Asheville News

Asheville Police Department training goes awry, scares the bejesus out of people

Jason Sandford May 17, 2011

Jason Sandford

Jason Sandford is a reporter, writer, blogger and photographer interested in all things Asheville.

Seems like the Asheville Police Department can’t do anything right these days. From Nanci Bompey of the Asheville Citizen-Times:

ASHEVILLE — Larry Smith had planned on taking a stroll through downtown Monday afternoon after finishing up business at the county courthouse.

Instead, Smith found himself surrounded by police officers, military vehicles with machine guns inside and a group of snipers lying on the grass in the new Pack Square Park,

A series of explosions as the snipers fired made it sound as if a bomb had gone off, he said.

“There were people all around that were frightened,” Smith said. “There were four people pushing strollers, and they were getting out of there. They almost broke into a run to get out of there.

“I wouldn’t have believed it unless I saw it,” he said. “It was that crazy.”

The exercise was a part of a sniper class being conducted by the Asheville Police Department. The class, which includes trainees from across the region, was practicing sight and sound testing, and covert placement, police spokesman Lt. Wally Welch said.

Welch said there should have been signs and uniformed police officers there to explain what was going on. Smith said there were no signs and no warning before the explosions.

Welch said there was miscommunication between the training division and the rest of the department. Department administrators were not aware of the training exercise until a few hours before it occurred, he said.

Jason Sandford

Jason Sandford is a reporter, writer, blogger and photographer interested in all things Asheville.

Big, ugly new digital billboard goes up in front yard on Merrimon Avenue

Sammie and the mural

5 Comments

Miss Daisy May 22, 2011

What happened to no loud or unusual sounds?

Reply
pagmatic May 18, 2011

well there goes my plan to go on a date at Pack Square, Guess Pritchard Park is the alternative choice–or the mall

Reply
bill May 17, 2011

covert placement? LOL

Reply
Max May 17, 2011

How incredibly irresponsible.

Reply
Murphy May 17, 2011

Can you believe the ongoing fiasco in the law enforcement community in this City/County?

What has to happen before REAL investigations occur at the State or Federal level?

And our elected "leaders" have all been unusually silent about it all!

Reply