and I thought that was always kind of neat because there's actually two ways of spelling McCullough.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_02: Most people know it as M C C U L L O U G H, which was the old spelling when they first came over from Glasgow, and nobody could really spell it, so they changed it a little bit to and left off the O-U-G-H and just put O C H.
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_02: And so there's actually two variations of spelling it.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_02: And yours is the C H.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, mine's the O C H.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_06: Do you know which generation just decided to change it?
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_02: Well, that's kind of uh up in the air.
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_02: It really they don't know.
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_02: It when it changed, a lot of them they figured when they came over here on the documents somebody had misspelled it, and it just kind of carried over from there.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_02: Uh maybe they wanted to distance themselves from something.
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_02: We don't know.
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_02: But a lot of them they changed it to the L L O C H.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_02: Aaron Ross Powell, Jr.
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_06: A lot of people know this, but the kind of the founders of Western North Carolina, the people that first settled here, of course, not the Native Americans, they were already here.
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_06: But the Europeans and whatnot that came over that settled here were Scotch-Irish.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_06: Uh a combination of Scottish and Irish, which typically you see in the movies, apparently back in the day did not get along, but apparently they got along here, and that occurred in about the early 1700s.
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_06: Uh matter of fact, North Carolina as a state currently has a higher percentage of people with Scottish ancestry than any other state in the country, two point nine percent, uh, followed closely by Tennessee and South Carolina, which is why we have Highland Brewing, the Highland Games.
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_06: Do you and your family do any of the traditional Scottish activities like the games or I've been to the Games and they're wonderful to watch.
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_02: And you know, to go to these different events and learn about your heritage, a lot of it's just amazing how many people and how many different names and different clans there were.
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_02: And it it's kind a lot of them weren't very friendly back in the time when they were in Scotland, but when they came here, I think they pulled together and decided we need to, you know, come together as one because they were kind of the outsiders.
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_02: You know, they came in here and they they kind of stayed among themselves.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_02: So I think those clans actually pulled together tighter.
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_02: And we see that even during the the games.
• 10:11
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah, and the Scots-Irish were instrumental in turning the tide of the Revolutionary War in the Battle of King's Mountain.
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_06: A lot of people know this if you're into history.
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_06: Uh they were called the Over Mountain Boys, and they came from Tennessee and Western North Carolina and uh went up Kings Mountain and were vastly outnumbered.
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_06: Think of the British are looking down at them from the high ground and thinking, is this some kind of joke?
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_06: Next thing you know, that we're on top of Kings Mountain, and that turned the tide of the Revolutionary War.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_06: It did.
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_06: Besides the obvious contributions, culinary, etc., to Western North Carolina, the Scots played a huge part in American history.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_06: Absolutely.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_06: In a relatively small-ish population, you know, percentage-wise.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_06: You know, you hear a lot of people say they're Irish, maybe because they got the drinking holiday of uh St.
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_06: Patrick's Day.
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_06: You don't hear a lot of people kind of thump their chest about being Scottish, do you?
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_06: Aaron Ross Powell, Jr.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_02: You do, but it's a little different.
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_02: Like you said, the Irish get the recognition a lot more than than the Scottish, but a lot of people interchange them as the same, and they're not.
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_02: They're they're close together countrywise, but like you said, they they each played a part in in the development of this country.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_02: They really did.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_06: Aaron Powell Sticking with history in a matter of speaking, I know you've been with the Asheville Police Department a long time, but I I don't know how long.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_02: When did you join?
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_02: I just had my 37th year here at the Asheville Police Department.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_02: Thirty-seven years?
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_02: I started in 1988.
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_06: Wow.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_06: Any plans on, you know, wrapping things up?
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_06: I I mean you've been here a long, long time.
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_02: It is.
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_02: And and I enjoy the job.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_02: I enjoy the people.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_02: I enjoy working with the citizens and trying to, you know, work on their case because, you know, to me, each case is just as important as as the other one.
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_02: And so I want to try to get some some closure for a lot of these families and a lot of these victims of of crime.
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_02: And hopefully that's what we want to try to do.
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_02: That's our main goal, is to to help them and hit and help them through their troubled times.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_02: Trevor Burrus, Jr.
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_06: Who are some of the most memorable people you've worked with over the years at APD?
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_06: A lot of years under your belt.
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_06: Surely there's some people that stand out.
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_02: When I started, I was under uh Chief Fred Hensley, and Chief Isley was one of the uh pioneers of the department as far as, you know, working from the patrol division all the way up to chief, you know, that's that was a big, big thing for us is working with with people who had been to this department.
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_02: When I started, they started in the 40s and 50s.
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_02: Wow.
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_02: And so hearing those stories and hearing those, you know, their missions and and the things that they had gone through and how much we've changed today in today's times, uh, I'm just overwhelmed sometimes with the amount of progress we really have come along as far as new technology, uh new training, uh new ways of doing things that are a lot better than they used to be.
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_02: And it's it's really great to see that.
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_06: So your first chief, Chief Hensley, a lot in common with the current chief.
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_06: Absolutely.
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_06: Chief Lamb, both starting at the bottom, working the way through the ranks all the way to Chief of Police and uh was Hensley an Asheville native, just like Chief Lamb is.
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_06: So both from here.
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_01: Oh yes.
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_06: And then you probably had about ten chiefs in between or more.
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_02: It's oh yeah, we we we've had a number of chiefs.
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_02: But the thing about that's that's the thing that was so much is uh a lot of the people when I started, uh you would hear the stories about people they were born and raised here and started here, and how you know this was home.
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_02: That's why they were giving back to the community.
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_02: And that's kind of always how I looked at it is you know, I was born and raised here.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_02: This is my town, my my city, my police department.
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_02: And I wanted to give back to the citizens because I think that each day, like I say, each call was uh very specific because these people, you know, we're there to help you and help you through your your crisis.
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_02: You know, usually we deal with people on their worst day of their life because they're dealing with with something that needs a police intervention, and we want to try to get them through that.
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_06: Well, it sounds like you haven't lost your passion, so I expect to see you around the building for the next foreseeable future.
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_02: Well, I hope so.
• 13:51
  SPEAKER_02: I I enjoy the job.
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_02: I love uh helping people and doing doing the job, and I really want to keep doing as long as the good Lord will let me.
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_06: Detective Keith McCullough, thanks for joining us today.
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you for having me.
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_06: Let's get to know Sergeant Scott Fry and talk a little bit about distracted driving.
• 14:07
  SPEAKER_06: Sergeant, thanks for joining me.
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_06: Glad to be here.
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_06: All right, so you know April is Distracted Driving Awareness Month, and I know you've got a little bit of history in that department, the patrol department with the traffic universe and whatnot.
