The Breaking Time

Racial profiling in Asheville?

Russell Johnson, photo by Jonathan Welch

My article on possible racial profiling in Asheville was the cover story in last week's issue of the Mountain Xpress. It's an attempt to tackle a thorny topic, taking a look at the statistics and the cases of two people with clean criminal records facing run-ins with law enforcement that they believe were partially racially motivated.

There's the numbers:

Between Nov. 1, 2008, and Oct. 31 of this year, the APD reported making 6,264 traffic stops. Of those stopped, 873 (13.9 percent) were African-Americans. According to census data, roughly 17 percent of Asheville residents are African-American. Hispanics, meanwhile, accounted for 215 of those APD stops (3.4 percent); 5 percent of Asheville's population is Hispanic. So, by that measure, the statistics give no hint of racial profiling.

Once stopped, however, African-American men are statistically far more likely to be searched. During that same time period, the APD reported conducting 509 car searches. Of those, 180 — more than a third — involved black males.

Then the case of Navy veteran Russell Johnson:

"We wanted to get away from the Bele Chere weekend crowds," he remembers. "The park rangers were breaking down a DUI checkpoint, and I was taking pictures on the Mills River Bridge. The moon was a sliver: It was red and so beautiful, and I just had to get a picture."

Johnson's car was parked on the other side of the bridge, and he walked over to talk to the rangers before heading back to his vehicle.

"When I walked up to one of the cars — there were four at the entrance — I waved and said, 'I really appreciate what y'all are doing, keeping us safe on the Parkway.' I asked how long it would take to get to Pisgah from here," says Johnson, who wanted to get more photographs before the light faded. "He told me — and this is a park ranger — he didn't know what I was talking about."

On video, Johnson can be clearly seen walking up to the car and waving, though his words aren't audible. Three rangers emerge from surrounding vehicles and direct Johnson to put his hands behind his back.

"I obliged, and they started searching me, going through my little fanny pack, which just had my flashlight, my compass — things you use in the woods," says Johnson. "One of the rangers grabbed my hands and shoved them up between my shoulder blades."

The impact was so hard that Johnson will now require surgery for a damaged disc, hospital documents confirm. "I get dizzy: I'm a disabled veteran with some nerve troubles; this didn't help things," he says.

And finally, local musician Jonathan Scales:

"I came out of The Rocket Club, I saw a friend of mine, happened to be my Realtor (I was buying a house at the time). I went to say 'hey' to him, but he was on the phone and I didn't want to disturb him, so I shook his hand," remembers Scales. "I walked a couple of blocks down and this police officer stops me and asked if I knew the man at the gas station. He told me, 'I saw that handshake; it looked kind of suspicious.'"

Scales told Officer Kelly Radford that the person was his real-estate agent.

"Basically, at that point he accused me, said, 'Well, it looked like a drug deal,'" Scales relates. "I was shocked. I've never done drugs a day in my life. He took my ID; he asked if I minded if he searched me. I told him I did mind, that I hadn't done anything wrong; he would just be wasting his time."

According to Scales, Radford then told him that if he was innocent, he wouldn't object to being searched.

"I didn't know a handshake counted as probable cause, that it was suspect," Scales says with a chuckle. "It was apparent I wasn't getting out of it. I refused it for about five minutes, then I let him search me. I was against the cop car, his hands on top of my hands, I got the whole pat-down treatment."

---

Williams, the APD spokesperson, backed up that assessment, confirming that Radford did, in fact, find Scales' handshake suspicious.

"Jonathan Scales was searched by an APD officer, pursuant to consent, based on actions that appeared to the officer to be a hand-to-hand transaction of some type (and not a mere handshake greeting) on Haywood Road," she wrote Xpress in response to questions about the incident. "No contraband was discovered, and the officer apologized to Mr. Scales for delaying him."

Comments and thoughts welcome.

Poems for Friday: The Blizzard

Asheville, seen from the courthouse as the snow comes down. Photo by Kay Privett

The entire town's almost buried. We've had over five inches of snow so far and it keeps on coming down. It's the first truly harsh winter weather I've seen since moving here.

Unusual weather is an awesome thing, both beautiful and a stark reminder of how much we remain at the whim of things larger than ourselves.

Phillis Levin has an excellent poem about blizzards, and what they bring. Read now.

Now that the worst is over, they predict

Something messy and difficult, though not

Life-threatening. Clearly we needed

To stock up on water and candles, making

Tureens of soup and things that keep

When electricity fails and phone lines fall.

Igloos rise on air conditioners, gargoyles

Fly and icicles shatter. Frozen runways,

Lines in markets, and paralyzed avenues

Verify every fear. But there is warmth

In this sudden desire to sleep,

To surrender to our common condition

With joy, watching hours of news

Devoted to weather. People finally stop

To talk to each other - the neighbors

We didn't know were always here.

