I didn’t notice much coverage of this last week, but I was crazy busy and may have missed it. I think it’s important to note, and a nice gesture by the Asheville Police Department:
ASHEVILLE – The Asheville Police Department presented business owner Russell Wood with a certificate of appreciation Wednesday, Sept. 1 in thanks for information he provided that resulted in Tuesday’s successful apprehending of Kenneth E. Allison.
Wood, owner of Remax Advantage Realty, alerted police on Aug. 30 that Allison had visited his office the day before and had been acting strangely, including staying in the building’s parking lot until well after closing time and searching through his trunk for money that he said he’d lost. Internet research on Wood’s part revealed the Allison had been involved in a stand-off with police in South Carolina, during which he displayed a gun and after which more weapons were found in his home.
City Manager Gary Jackson praised Wood’s attention and participation in community policing. “This is the kind of information it will take for us to meet the city’s strategic goal of making Asheville one of the safest cities of its size,” Jackson said. “We all must play a part in achieving that goal.”
Allison was apprehended after a two-hour stand off with police in downtown’s Battery Park area. Officers responding to the scene included the department’s Crisis Negotiation Team, a group of officers trained in communicating with suspects in such cases. Officers on the Crisis Negotiation Team are trained to resolve crisis situations in nonviolent ways and receive advance training at the Institute for Police Technology in Jacksonville, Fla.
3 Comments
"…resulted in Tuesday's successful apprehending…"
That makes no sense if someone had no reason to be apprehended in the first place? Maybe I can try cranking up the music at 4am and then report my neighbors for acting agitated and I'll get a nice certificate too.
@Murphy a public parking lot is a parking lot that is on actual public property (property owned by the city, state, or federal government) – not one that's owned by a private real estate company. Even though the grocery stores and malls and other companies let the public come in – it's still private property and they can do whatever they wish (i.e., ask someone to leave, ban random people from entering if they want to, etc…) if they just kind of feel like doing it. They can do it even if they have a weird feeling about someone and don't want them hanging out around their mall/company/store.
I think you should check out this more detailed article on this guy:
http://www.citizen-times.com/article/20100901/NEWS01/309010037/Suspicious-customer-prompts-call-on-Asheville-standoff-suspect
Very weird – and it's totally great to not sit around and wait for something really awful to happen and try and stop it (even if it's committing this guy to a psychiatric evaluation) before something bad happens. Just reading about this guy – obviously there is something wrong and he's a person who probably needs to be looked at to make sure he can function properly in society. I honestly would've called the cops too. Even if it was to just get him off my private property/parking lot cause he looked, smelled, and acted weirdly.
So they (APD) are praising a man who basically reported another person as "suspicious" (whatever that means); who, as a result, ended up involuntarily committed for a psychiatric evaluation for doing nothing wrong …. the man had no outstanding warrants and by all accounts had broken no laws in Asheville.
They (APD) are going to be very busy chasing around "suspicious" folks if this is the kind of "community policing" that they encourage.
I also find it hysterical that they state the man was "apprehended" …. for doing what exactly …. staying in a parking lot (that is public) past "closing time".