• 14:19
  SPEAKER_06: Let's just start off first and foremost, what kind of message would you like to send to all the people out there that are distracted on a daily basis, that are about to get into a wreck?
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_06: How to avoid that and you know, what to do when you're behind the wheel and what to do when you're just out there in public, too, really.
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_05: Pay attention.
• 14:37
  SPEAKER_05: You're you're driving a 4,000-pound vehicle.
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_05: That that should be the one and only thing you're paying attention to.
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, easier said than done, though.
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_06: You know, with all the distractions we've got now.
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_06: Most of all, look at what you got in front of you and what I got in front of me, these phones.
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_06: Right.
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_06: This is probably the number one I'm thinking, right?
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_05: Correct.
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 14:53
  SPEAKER_05: I mean, there the the vehicle alone nowadays has so many distractions within it, you know, just the way they come with all the the big screens for the radios and you know, the infotainment systems and and stuff like that that you know come stock in a vehicle, and then nobody leaves their home without their phone, and that's everybody's number way, one way of communicating.
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_05: So it's it's a huge distraction.
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah, I mean, if you think back to the days of like the Model T or whatever, could there was nothing else besides driving the vehicle, right?
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_06: There was no car radio open back then.
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_06: There was, I'm not even sure that thing had mirrors, I'm not whatever it was, but you have the wheel, you've got your pedal, and then you're just looking forward and doing your thing.
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_06: And now, like you say, I mean, it literally it's this huge computer in front of you with directions, and you can watch the kids can watch videos in the backseat, all those different things.
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_06: It's almost like they're they're making it harder for us, the manufacturers with all these bells and whistles.
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_05: Absolutely.
• 15:48
  SPEAKER_05: And driving itself is a is a multitasking thing you do.
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_05: I mean, there's so many things you have to focus on.
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_05: You know, your your feet moving the pedals, do I go faster, do I go slower?
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_05: Turning the wheel, your turn signals, the radio, looking at all the traffic around you, which way are you going?
• 16:05
  SPEAKER_05: I gotta turn here, I gotta stop, I gotta go.
• 16:08
  SPEAKER_05: You know, I mean, there's so many things you're already thinking about, and then you throw these multitude of other distractions on top of it.
• 16:15
  SPEAKER_05: Unfortunately, it's just a recipe for disaster.
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah, and you know, one of the things that obviously the invention of the automatic transmission has made things easier for driving, that's probably made it harder to pay attention because back in the day you had to worry about the clutch and the shift and the whole so you're acting both your hands were active.
• 16:32
  SPEAKER_06: Right.
• 16:33
  SPEAKER_06: Well, now somebody's got a phone in one hand or they've got a coffee or a sandwich or they're doing their makeup or whatever they're doing.
• 16:39
  SPEAKER_06: So, and you can just I mean, I've seen people uh guilty as charged.
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_06: I've put my knees on the wheel before and like driven down the road when you're going straight.
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_06: You know what I'm saying?
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, cars are so much easier now to to drive, you know, the the automatic transmissions, like you said, the power braking, power steering, ABS, you know, it makes everything so much easier now.
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_05: You don't have to, you know, granted, you don't have to focus as much, but you should because everybody's driving that same 4,000-pound missile down the road.
• 17:10
  SPEAKER_06: And let me add, Asheville is is unique in a lot of ways, too.
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_06: So the things that you're seeing that are gonna distract you probably don't occur in some other areas.
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_06: Beauty of the mountains, you might just be distracted by that one time you're driving.
• 17:23
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah, you've got like men dressed as nuns riding bicycles downtown, right?
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_06: Exactly.
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_06: So if that's the first time you're seeing that, that's gonna be a distraction.
• 17:31
  SPEAKER_06: Asheville is very distracting.
• 17:33
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah, yeah.
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_06: I mean, more so than other places, and then the traffic itself.
• 17:37
  SPEAKER_05: Right.
• 17:37
  SPEAKER_06: Let's so every day when I leave here, downtown Asheville, and I drive uh towards West Asheville, I take the downtown 240, right?
• 17:45
  SPEAKER_06: Right.
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_06: And so you're gonna basically be about six inches from a bumper in front of you.
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_05: Right.
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_06: And if you're like turned away for one second, that's all it takes.
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_06: Right.
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_05: And um, you know, I mean that that's another thing we shouldn't be following so closely.
• 18:00
  SPEAKER_05: You know, we should we should be giving some distance, um letting people in when they put their bumper in.
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_05: And it's it's not a race, you know, especially if you don't ever get there, you know.
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_05: So just give other drivers a little bit of grace, a little bit of you know, room to move around.
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_05: Um be courteous.
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_05: See a lot of that is just people aren't courteous to one another anymore.
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 18:23
  SPEAKER_05: Especially especially when they get behind a wheel.
• 18:25
  SPEAKER_06: It's easy to get short-tempered, and it only takes a few people on the road.
• 18:28
  SPEAKER_06: You could have a whole bunch of cars surrounding you, you get one guy or one gal that's just being herky jerky, as my dad would say.
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_06: Right.
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_06: And it ruins it for everybody.
• 18:37
  SPEAKER_06: Right.
• 18:37
  SPEAKER_06: And and sometimes they just they could just slide in behind you in a merge, but instead it seems like they rush in front to try and squeeze in this little space.
• 18:45
  SPEAKER_06: And like, you're not getting there any faster.
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah, yeah.
• 18:47
  SPEAKER_05: And then if you know you get in a wreck, then you're it's just gonna take you that that much longer.
• 18:51
  SPEAKER_05: You know, you're you're gonna have to wait on us to come, you know, depending on the severity of the crash, you know, it it might be a while.
• 18:59
  SPEAKER_05: If it's just a little fender bender and everybody's tied up, it's gonna be a while.
• 19:03
  SPEAKER_06: And you know, I'm one of the few people that I put the phone away when I'm driving.
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_06: I do not even look at it.
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_06: I don't, it's in my pocket intentionally.
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_06: I don't want to even give myself that chance.
• 19:13
  SPEAKER_06: Right.
• 19:13
  SPEAKER_06: Uh sometimes I'll have the Bluetooth on and I'll get a phone call, but I unless I'm somewhere where I know I'm safe, I don't even answer that.
• 19:19
  SPEAKER_06: And I know they say it's safe, but it's still a distraction.
• 19:22
  SPEAKER_06: Right.
• 19:23
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 19:23
  SPEAKER_05: That that's the biggest distraction is the phone.
• 19:26
  SPEAKER_05: And if people would just put that down and pay attention to just driving, it would solve a lot of our problems.
