Asheville is one of those places in North Carolina that you could consider to be the Portland of NC if we were to have one.  They are incredibly liberal, making Raleigh and Charlotte (also liberal-leaning) look like conservatives in comparison.  

When the "defund the police" movement started across the nation, most of my state scoffed at the idea and changed absolutely nothing, many places expanded their police budgets as they normally would do in places that see steady increases in population.  

Asheville on the other hand, immediately jumped on board the liberal bandwagon and started cutting budgets and also demonizing the police for doing their jobs.  

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They went as far as to paint it on the street in middle of town.  This was back in June of last year and unlike other cities, the police and municipal workers immediately set to removing it - using hopefully the taxpayers money of Asheville and not the entire state.

Since this movement spurred by BLM started last year, most of North Carolina, especially Eastern North Carolina where I live, have not changed their attitudes towards law enforcement outside of a few pockets of rebellion that were very short-lived.  There was almost not violence and very few people needed to be arrested because, as I have said many times in the past, I feel as though those of us in the Eastern part of this state have much cooler heads and a lot of this, at least I believe so, is because we are primarily conservative.  

Unfortunately for Asheville, the majority liberal city has been on the offensive towards the police department ever since and officers, now realizing that their jobs have become confrontational when they don't need to be, and the fact that their funding has been reduced has seen a dramatic exodus of officers since this time last year and the situation has become quite dire.

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The governmental leadership of Asheville is, as you would expect in a liberal city, almost entirely comprised of liberals and these leaders have joined the mob in demonizing the police and seem to be on the side of the public even when the public are breaking the law.  Obviously, this makes the job of being a police officer less-than-satisfactory and as such, many of the officers have chosen to leave the force and there has been no rush to replace them.  84 of the previous 238 officers have resigned or moved to other areas since this began last year and now the city has no choice but to not respond to a great many calls to the police.  Their response time to violent crimes in progress has also become 3 minutes slower.  

The Asheville PD has told people that many 911 calls will not be responded to and instead have set up an online police report submission system but warn users that there will almost certainly be a "significant delay" in response.

Look, I'm not a fan of police but that is because I believe in "castle law" which most of North Carolina, including and especially my county definitely has.   It is officially called "Castle Doctrine" but the rule goes like this as it appears in the law books

> In North Carolina a person may use deadly force when defending themselves or others from the threat of immediate death or serious injury. This applies when the person in in their home, vehicle, or place of work. The person using the defensive force must stop when the aggressor has stopped the illegal action, or has retreated from the premises. There is no duty to retreat from where the person has the right to be. In this case deadly force maybe used to prevent immediate death.

And honestly that is all I really need.  I do not need the police in order to protect my life and property.  I'm one of the "gun nuts" by the way and if you want to try to break into my house I welcome you to give it a go at the risk of your own demise.  

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Because of the very high gun ownership rate and the local knowledge that this is the case in my area, we have virtually no property crime:  Think about it ok?  Are you going to break into a house or try to carjack someone knowing that there is a near 70% chance that the owner of said property is packing heat and is legally allowed to shoot you and even end your life?  I don't think so and my county's crime statistics (which are very low) prove it.  

Asheville also has Castle Doctrine, but since it is a very liberal city, they are also very anti-gun.  Therefore, the very same people that sought to gut the police department are not going to have police response to a wide variety of crimes.  This action taken on the part of legislators happened at the pressure of the public despite the fact that the perceived issues with police in USA happened hundreds and even thousands of miles away from where they are.  

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<sub> Asheville's crime statistics </sub> </center> 

Hey imagine that?  Crime happens when people can't or wont defend themselves and eliminate the people charged with doing it on their behalf!  


The people are Asheville are sitting ducks right now as far as many types of crime are concerned and the very police that the population is celebrating defunding, is no longer willing or capable of protecting them.  

You'll have to forgive me for not feeling sorry for them even a little bit.  You reap what you sow!