Today they are ready for business,

Armed with a new vocabulary,

Casting their saga in phrases as severe

As last night's snow: damage assessment,

Evacuation, emergency management.

The shift of the wind matters again,

And we are so simple, so happy to hear

The scrape of a shovel next door. 

Cecil Bothwell, atheism and internet "controversy"

Cecil Bothwell affirming his oath of office, Dec. 8. Photo by Jason Sandford, all rights reserved

Our argumentative online culture, religious conflict and Asheville have all collided nicely this week. From my Mountain Xpress write-up of the "controversy" over new Asheville City Council member Cecil Bothwell:

It seems the only place people aren’t shouting about this week’s swearing in of new Asheville City Council member Cecil Bothwell is Asheville. Blogs, including that of the Washington Post, have lit up about the “controversy” over Bothwell, a “post-theist” who earlier identified as an atheist, taking his seat.

The controversy began with Asheville Citizen-Times stories on Monday and Tuesday. The latter was titled, “Critics of Cecil Bothwell Cite N.C. Bar to Atheists.” It quoted only one opponent, H.K. Edgerton, a former president of the Asheville NAACP best known locally for walking around town brandishing a Confederate flag, as saying that the state constitution would keep Bothwell, a builder, author and former Xpress writer and editor, from holding office.

While article 6, section 8 of the North Carolina Constitution does deny office to “any person who shall deny the being of Almighty God,” such state bans have been routinely trumped by Article VI of the U.S. Constitution, which explicitly prohibits any religious tests for public office. A similar ban in Maryland was ruled unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court back in 1961.

Since the articles came out, the proverbial Internet flood gates have opened, with national blogs from across the political spectrum weighing in, including such varied groups and viewpoints as Americans United For Separation of Church and State, Hot Air, Thought Crimes, Atheist News and Views, One Good Move, the Baptist Joint Committee for Religous Liberty and the interestingly named House of Zot. USAtheists even declared that Bothwell was denied his seat, which he wasn’t.

For all the hubbub elsewhere, Bothwell, who came in third in the November election, took his seat in City Hall on Tuesday without event, choosing to affirm his oath of office instead of swear on a copy of the Bible. No one shouted, no one tried to seriously challenge his right to do so, and he got an enthusiastic round of applause.

Former Asheville firefighter gets 4 months for shooting cyclist

Diez, at the time of his arrest

I have a feeling the controversy over this case won't be dying down anytime soon. From my post for the Mountain Xpress:

Former Asheville firefighter Charles Alexander Diez will spend four months in prison for shooting cyclist Alan Simons in July. Diez plead guilty to assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill yesterday.

On July 26, Simons was riding with his family on Tunnel Road. According to Asheville police, Diez had stopped to argue with Simons, saying that the child seat the cyclist’s 3-year-old son was riding in was unsafe. As Simons began walking away, Diez fired his handgun, the .38-caliber bullet tearing through the back of Simons’ bike helmet, less than an inch from his head. Diez has no prior criminal record and was sober at the time. While he was originally suspended with pay at the time of the incident, on Aug. 10 he ended employment with the Asheville Fire Department.

While Diez was originally charged with attempted first-degree murder, a grand jury refused to press those charges, instead indicting him on the felony assault charge.

Convictions on such a charge result in an average 20-39 months in prison for the defendant. But in the sentencing, Superior Court Judge James Downs found that Diez’s military service, along with testimony from former colleagues about his good character, were mitigating factors, and chose to sentence him to 15-27 months instead. Downs suspended all but four months of that sentence unless Diez breaks the law again in the next 30 months. As part of his sentence, Diez is required to attend anger-management training and pay $1,200 to cover Simons’ medical costs for damage to his eardrum.

Poems for Friday: Medusa

Medusa, by Caravaggio

My oh my, what an eventful day, full of chatter about the Presidential Peace Prize, city council shakeups and the thirst-quenching moon crash. 

In times like these, I feel the need to go old school. We need something visceral, lusty and pagan. This gem from Patricia Smith will do nicely.

Poseidon was easier than most.

He calls himself a god,

but he fell beneath my fingers

with more shaking than any mortal.

He wept when my robe fell from my shoulders.

I made him bend his back for me,

listened to his screams break like waves.

We defiled that temple the way it should be defiled,

screaming and bucking our way from corner to corner.

The bitch goddess probably got a real kick out of that.

I'm sure I'll be hearing from her.

She'll give me nightmares for a week or so;

that I can handle.

Or she'll turn the water in my well into blood;

I'll scream when I see it,

and that will be that.

Maybe my first child 

will be born with the head of a fish.

I'm not even sure it was worth it,

Poseidon pounding away at me, a madman,

losing his immortal mind

because of the way my copper skin swells in moonlight.