• 19:33
  SPEAKER_06: We got Sergeant Scott Fry with us right now talking about distracted driving awareness month, the month of April.
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_06: Let's get to know each other a little bit.
• 19:39
  SPEAKER_06: This is your first time in the podcasting studio in the APD Pod Squad.
• 19:43
  SPEAKER_06: Have you heard any episodes previous?
• 19:45
  SPEAKER_06: Have you listened to any?
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_05: I have been meaning to.
• 19:48
  SPEAKER_05: I have not had the chance to.
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_06: You're like the guy that goes to the dentist that says, you know, I've been meaning to floss.
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_06: I've been thinking about that.
• 19:56
  SPEAKER_06: But you know, I gotta be honest, I'm not doing it as often as I should.
• 19:59
  SPEAKER_05: I I still have all the all the episodes that have been sent out.
• 20:03
  SPEAKER_05: You know, the little reminder that gets sent out in the in the email.
• 20:06
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, I've got all those saved in my inbox.
• 20:08
  SPEAKER_05: Well, we're up to episode 17 now.
• 20:10
  SPEAKER_05: So you need to get on there pretty soon, right?
• 20:12
  SPEAKER_05: Absolutely.
• 20:13
  SPEAKER_06: You can learn some things about your fellow officers, like they're learning about, let's say, you on this one.
• 20:17
  SPEAKER_06: For example, one question we always ask, uh it establishes whether somebody has moved here from elsewhere or if they are a confirmed local or even a native.
• 20:27
  SPEAKER_06: Where were you born?
• 20:28
  SPEAKER_05: I am a transplant.
• 20:29
  SPEAKER_05: I was born in Jacksonville, Florida.
• 20:32
  SPEAKER_05: I uh worked for the Gainesville Police Department for three years before I moved up here in 2007.
• 20:39
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah, it kind of dispels the myth that nobody is actually from Florida because it it's everyone thinks everyone moves to Florida.
• 20:46
  SPEAKER_06: Yep.
• 20:46
  SPEAKER_06: Kind of like Asheville in a way.
• 20:48
  SPEAKER_06: It's like it's like, well, nobody's from here, everyone moves here.
• 20:51
  SPEAKER_06: So uh from Jacksonville to Asheville, two distinctly different places, you know, the the beach, the sun, the sand, and now the mountains.
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_06: Now that you've had a chance to compare, which of those two do you prefer?
• 21:05
  SPEAKER_06: I love it here.
• 21:06
  SPEAKER_05: I absolutely do.
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_05: Um, I would prefer Florida in the winter and Asheville in the summer.
• 21:13
  SPEAKER_06: That's kind of what my mom is doing now.
• 21:15
  SPEAKER_06: She's an official snowbird.
• 21:16
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 21:17
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah, she leaves Buffalo for January and February, and then she goes down to Fort Myers.
• 21:21
  SPEAKER_06: Right.
• 21:21
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 21:22
  SPEAKER_05: We actually went down to the Keys last week and uh it was beautiful.
• 21:25
  SPEAKER_05: Just gorgeous weather.
• 21:27
  SPEAKER_05: The water was turquoise blue, sunshine 75, perfect weather.
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah, if you can pull that off, the you know, uh summers here, winters there, then you've got the best of all worlds.
• 21:38
  SPEAKER_06: April is the uh the time to go.
• 21:40
  SPEAKER_06: I'll tell you what though, uh Jacksonville, big city.
• 21:43
  SPEAKER_06: I think it's the largest city in America by mass.
• 21:47
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah, land use.
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_06: Land use.
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
• 21:49
  SPEAKER_06: It's you get in it says welcome to Jacksonville, and you've got like an hour until you get to downtown.
• 21:54
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
• 21:54
  unknown: Yeah.
• 21:55
  SPEAKER_05: How did they make that happen?
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_05: How did they make the city so big?
• 21:58
  SPEAKER_05: Um, it's kind of like Charlotte Matthew.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_05: Um they they incorporated the the city and the county into one because it's considered Jacksonville.
• 22:07
  SPEAKER_06: So for years, when I was on the radio, uh we were a NASCAR affiliate, and I would drive an RV down to Daytona for the 500, and we'd kick off with a big broadcast there, right?
• 22:17
  SPEAKER_06: So uh the first time I ever did that, as you know, you drive 95 and you take that right through Jacksonville.
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_06: From the time it says welcome to Jacksonville, and you are now leaving Jacksonville, it's like an hour and a half.
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_05: Right.
• 22:31
  SPEAKER_06: I mean, and then you got to go through downtown, which is also a little bit of a challenge.
• 22:35
  SPEAKER_05: Absolutely.
• 22:36
  SPEAKER_05: And and once you leave Jacksonville, there's not very much in between Jacksonville and Georgia.
• 22:42
  SPEAKER_05: So we just always consider it pretty much, you know, South Georgia.
• 22:46
  SPEAKER_06: You know, kind of a cool place though for people that haven't been to Jacksonville before.
• 22:49
  SPEAKER_06: Of course, you're on the beach, right?
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_06: But there's also a river that runs right through downtown.
• 22:53
  SPEAKER_05: Yes.
• 22:53
  SPEAKER_06: So you've got a little bit of everything there.
• 22:55
  SPEAKER_06: And it's another river that uh flows north, I believe.
• 22:58
  SPEAKER_06: I think so.
• 22:59
  SPEAKER_06: Oh, yeah, there's a few of those.
• 23:00
  SPEAKER_06: We've got the French broad, of course, here.
• 23:02
  SPEAKER_06: All right, that's question number one.
• 23:03
  SPEAKER_06: Where were you born?
• 23:03
  SPEAKER_06: That is obviously Jacksonville, Florida, as you mentioned.
• 23:06
  SPEAKER_06: The other question we like to ask is one thing that most people don't know about you.
• 23:13
  SPEAKER_06: What might that be?
• 23:14
  SPEAKER_06: I can ride a bicycle backwards.
• 23:16
  SPEAKER_06: Okay.
• 23:17
  SPEAKER_06: So when you say ride a bicycle backwards, describe the seating arrangement because I'm got I'm getting a mental image.
• 23:25
  SPEAKER_06: Where are you sitting?
• 23:25
  SPEAKER_06: What are you pedaling?
• 23:27
  SPEAKER_05: Sitting with your butt on the handlebars, okay facing the rear of the bicycle, pedaling backwards.
• 23:34
  SPEAKER_06: So you're you're you're pedaling forwards, facing backwards, sitting on the handlebars.
• 23:38
  SPEAKER_06: Yes.
• 23:39
  SPEAKER_06: How did this come to be?
• 23:40
  SPEAKER_05: I I learned this one summer when I was probably around 13 years old.
