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

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.