Now my arms smoke and itch.

Hard scales cover my wrists like armour.

C'mon Athena, he was only another lay,

and not a particularly good one at that,

even though he can spit steam from his fingers.

Won't touch him again. Promise.

And we didn't mean to drop to our knees

in your temple,

but our bodies were so hot and misaligned.

It's not every day a gal gets to sample a god,

you know that. Why are you being so rough on me?

I feel my eyes twisting,

the lids crusting over and boiling,

the pupils glowing red with heat.

Athena, woman to woman,

could you have resisted him?

Would you have been able to wait

for the proper place, the right moment,

to jump those immortal bones?

Now my feet are tangled with hair,

my ears are gone. My back is curving

and my lips have grown numb.

My garden boy just shattered at my feet.

Dammit, Athena,

take away my father's gold.

Send me away to live with lepers.

Give me a pimple or two.

But my face. To have men never again

be able to gaze at my face,

growing stupid in anticipation

of that first touch,

how can any woman live like that?

How will I be able 

to watch their warm bodies turn to rock

when their only sin was desiring me?

All they want is to see me sweat.

They only want to touch my face

and run their fingers through my . . .

my hair

is it moving?

World War C

A family escapes their flooded home in Bangladesh

Would a country go to war to halt climate change? Under what circumstances would they be justified?

To use less violent examples, would it be worth using crippling sanctions to stop a nation polluting, regardless of the effect on its populace?

The question emerged as I was listening to Drew Jones' upbeat talk on the possibility of drastically scaling back emissions at Asheville's TEDx conference on Sunday. Jones compared the challenges and dangers posed by climate change to World War II, and urged the audience to become another "Greatest Generation" in the fight against it.

Jokes about the necessity of getting global warming to invade Russia aside, this does illuminate some of the major difficulties in facing the repercussions of climate change. While the analogy makes sense in comparing the global reach of both, one of the problems in getting governments and economies to acknowledge the danger is the fact that it's not war. Panzer divisions rolling across your country or Zeros bombing your Navy are clear, direct dangers. People have the choice to fight or flee. Threatening life in that manner has an amazing way of galvanizing resolve.

Climate change is different. Its effects, despite all the risks, remain subtle for most people; they take effect slowly, over years. There is still much debate over the best way to tackle them and doubters in a way there wouldn't be over a physical invasion. Also, being a future danger in most people's mind, they're less willing to sacrifice more immediate things (convenience, luxury, profit margins) to stop it.

Yet in eras of widespread social strain (and we're in one), a natural disaster can serve as a spark to a much larger conflagration. This has helped cause Dark Ages before, triggering violent chaos.

It's not hard to see, for example, an impoverished, low-lying nation like Bangladesh devastated by climate-change-caused flooding, leading to a mass exodus in a volatile region, with all the attendant conflicts.

My thanks to the ever-inventive Madeline Ashby for the title idea.

The Busker Dilemma

Asheville Buskers. Photo by bfc07

So there I am, typing away furiously during a particularly busy day at work, when a local busker (and Asheville has a fuck ton of them) began butchering Wish You Were Here for the nine thousandth time in front of the Big Iron. This particular gentleman has done this for long periods of time, day after day, in exactly the same spot. But on this particular day I'm on a very tight deadline and little sleep.

So I send off a brief, bitter blast on Twitter (where else?) and quickly receive this interesting bit of news about Birmingham, UK's harsh way of dealing with buskers they don't like:

James Ryan and Andrew Stevens only know how to play 'Wonderwall' by Oasis and George Michael's 'Faith'.

Mr Ryan, a guitar player, and Mr Stevens, who would hit dustbin lids with drum sticks, had been playing the two songs to people in the Moseley area for the last 18 months.

Mr Ryan, 40, from Edgbaston, Birmingham, and Mr Stevens, also known as Andrew Cave, 39, of no fixed address, have been banned from entering parts of Moseley and playing musical instruments in public in the area.

The pair were also banned from begging anywhere in England and Wales.

They were warned they faced jail if they breached the two-year anti-social behaviour orders handed down on Wednesday by District Judge Qureshi at Birmingham Magistrates Court.

After the hearing, Mr Ryan said: "The whole thing's about playing a guitar, it's a joke. Most people loved it."

Birmingham City Council said the pair stood outside various pubs in Moseley singing and begging, often playing from early evening into the early hours. The pair also waited outside taxi ranks and cash points along St Mary's Row demanding money.

People leaving pubs at closing time would often join in with them. But as well as the excessive noise nuisance, fights would often break out between groups heading home, the council said.

This got the civil libertarian in me fuming and gnashing in the opposite direction. How dare they? Even if I don't like a particular busker, harsh legal penalties for free expression is just wrong, dammit! 