• 23:47
  SPEAKER_05: Um on a dare?
• 23:48
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, just bored.
• 23:50
  SPEAKER_05: Bored for the summer.
• 23:51
  SPEAKER_05: And uh it's one of those things I I learned, and 38 years later, can still do it.
• 23:57
  SPEAKER_06: You know, that sounds like something that happens when you're 13, though.
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_06: It's just like there's no fear of anything.
• 24:02
  SPEAKER_06: Absolutely.
• 24:03
  SPEAKER_06: You had to fall a few times.
• 24:04
  SPEAKER_05: Yes, lots of falling.
• 24:08
  SPEAKER_05: You can still do it though, right?
• 24:10
  SPEAKER_05: I can still do it.
• 24:11
  SPEAKER_05: And uh, you know, it's one of those things my my grandfather told me uh a very long time ago when I was growing up, he said, if you're gonna be dumb, you have to be tough.
• 24:21
  SPEAKER_05: And um, I'm pretty tough, thankfully.
• 24:24
  SPEAKER_06: It's a great party trick, though.
• 24:26
  SPEAKER_06: I mean, have you ever had to whip that out just to kind of like absolutely yeah, yeah.
• 24:30
  SPEAKER_05: That's what I was saying is that you know, you're like, hey, I can do this, and people just kind of look at you like, why?
• 24:35
  SPEAKER_06: So if you're good on two wheels, I'm guessing you ride a motorcycle as well.
• 24:39
  SPEAKER_06: See, you're so you're you're supremely comfortable on two wheels then.
• 24:43
  SPEAKER_05: I I am.
• 24:44
  SPEAKER_05: Uh it hasn't always been that way.
• 24:45
  SPEAKER_05: Uh another thing that people a lot of people don't know about me is I I was actually in a very, very uh serious motorcycle crash when I was 22 years old and uh almost died.
• 24:56
  SPEAKER_05: As a matter of fact, they told my family to uh plan a funeral and not a recovery.
• 25:01
  SPEAKER_05: But again, a lot tougher than I am smart.
• 25:03
  SPEAKER_06: So is that in Florida?
• 25:06
  SPEAKER_06: That was in Florida, yes.
• 25:07
  SPEAKER_06: Okay, so I know Florida does not have helmet laws.
• 25:09
  SPEAKER_05: They don't, but I uh I'm I I might be a little dumb sometimes, but I'm I'm not dumb enough to ride a motorcycle without a particular accident.
• 25:18
  SPEAKER_05: I did have a helmet on.
• 25:19
  SPEAKER_05: Now, if you didn't have a helmet, I most certainly would have been dead.
• 25:22
  SPEAKER_06: So there you go.
• 25:23
  SPEAKER_06: There's a good lesson out there for motorcyclists.
• 25:25
  SPEAKER_06: Now, here obviously you have to wear one, but I still see people without them.
• 25:28
  SPEAKER_06: Right.
• 25:30
  SPEAKER_05: Especially um, you know, South Carolina doesn't have one, so you get a lot of people that cross over, not really realizing that the law that's not in effect down there is in effect here, and so that that mistake is made sometimes.
• 25:41
  SPEAKER_06: So my whole life I always wanted to ride a motorcycle.
• 25:44
  SPEAKER_06: There was something about it, I don't know, just romanticizing.
• 25:47
  SPEAKER_06: So I finally did.
• 25:48
  SPEAKER_06: Uh, this was about uh, I don't know, seven or eight years ago, whatever it was.
• 25:51
  SPEAKER_06: So I got myself a Harley Softtail, and that was probably the the wrong bike for somebody that had never ridden before.
• 25:59
  SPEAKER_06: Now I took the lessons, I went to A B Tech, you know, the motorcycle class and everything, got my motorcycle license.
• 26:04
  SPEAKER_06: I did everything as good as I could.
• 26:06
  SPEAKER_06: I just never really felt comfortable.
• 26:09
  SPEAKER_06: And it probably would have come with more time, but after dropping the bike three times in two months, I stopped riding a motorcycle.
• 26:17
  SPEAKER_05: Right.
• 26:17
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, it's uh I I rode down in Florida, of course, had the very serious crash.
• 26:23
  SPEAKER_05: I made a promise to my mother, which I broke.
• 26:27
  SPEAKER_05: I promised to never get back on a motorcycle.
• 26:30
  SPEAKER_05: Um, and I came to the mountains.
• 26:32
  SPEAKER_05: This was 12 years after that, and came here and I was like, How can you not ride a motorcycle here?
• 26:37
  SPEAKER_05: And bought a motorcycle.
• 26:39
  SPEAKER_06: Okay.
• 26:39
  SPEAKER_05: And within a week of having that motorcycle, I I had laid it down and injured myself again.
• 26:46
  SPEAKER_05: Not seriously.
• 26:46
  SPEAKER_05: I didn't have to go to the hospital or anything, but I I did I did crash because Florida roads are straight, mountain roads are not.
• 26:54
  SPEAKER_06: And the hills.
• 26:55
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
• 26:55
  SPEAKER_06: Up and down the hills.
• 26:56
  SPEAKER_06: The one that finally kind of got me convinced that I really shouldn't ride anymore was uh if you know, uh I believe it's is it Riverside Drive, you go past the waste treatment plant in Woodfin.
• 27:05
  SPEAKER_06: Right.
• 27:05
  SPEAKER_06: Is that what it is?
• 27:06
  SPEAKER_06: Yes.
• 27:06
  SPEAKER_06: Okay, so imagine that road, you pass the waste treatment plant, and then you go downhill and do an S turn, an S turn right now.
• 27:13
  SPEAKER_06: Exactly where you're talking about.
• 27:14
  SPEAKER_06: Okay, well that's where I dropped it.
• 27:15
  SPEAKER_06: So what had happened one day was I was I was doing that, and I wasn't doing anything really wrong.
• 27:19
  SPEAKER_06: I was probably going a little too fast.
• 27:22
  SPEAKER_06: I probably still could have made the turn, but there's a as you turn right on that, you make the first right, there's a little dirt road on your right, up to your right.
• 27:31
  SPEAKER_06: And it had rained recently.
• 27:33
  SPEAKER_06: Right.
• 27:33
  SPEAKER_06: It washed a bunch of gravel into the road.
• 27:36
  SPEAKER_06: So as I'm leaning into the turn to complete the S curve, it just slid.
• 27:41
  SPEAKER_06: Right.
• 27:41
  SPEAKER_06: I just I I dropped it and I got lucky, I slid to a stop without hurting myself or even the bike that much.
• 27:49
  SPEAKER_06: And I I told myself, you know what, that's a sign.
• 27:52
  SPEAKER_06: Right.
