Nolte: Democrat-Run Asheville Finally Forced to Confront Devastating Crime Surge

Democrat-run Asheville, North Carolina, embraced the lunatic defund the police movement, and now reality is forcing them to backtrack.

What had once been a lovely and idyllic tourist town of 90,000 snuggled in the Blue Ridge Mountains quickly went to hell after the Democrats who run Asheville embraced the anti-police movement.

Downtown Asheville has been hit especially hard due to a lack of police presence. During the Democrat-approved riots of 2020 that allowed the terrorists in Antifa and Black Lives Matter to rampage, burn and loot, Asheville lost nearly 100 police officers. That means staffing levels are below 50 percent. The city also lost 50 percent of its detectives.

Within two years, violent crime spiked to a level that put Asheville in the top ten percent of America’s most violent cities.

Anyone who’s visited Asheville (I have many times), will find this impossible to believe. Asheville looks like something out of a children’s book, a gorgeous (especially in autumn), quiet, and welcoming place—a place so pastoral and unspoiled George Vanderbilt chose it as the location to build the Biltmore Estate.

But, as we all know…

Democrats ruin everything, and now they have ruined Asheville:

Fed-up merchants describe the city’s downtown district as nearly lawless. Vagrants sleep and do drugs in doorways, barge into businesses yelling, brazenly shoplifting, and frightening customers and employees.

Some long-time downtown workers are calling it quits, disgusted with having to clean up human excrement, needles, broken windows, and trash. Aggressive panhandlers and transients, some appearing to be mentally ill, make them fear to walk alone to their cars at night.

They say they call the police, but the response is slow — if the police respond at all.

Downtown Asheville has long had problems with homelessness and petty crime, but something has changed profoundly in just two years. Read Down Town, the first part of an Asheville Watchdog series.#avlnews #avlhttps://t.co/grS1Ivona0

— Asheville Watchdog (@AvlWatchdog) February 28, 2023

Break-ins jumped 200 percent in January alone:

[Asheville Police Department] senior officer Robert Crume told the local outlet that many businesses are no longer bothering to report break-ins.

“They just report the loss to their insurance and move on. They’ve become so frustrated with the situation,” Crume said.

The increase in break-ins arises amid a surge in violent crime in Asheville. Violent crime in the city has increased 31 percent per 100,000 people between 2016 and 2020 — “nearly double the national average and 18 percentage points higher than North Carolina’s 13 percent increase statewide during the same period,” according to the report. Data released by APD in September of 2022 showed a 34 percent increase compared to 2021, and 29 percent in 2020.

The Asheville Police Chief says the department operates at about 42 percent of capacity.

Police in North Carolina tourist town reveal worsening violent crime stats following Fox News reporthttps://t.co/btJ89pRYgn

— Bernard B. Kerik (@BernardKerik) September 22, 2022

Well, after three years of allowing their perfect little town to turn into a hellhole, the Democrats who run Asheville unopposed appear ready to cry uncle—which means a return to something known as policing.

“City of Asheville announces downtown safety initiative kicking off May 1, 2023,” reads the press release:

Due to a number of incidents impacting public safety, the City of Asheville is taking targeted steps to address the rise of crime especially in downtown Asheville. There are complex circumstances contributing to the safety issues that Asheville is currently seeing downtown and it will take a community response to address these complexities.  Multiple City departments are coordinating a City government response and we also need participation from community leaders and partners to address all the factors contributing to the rise in crime.

The initiative will include an increased police presence around downtowns and the public parks overrun by the homeless and drug addicts. The city will also concentrate on the “removal of litter, needles, and biological waste [poop]” and enforce parking rules, especially around parks—presumably to rid these areas of vagrants.

In other words, y’all…

Democrats in Asheville were not doing this previously.

This is why socialism and “social justice” can only become a tyranny. You can’t force people to live in a city they don’t want to live in unless you force them. You can’t force people to keep their businesses open unless you force them. You can’t force people to stay on the job as police officers unless you force them.

Democrat policies will always fail in a free country where people are free to move to another town or state, are free to close their businesses, and quit a job on the police force. The only way Democrats can enforce their disastrous policies is through terror and brutality, which is how socialists like Stalin, Mao, Castro, and Hitler became history’s greatest mass murderers.

For three years, Democrats sat back and did nothing as their picture-perfect town went to seed.

You get what you vote for, morons.

Yeah, you Asheville Democrats really showed us MAGAtards a thing or two.

Meanwhile, in MAGALand...

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Follow John Nolte on Twitter @NolteNC. Follow his Facebook Page here.