Then Kudra, a former busker herself, chimes in, supporting Birmingham's actions and pointing out that bad buskers are hell on passerby, surrounding businesses and, well, other buskers too. She asked what I'd do to stop such a nuisance.

Turns out busking, of all things, is a complicated flashpoint that touches on issues of economics, public space and how we deal with the clashes of free expression and communal peace of mind in ever diversifying societies. More below the jump.

Attempted murder charge dropped in cyclist shooting case

Critical Mass cyclists riding near Asheville. August 2006.

A little while ago I reported on the alleged shooting of local cyclist Alan Simons by Asheville firefighter Charles Alexander Diez. The case has created a lot of outrage in the community, especially among cyclists, after Diez had his bond reduced and got released. Now a grand jury has dropped the attempted murder charge:

A grand jury has dropped the charge of attempted first-degree murder against Charles Alexander Diez, the Asheville firefighter accused of shooting a cyclist. Diez is now facing a felony assault charge that carries a much lower potential penalty.

Diez, currently free on a $200,000 bond, was today served a warrant on a charge of assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill. Attempted first-degree murder, a Class B2 felony, carries a 125- to 157-month prison sentence for someone with no criminal record. The assault charge, a Class E felony, carries a 20- to 25-month presumptive range.

Diez has no prior criminal record and, according to police, was sober at the time of the incident.

Grand juries deliberate in secret, and District Attorney Ron Moore submitted both the assault and attempted-murder charges. He told Xpress that he doesn’t know why the grand jury rejected the murder charge.

Asheville police had charged Diez, a firefighter since 1992, with attempted first-degree murder after he allegedly fired on cyclist Alan Simons with a .38 caliber handgun on July 26. The bullet ripped through the lining of Simons’ helmet and, according to police, came within less than an inch of striking him in the head.

Shooting has cycling community "outraged" as gunman released on bond

Mugshot of Charles Alexander Diez

More controversy in the city over another confrontation on the road. This time, it's the alleged shooting of a cyclist by an Asheville firefighter:

The alleged July 26 shooting of cyclist Alan Simons by Asheville firefighter Charles Alexander Diez has the local cycling community “outraged,” according to one leader. Diez is out on bond, facing charges of attempted first degree murder.

Around mid-day on July 26, according to police, Diez followed Simons, who was riding along Tunnel Road with his wife and 3-year-old child, after confronting Simons angrily about having his child in a bike seat behind him. Parked in the travel lane, Diez allegedly drew a .38-caliber handgun and, the incident report reads, “fired one round toward the victim’s head, striking his helmet.”

The shot tore through the lining of Simons' helmet, coming less than an inch from hitting him in the left side of his head.

Witnesses reported Diez’s license tag number and, about 25 minutes later, Buncombe sheriff’s deputies later arrested Diez at his Swannanoa home.

Diez, who has been employed at the Asheville Fire Department since 1992, has been placed on paid leave, according to interim Chief Scott Burnette.

“That’s according to the city’s guidelines for an incident like this,” Burnette told Xpress, declining to comment further on the matter. “We’re letting the police handle this.”

Diez’s bond was originally set at $500,000. But he posted bond and was released Tuesday after a judge reduced it to $200,000. He has no prior criminal record and, according to police, sober at the time of the incident.

Simons has not yet responded to requests for comment.


Since the incident, Asheville on Bikes founder Mike Sule said, “my e-mail has been flooded. There’s a general sense of anger over this. We’re simply outraged.”
“To just shoot a cyclist in the head like that; that’s beyond road rage, I think there’s clearly some mental illness involved,” Sule told Xpress. “The thing that really worries me is that there’s this belief that somehow cyclists shouldn’t be on the road.”

Asheville in Six Words

For those of you who don't know, dear readers, I live in Asheville, North Carolina. Asheville is a fascinating city, with an extremely dense downtown and more than the usual share of activists, beer, good food, music and Art Deco architecture.

It's also a city in near constant conversation on its identity: what that is, where it's going and what threatens it (or who's already ruined it, opinions vary). I've found this one of the more interesting aspects of the city since I moved here about four years ago.

So I wanted to distill the debate some, and test the citizenry's creativity in the process. 

Fortunately, Twitter provides a wonderful way to do this. Ernest Hemingway famously said that he could tell a good story in just six words. So yesterday, I put the simple challenge around: 

Describe Asheville's nature in six words or less. No one word answers.

Thus was the Asheville in 6 Words meme born (I started a meme! I get a medal, or a toaster, or free beer, right?). Replies have come from across the spectrum, including answers bitter, earnest, political, spiritual, humorous and everything in between. We've had newspapers, local bloggers and city council candidates all weigh in.

I've found the response both cheering and interesting. Keep 'em coming y'all.

And hell, this game shouldn't be locals only. If you've visited or had contact with the city, feel free to weigh in, here or via Twitter.