• 27:52
  SPEAKER_06: It's just I I probably should not be riding a motorcycle.
• 27:55
  SPEAKER_06: And I'm like, you this could have been bad, right?
• 27:57
  SPEAKER_06: And it wasn't.
• 27:58
  SPEAKER_06: Right.
• 27:58
  SPEAKER_06: And I and I turned it in and I made my wife very, very happy.
• 28:03
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, yeah.
• 28:03
  SPEAKER_05: I mean, they they are fun to ride here, but it it it does take a level of skill.
• 28:09
  SPEAKER_05: When I had the opportunity to uh go to motorcycle school here for the department, I took that opportunity, and that was one of the hardest things that I've ever done in my life was complete that because it's two weeks of you're just falling and picking this, you know, 800-pound motorcycle up and riding.
• 28:30
  SPEAKER_05: And sometimes you end up under it and and things like that.
• 28:33
  SPEAKER_05: And but I I definitely learned that I didn't know how to ride a motorcycle.
• 28:38
  SPEAKER_05: I had no clue how to ride a motorcycle, and probably should not have been riding a motorcycle for the 13 years prior that I had ridden a motorcycle.
• 28:46
  SPEAKER_06: So well, you're here to tell the story.
• 28:48
  SPEAKER_06: So that's the good news.
• 28:50
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
• 28:50
  SPEAKER_06: I wanted to let our listeners know if they're hearing weird noises, so they're currently working on the municipal building roof, and they've been doing this now for several months.
• 28:59
  SPEAKER_06: You might even see it like in front of there's things dropping from the ceiling on us.
• 29:03
  SPEAKER_06: I believe what I heard was an impact drill above our head.
• 29:06
  SPEAKER_06: They're trying.
• 29:07
  SPEAKER_06: So if you hear something weird, the podcasting studio is located on the fourth floor of the municipal building.
• 29:12
  SPEAKER_06: Can you hear that up there?
• 29:13
  SPEAKER_06: I definitely hear that.
• 29:14
  SPEAKER_06: There's been a few noises before when we've been in here, not quite that loud.
• 29:18
  SPEAKER_06: So I wanted to point that out to everybody that is listening right now, wondering where the heck are they broadcasting from?
• 29:23
  SPEAKER_06: I was wondering what this was.
• 29:25
  SPEAKER_06: Sergeant Scott Bryant, thank you so much for sitting down and joining us on the APD Pod Squad today.
• 29:29
  SPEAKER_05: Sir, thank you.
• 29:31
  SPEAKER_06: Welcome back to the APD Pod Squad, Captain Jonathan Brown, who heads our community engagement division.
• 29:37
  SPEAKER_06: So I know you're always busy, but right now, even more so, because the spring edition of the Citizens Police Academy is now underway.
• 29:45
  SPEAKER_06: How's that going?
• 29:46
  SPEAKER_07: It's going great, Rick.
• 29:47
  SPEAKER_07: It is a highlight of our spring, and we always look forward to putting this on.
• 29:54
  SPEAKER_07: We have it in the spring and the fall.
• 29:56
  SPEAKER_07: We are in our starting our fourth week of the Citizens Police Academy, and we have 28 people that are part of the class.
• 30:03
  SPEAKER_07: Uh we're excited to roll out all of the uh different blocks of instruction that we provide to them and uh bring them into our world for 10 weeks.
• 30:13
  SPEAKER_07: And they're such a good group of people.
• 30:16
  SPEAKER_07: They ask great questions, they're very engaged, their curiosity is very high.
• 30:21
  SPEAKER_07: So far, they love all things APD and what they're seeing and hearing, and um, it's a good experience.
• 30:26
  SPEAKER_06: Let me ask you this.
• 30:27
  SPEAKER_06: This has been a long-standing tradition that took a little break during COVID and now is back.
• 30:32
  SPEAKER_06: So you've had plenty of alumni over the years, right?
• 30:35
  SPEAKER_06: Of all those people that have gone through the program, has anyone had the light bulb go on just during it and said, you know what, I want to take this a little further and become an actual police officer and go to the real police academy from the Citizens Police Academy.
• 30:51
  SPEAKER_06: Has that ever happened?
• 30:52
  SPEAKER_07: Well, we've had a couple who have attended Citizens Police Academy with the intent that they were going to apply, and we knew that going in.
• 31:01
  SPEAKER_07: For those that have attended the Citizens Police Academy and throughout the duration of it just kind of had that change of heart and wanted to come on board.
• 31:12
  SPEAKER_07: I've not seen that.
• 31:13
  SPEAKER_07: I see more of folks wanting to engage in on a different level, maybe through volunteerism, coming back and doing work within the agency uh when those opportunities are available.
• 31:24
  SPEAKER_07: Trevor Burrus, Jr.
• 31:25
  SPEAKER_06: So there's people that have used it intentionally as an introduction just to learn a little bit more, but the light bulb hasn't gone on for somebody.
• 31:32
  SPEAKER_06: Trevor Burrus, Jr.
• 31:32
  SPEAKER_07: Not not yet.
• 31:33
  SPEAKER_07: Not in that yet.
• 31:36
  SPEAKER_07: Um you never know.
• 31:37
  SPEAKER_07: You never know.
• 31:39
  SPEAKER_07: I just talked to someone yesterday.
• 31:41
  SPEAKER_07: They've got a uh son who they want to attend the Citizens Police Academy in the fall, and uh they believe that there may be an interest uh in a law enforcement career.
• 31:52
  SPEAKER_07: So, you know, we can use that as a recruiting opportunity.
• 31:56
  SPEAKER_07: We certainly wouldn't turn a blind eye to that, but uh on the whole, we've not seen anybody come from the class into the ranks.
• 32:03
  SPEAKER_07: But we'll take them any way that we can get them.
• 32:06
  SPEAKER_07: If they uh if they come through the CPA or through traditional uh means, we'll we're certainly taking applications and love to have them.
• 32:14
  SPEAKER_06: So this was going on for a little over a decade, I think we decided, right before COVID, spring and fall.
• 32:20
  SPEAKER_06: Let's just say 10 years to do some easy math.
• 32:23
  SPEAKER_06: So let's just say we've got 20 classes there.
• 32:25
  SPEAKER_06: Now we've got three classes since it's resumed.
• 32:29
  SPEAKER_06: So let's just round it to 25 classes, and how many people in each class approximately?
• 32:34
  SPEAKER_07: We're running 25 to 28 in our current classes.
• 32:38
  SPEAKER_07: I think previously they were a little bit smaller, maybe 15 to 20, but but yeah, there it's uh about 25, 28 folks per class.
• 32:46
  SPEAKER_06: Aaron Ross Powell, Jr.
• 32:46
  SPEAKER_06: So we're looking at four to five hundred alumni of the Citizens Police Academy.
• 32:51
  SPEAKER_06: And so while sure you could use it as a recruiting tool, more than anything else, it's uh it's relationship building.
• 32:57
  SPEAKER_06: So that's how many people in the community you've had a chance to touch and expose all of the things that we're doing here at the APD.
• 33:04
  SPEAKER_06: And has that proved beneficial in some ways?
• 33:06
  SPEAKER_06: Are are you hearing from some of those alumni?
• 33:08
  SPEAKER_06: Are you are you are we doing things with some of those alumni?
• 33:12
  SPEAKER_07: We absolutely are, and that's one of the rewarding aspects of putting this program on.
• 33:18
  SPEAKER_07: Uh just today, I've gotten some communication from an alumni that's uh needing some information, and uh we love hearing from them.
• 33:25
  SPEAKER_07: We love the fact that they feel comfortable reaching out to us, and uh we truly believe that we're creating and establishing relationships in the community that go past the 10-week curriculum.
• 33:38
  SPEAKER_07: You know, that's our intent.
• 33:39
  SPEAKER_07: We want to be intentional about creating these relationships and building them in the classroom, and then they extend beyond.
• 33:46
  SPEAKER_07: Uh so when folks have stuff come up in their you know day-to-day routine or in their community, they have folks that they can call, they have folks they can email, they know us, and uh.
• 33:58
  SPEAKER_06: Okay, so we've got another edition coming up in the fall.
• 34:00
  SPEAKER_06: When can folks that couldn't maybe make it a part of their spring, when would they might expect to see some announcements where they can sign up for the next edition?
• 34:08
  SPEAKER_07: Yeah, we're gonna do a rollout in August, and then we will start seeding the class for a September fall edition.
• 34:16
  SPEAKER_06: Okay.
• 34:16
  SPEAKER_06: So we've also got something coming up for uh the youngsters, too, right?
• 34:19
  SPEAKER_06: We've got uh Junior Police Academy.
• 34:21
  SPEAKER_06: Right.
• 34:21
  SPEAKER_07: That'll be our second year.
• 34:22
  SPEAKER_07: We're really excited about that.
• 34:24
  SPEAKER_07: We're working through some of our community partners.
• 34:27
  SPEAKER_07: We're working through the school system, both Buncombe County and Asheville City Schools.
• 34:31
  SPEAKER_07: Our dedicated school resource officers are are uh doing a great job of promoting that within the schools.
• 34:38
  SPEAKER_07: We uh we are wanting 14 to 18-year-olds, and it's a week's worth of programming, and we try to keep them very busy.
• 34:47
  SPEAKER_07: We introduce them to the APD.
• 34:49
  SPEAKER_07: We feed them well, we uh do a lot of really cool team building types of programs and whatnot, and we also expose them to different aspects of the department.
• 34:59
  SPEAKER_07: So they really get a good behind-the-scenes look at Asheville Police Department through this week of uh the Junior Police Academy.
• 35:07
  SPEAKER_07: And I believe that's gonna be the second or third week in June.
• 35:10
  SPEAKER_07: I'll have to firm up the date on that, but uh.
• 35:16
  SPEAKER_06: Is the signups for that happening yet or no?
• 35:18
  SPEAKER_07: Yeah, we're taking applications now.
• 35:21
  SPEAKER_07: So a quick Google search of the Asheville Police Department, Junior Police Academy will land you in the right spot, and you can fill out that seamless document and send it to us.
• 35:31
  SPEAKER_07: We'll get it.
• 35:32
  SPEAKER_07: And um it's starting to form up now, and it looks like a good group.
• 35:36
  SPEAKER_06: It's gonna be a busy summer.
• 35:37
  SPEAKER_06: What else you guys got coming up?
• 35:38
  SPEAKER_06: We have the month of April and May.
• 35:40
  SPEAKER_06: What's on schedule?
• 35:41
  SPEAKER_07: Well, our spring programming going into summer, lots going on with the community engagement division.
• 35:46
  SPEAKER_07: You know, we're we're uh ramping up our bike patrols.
• 35:50
  SPEAKER_07: Uh we've got plans to hit some different communities with our bicycle patrols.
• 35:54
  SPEAKER_07: We have chess with a cop.
• 35:55
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah, that that takes the winter off because it happens at Pritchard Park, right?
• 35:58
  SPEAKER_06: That's right.
• 35:59
  SPEAKER_07: That's right.
• 35:59
  SPEAKER_07: So every Wednesday at 1 p.m., you'll see our officers, they'll be doing chess with a cop.
• 36:05
  SPEAKER_07: Interesting, I've got people to ask about that uh all the time.
• 36:09
  SPEAKER_07: You know, it it hits a certain niche part of the community, and uh folks love it.
• 36:14
  SPEAKER_07: And not only do they love playing chess, they love seeing cops playing chess.
• 36:17
  SPEAKER_07: So also have coffee with a cop.
• 36:18
  SPEAKER_07: We have uh coffee with a cop event coming up May 7th.
• 36:21
  SPEAKER_07: That'll be in East Asheville at the Ingalls.
• 36:25
  SPEAKER_07: So we'll be at the Starbucks there in uh Ingalls in East Asheville.
• 36:29
  SPEAKER_06: Which one?
• 36:30
  SPEAKER_06: The one by the VA?
• 36:31
  SPEAKER_07: It'll be right there at the VA.
• 36:32
  SPEAKER_06: Okay, the one that's right down the street in the VA.
• 36:34
  SPEAKER_06: Gotcha.
• 36:34
  SPEAKER_07: Yep.
• 36:35
  SPEAKER_07: So uh lots of community meetings, uh, lots of community engagement stuff going on.
• 36:40
  SPEAKER_07: So it just seems like there's always something on the calendar.
• 36:43
  SPEAKER_06: All right, so let's say chess with a cop takes off and you're looking for the next one.
• 36:46
  SPEAKER_06: How about dominoes with a cop?
• 36:47
  SPEAKER_06: If you thought about dominoes with a cop, how about Jenga?
• 36:50
  SPEAKER_07: I don't know.
• 36:50
  SPEAKER_07: Maybe we could Jenga with a cop.
• 36:52
  SPEAKER_07: Yeah, maybe we could figure something out with uh with that.
• 36:55
  SPEAKER_07: But uh I'm glad we have a couple of guys that are good at chess.
• 36:58
  SPEAKER_07: I'm not.
• 36:59
  SPEAKER_07: Uh I'm more of the checkers type, but uh uh we got some folks that are really skilled in that area.
• 37:04
  SPEAKER_06: How about some card games?
• 37:05
  SPEAKER_06: When I was growing up, Euchre was a big thing in the North.
• 37:08
  SPEAKER_06: Us Yankees play Euchre.
• 37:09
  SPEAKER_06: No one down here knows what that is.
• 37:10
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah, I have no idea.
• 37:11
  SPEAKER_06: See what I'm saying?
• 37:12
  SPEAKER_06: It's like parts, but it's teams, it's two on two.
• 37:15
  SPEAKER_06: No, we're not gonna Okay, so Euchre is not gonna take it.
• 37:18
  SPEAKER_07: Uh yeah, I'll have to do I'll have to Wikipedia though.
• 37:20
  SPEAKER_07: Okay.
• 37:20
  SPEAKER_06: All right.
• 37:20
  SPEAKER_06: There's plenty of other opportunities, I'm sure, but uh looking forward is that's every Wednesday at one.
• 37:25
  SPEAKER_06: Look for that at Pritchard Park if you got some time on your hands and a beautiful afternoon.
• 37:28
  SPEAKER_06: And it is spring, so I mean, like, for example, today is sixty-five, in two days they're saying eighty-five, and then two days after that, fifty-five.
• 37:36
  SPEAKER_06: So, you know, weather permitting.
• 37:39
  SPEAKER_06: Typical North Carolina weather cycle, right?
• 37:41
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah, Mother Nature's got issues in the spring here in Asheville with the pollen and everything else.
• 37:45
  SPEAKER_07: I know, I know.
• 37:46
  SPEAKER_07: That's your typical North Carolina spring weather.
• 37:48
  SPEAKER_06: So we're excited about all the things coming up with the uh community engagement division.
• 37:51
  SPEAKER_06: You got the Citizens Police Academy now, the Junior Police Academy soon, coffee with a cop on May 7th.
• 37:57
  SPEAKER_06: So much to look forward to.
• 37:58
  SPEAKER_06: Is there anything we're missing?
• 38:00
  SPEAKER_07: Always check back in, watch our social media, man.
• 38:03
  SPEAKER_07: We just look for opportunities to get out there in the community and uh meet new folks and engage.
• 38:08
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah, now's a good time to plug it.
• 38:09
  SPEAKER_06: If you don't already like the Asheville Police Department on Facebook, that's just a simple click, and we're always posting all of our activities there.
• 38:15
  SPEAKER_07: That's right.
• 38:16
  SPEAKER_07: That's right.
• 38:16
  SPEAKER_07: That's a great place to plug in.
• 38:18
  SPEAKER_07: So appreciate all the foc that they do.
• 38:20
  SPEAKER_06: Captain Jonathan Brown of Community Engagement.
• 38:22
  SPEAKER_06: Thank you so much.
• 38:23
  SPEAKER_06: Thanks, Rick.
• 38:23
  SPEAKER_06: Appreciate it.
• 38:25
  SPEAKER_06: Time for another history minute with Hannah Silberman.
• 38:28
  SPEAKER_06: As always, thanks for joining us, Hannah.
• 38:30
  SPEAKER_00: Glad to be here.
• 38:31
  SPEAKER_06: It is the month of April, so we've got an April Fool's joke to kick off the story of a former chief with a little bit of a temper and a bit of a sordid history.
• 38:43
  SPEAKER_06: Multiple incidents worth telling the story about today.
• 38:48
  SPEAKER_06: Let's start with the April Fool's joke that didn't work out very well for him.
• 38:53
  SPEAKER_06: He was the butt of it.
• 38:54
  SPEAKER_00: Aaron Powell Yeah, so in April of 1906, an April Fool's joke was played on Captain William Taylor, and he was not very happy about it.
• 39:02
  SPEAKER_00: Essentially, some youths called in false calls that quote sent him on a wild goose chase.
• 39:08
  SPEAKER_03: Uh-huh.
• 39:08
  SPEAKER_00: And when he called the telephone operator, which would have connected the call to figure out who did it, she accused him of verbal abuse over the telephone.
• 39:18
  SPEAKER_06: Uh-oh.
• 39:18
  SPEAKER_06: That's that's no, that's something for you, as uh you're part of the HR universe here, kind of.
• 39:22
  SPEAKER_06: That would is that something that would land on your desk normally?
• 39:25
  SPEAKER_06: Something along those lines.
• 39:27
  SPEAKER_00: Well, it did land on Chief Bernard's desk, who uh said that he would have a talk with the captain about it.
• 39:33
  SPEAKER_06: So who played the trick on him?
• 39:36
  SPEAKER_00: Aaron Ross Powell Just some caller, probably a kid who just called and sent him around the city to to various dispatches.
• 39:42
  SPEAKER_06: So that was the year 1906, 07?
• 39:46
  SPEAKER_06: Okay.
• 39:46
  SPEAKER_06: So that just kind of is one of many stories involving this particular employee whose whose time at the Asheville Police Department was cut short on multiple occasions, it's my understanding.
• 39:56
  SPEAKER_06: So what's another incident that kind of led to his dismissal a few years later?
• 40:01
  SPEAKER_00: Aaron Ross Powell He was a a captain, like I said before, and he had been with the police department for a long time.
• 40:06
  SPEAKER_00: Back then it was very seniority-based.
• 40:08
  SPEAKER_00: And so about a year later in February of 1907, he was the acting chief of police while the chief was out of town.
• 40:15
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 40:16
  SPEAKER_00: When he arrested a man and took him to the police court, while they were in police court, the man accused him of being a liar.
• 40:22
  SPEAKER_06: Uh-oh.
• 40:23
  SPEAKER_00: Did not sit well with Captain Taylor.
• 40:26
  SPEAKER_00: So Captain Taylor said he'd see him after court, and this man replied he'd be ready at any time.
• 40:33
  SPEAKER_00: So shortly after, Captain Taylor tracked him down on Lexington Avenue and said, quote, now is the time, and started to assault him.
• 40:41
  SPEAKER_00: A knife was involved, it got pretty heated.
• 40:44
  SPEAKER_00: Captain Taylor's brother, who was a police officer, showed up, broke it up, but somehow the man appeared with more bruises than he started when he showed up at the jail.
• 40:54
  SPEAKER_00: Um and they both got suspended from the force for this.
• 40:57
  SPEAKER_06: Aaron Powell They handled business a little differently early in the early 1900s, not exactly by the book, as they say.
• 41:04
  SPEAKER_06: So he was dismissed for this or something else.
• 41:09
  SPEAKER_00: He didn't get fired for that.
• 41:10
  SPEAKER_00: They got suspended.
• 41:11
  SPEAKER_06: Oh, just a suspension for that.
• 41:12
  SPEAKER_06: Okay.
• 41:16
  SPEAKER_00: That incident s hindered his ability to be appointed as the chief the next time it came around.
• 41:21
  SPEAKER_00: They appointed someone else who promptly fired him.
• 41:24
  SPEAKER_06: Ah, okay.
• 41:25
  SPEAKER_06: So didn't get the full-time job as chief, new chief comes in, you're gone.
• 41:29
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 41:29
  SPEAKER_06: Uh you can't really blame him, quite frankly.
• 41:32
  SPEAKER_06: So apparently he spent some time away from the Asheville Police Department.
• 41:36
  SPEAKER_00: That's right.
• 41:36
  SPEAKER_06: And then he rejoined the squad several years later?
• 41:39
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 41:40
  SPEAKER_00: Uh he worked as a streetcar driver, like on the little streetcars that went around until about 1913 when he became a substitute police officer, and then he started working his way back up the ranks again.
• 41:51
  SPEAKER_00: Um in 1919 he was appointed the chief of police for a four-year term, but he was forced to resign in 1920.
• 41:58
  SPEAKER_06: So only the official chief for like a year.
• 42:01
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
• 42:01
  SPEAKER_06: So what was the incident that uh prompted his dismissal for good?
• 42:05
  SPEAKER_00: There were so many things that it took two days of testimony in front of City Hall for officers to come up.
• 42:12
  SPEAKER_00: And probably my favorite is he hired his brother to be a captain.
• 42:17
  SPEAKER_00: And the officers said that he spent most of his time at home, took frequent paid vacations at a time when the officers didn't get paid vacations, and painted his house while on duty.
• 42:28
  SPEAKER_06: So working from home, even a thing then.
• 42:31
  SPEAKER_06: It wasn't supposed to be a precursor to what we experienced in the post-COVID year.
• 42:36
  SPEAKER_00: Aaron Powell A lot of it had to do with failure to cooperate with the sheriff.
• 42:40
  SPEAKER_00: So he refused to let them enforce prohibition laws, which kind of came to a head and kind of sh showed some light on some other kind of um workplace harassment.
• 42:49
  SPEAKER_00: There was actually an example of workplace harassment, which was hard in 1920.
• 42:52
  SPEAKER_06: I I didn't even think you could do that in 1920.
• 42:54
  SPEAKER_06: Trevor Burrus, Jr.
• 42:55
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 42:55
  SPEAKER_00: He bullied an older officer and gave him undesirable shifts and ordered other officers to harass him and suspended them if they didn't participate in the bullying.
• 43:03
  SPEAKER_00: The list goes on.
• 43:04
  SPEAKER_06: So can we expect a full chapter dedicated to this gentleman in your forthcoming book?
• 43:09
  SPEAKER_00: Aaron Powell Not a full chapter, but there is a solid page on the scandal that forced him to resign.
• 43:16
  SPEAKER_00: Trevor Burrus, Jr.
• 43:17
  SPEAKER_06: You know, we haven't talked about the book in a little while.
• 43:18
  SPEAKER_06: We are celebrating the 150th anniversary of the Asheville Police Department with uh our annual awards banquet uh actually coming up here at the end of May.
• 43:26
  SPEAKER_06: So how are we on the book?
• 43:28
  SPEAKER_06: Do we still expect that at some point this year?
• 43:30
  SPEAKER_00: Aaron Powell Yes, I'm doing my best.
• 43:31
  SPEAKER_00: I'm hoping to have it done and wrapped up by the summer.
• 43:35
  SPEAKER_06: Aaron Powell I know it's quite the undertaking.
• 43:37
  SPEAKER_06: So I'm I mean I'm sure everyone is grateful and appreciative of all the work you're putting into it, but at the same time recognizing all the work that goes in.
• 43:45
  SPEAKER_06: I mean, you're talking about 150 years, and it's not like it's all laid out there for you.
• 43:48
  SPEAKER_06: You're having to hunt and gather all this stuff.
• 43:50
  SPEAKER_00: Aaron Powell Yeah, well I have it written until about 2010, but uh at this point it's just going through all the thousands of pictures and picking out which ones we want to include.
• 43:59
  SPEAKER_00: And that's actually a lot a lot harder than you think.
• 44:02
  SPEAKER_06: Aaron Powell I No, I would expect it to be very difficult.
• 44:04
  SPEAKER_06: Is there anybody helping you with this?
• 44:06
  SPEAKER_06: Somebody that with some book writing experience, an editor, somebody at all?
• 44:09
  SPEAKER_06: Is this just all you?
• 44:10
  SPEAKER_00: Aaron Powell Uh I've enlisted the help of several people.
• 44:12
  SPEAKER_00: Ray Ferguson works in the office and has identi helped me identify hundreds of people.
• 44:17
  SPEAKER_00: It's been wonderful.
• 44:18
  SPEAKER_00: I've enlisted several retirees to help me edit it.
• 44:21
  SPEAKER_00: So Joe Fia Cola, retired telecommunications supervisor, has been very helpful.
• 44:26
  SPEAKER_00: And just um people who are willing to read my 200-page book like three times over for grammar has been wonderful.
• 44:33
  SPEAKER_06: So I know myself and everyone else is looking forward to reading it all, and we'll looking forward to hearing more stories as part of the History Minute with Hannah Silberman as we continue to celebrate 150 years of the Asheville Police Department.
• 44:45
  SPEAKER_06: Thank you again for sharing the stories.
• 44:46
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
• 44:48
  SPEAKER_06: That does it for another episode of the APD Pod Squad.
• 44:52
  SPEAKER_06: Thanks for listening, and thank you to my guests, Detective Keith McCullough, Sergeant Scott Frye, Captain Jonathan Brown, and accreditation manager and official APD historian, Hannah Silberman.
• 45:02
  SPEAKER_06: As the APD Pod Squad approaches 2,500 downloads, make sure you subscribe, like, add to your library or playlist, set a reminder, tie a string on your finger, whatever it takes, so you don't miss a single minute with new episodes every two weeks.
• 45:19
  SPEAKER_06: Got a question for Chief Mike Lamb?
• 45:21
  SPEAKER_06: Ask the Chief by calling 250-8800 and leaving a message.
• 45:26
  SPEAKER_06: That's 250-8800.
• 45:28
  SPEAKER_06: Or you can email APD Podcastfeedback at Ashevillenc.gov.
• 45:34
  SPEAKER_06: If you have a topic suggestion or something you'd like to hear discussed, you can use that same phone number we gave you, 250-8800, and leave a voicemail, or email APD Podcastfeedback at Ashevillenc.gov.
• 45:49
  SPEAKER_06: I'm Rick Rice, and this is the APD Pod Squad.