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Tuesday, 23 January 2007 16:53 |
UNCA police make arrest
for drunk driving, fleeing
An Asheville man arrested early last Thursday for reportedly driving while intoxicated on the UNC Asheville campus and then fleeing from UNCA police now faces multiple charges.
Officer Brandon Hunnicutt first observed Aaron Lawrence Price, 32, of 330 Barnard Avenue driving a Ford Taurus onto the curb along W.T. Weaver Boulevard about 2:22 a.m., according to police reports.
As Hunnicutt began following him and turned on his lights, Price reportedly sped up toward the main entrance of campus. Hunnicutt then activated his siren, but Price continued onto Barnard Avenue and drove for about 0.6 miles until he arrived at his residence, according to the police report.
There, a struggle reportedly occurred between Price and Hunnicutt as Price stopped his car and attempted to enter the house.
Price was transported to the Buncombe County Detention Facility after
his arrest, where he was given field sobriety tests, on which he
performed poorly. He subsequently refused to submit to an Intoxilyzer
5000 test, police noted.
Price was charged with driving while imapired, resisting an officer,
failure to comply with license registration, speeding to elude arrest
and reckless driving to endanger.
He was being held in lieu of a $1,000 bond.
In other action, UNCA campus police reported the following:
ï A teenager was charged with underage possession of alcohol Jan. 14 following an incident at the Founders Hall dormitory.
Sgt. Bruce Martin and Officer Shannon Green responded to a call from
housing staff about 1:45 a.m. concerning an intoxicated female and
found Elizabeth Harris Willette, 17, of 100 Royce Drive in Cary, in the
front lobby of the building, according to reports.
Willette was allegedly having difficulty standing up, slurring her
words and had a strong odor of alcohol on her breath. Furthermore, her
eyes appeared glassy, according to Martin.
Willette had no identification on her at the time and reportedly told
housing staff that she was staying with a student in one of the
dormitoryës rooms ÇƒÓ but she did not remember which one.
Housing sign-in records showed she was a guest of a student living in room 721 of the dorm.
Willette was released after being charged to her father, who was staying in a nearby hotel, according to police.
Woman charged in theft
of 91 lighters from store
CANDLER ÇƒÓ Police charged a woman last Thursday with the theft of 91 Zippo lighters from the convenience store where she worked.
Cathy Wilson Caputo, 50, of Willis Way in Fletcher, was the second
suspect charged with the Sept. 29 theft from Energy Mart at 380 Long
Shoals Road.Caputo was being held in lieu of a $500 bond.
Last week, the
Buncombe County Sheriffës Department charged Mohammed Mahdi Zaghari
with the theft of the lighers, which were valued at $4,000.
2 plead guilty to charges
of robbing Candler bank
Two Candler men pleaded guilty last Wednesday to the armed robbery of a bank on Smoky Park Highway.
Robert Franklin
Owen, 30, and Joshua Daniel Galvin, 24, each pleaded guilty to bank
robbery and brandishing a firearm during a crime of violence in U.S.
District Court.
The men could
each be sentenced to 20 years in prison and a $250,000 fine for the
bank robbery charges as well as up to seven years in prison for the
firearm charges.
A plea agreement is underway for a third defendent, Melissa Jae Smith, 19, of Candler.
The suspects
reportedly robbed the Bank of Asheville at 1189 Smoky Park Highway on
Jan. 4. Witnesses then followed the suspects in their vehicle and the
three were arrested soon after.
Man sentenced to death
for killing Fairview couple
A man convicted of murdering a Fairview couple in Thailand was sentenced to death in a Thai courtroom last Thursday.
Phillip and
Asheley McRowan, who claimed to be of royal Lao heritage, were gunned
down while visiting a Buddhist monastary last January.
The pair, who
had been living in Fairview for 10 years, were shot by men in dark
suits and sunglasses in broad daylight, with several witnesses standing
nearby.
One of those
men, Arthit Thinchanh, was convicted and sentenced to death in a trial
that lasted half a day. Another suspect escaped by fleeing the country,
although his wife has reportedly been taken into police custody.
Such short
trials are reportedly common in Thailand, where an inquisitional system
tries defendants, rather than the common-law system of the U.S. and
Britain.
A judge there typically compiles a case file, decides a sentence and presents findings at the trial.
Thinchanh was arrested in May and was linked to the killings of anti-Laos government rebels.
Laos is ruled by a hard-line communist government that came into power in the mid-1970s.
Last September,
a military coup ousted Thailandës prime minister and suspended the
countryës constitution with the sanction of King Bhumibol Adulyadej.
A spokesman for
the Federal Bureau of Investigation said that though the agency
conducted interviews with friends and acquaintances of the McRowans
after their murders, the FBI is no longer involved in any investigation
related to the case.
The couple left behind two sons, Kenneth, a high school senior and Edward, 11.
Fire officials investigating
barrels found at roadside
Fire officials
are conducting an investigation into the contents of 25 barrels of
chemicals that were discovered on a property on Simpson Street near
Swannanoa River Road last Wednesday.
The Asheville
Fire Department was called to investigate whether the chemicals are
hazardous after police were alerted that someone was disposing of the
barrels at the property.
2 men shot in half an hour
during separate incidents
Two people were left injured last Wednesday after after two separate shooting incidents within 30 minutes of each other.
In the first
incident, a 16-year-old boy was shot about 8:48 p.m. in the abdomen
through the back door of his house on Kent Street in the Shiloh
Community. The teenager was taken to Mission Hospitals and released
later that night.
The second
incident occurred at 9:16 p.m. at the Riverview Mobile Home Park off
Bingham Road. A 22-year-old man who was visiting a home there was shot
by a gunman wearing a ski mask who knocked at the door and claimed to
be the residentës brother.
The victim was shot while trying to close the door on the assailant.
He was taken to the emergency room and relesed Thursday.
Neither victimës injuries were life-threatening, according to police.
The shootings are both under investigation and no arrests have been made yet.
Candler man charged with
attempting to solicit child
CANDLER ÇƒÓ A
Candler man has been arrested after talking to a detective online who
was posing as a 15-year-old girl, according to Buncombe County
Sheriffës deputies.
Charles David Fowler, 41, of Charity Lane, was charged last Wednesday with soliciting a child on the Internet.
He was being held in lieu of a $25,000 bond.
Fowler was the
sixth person caught by the Sheriffës Departmentës effort to catch
online sexual predators, a spokesman for the department said.
The initiative
was begun under Sheriff Bobby Medford last September. When Van Duncan
became the new sheriff, the detective involved joined the Internet
Crimes Against Children Task Force, a program that trains officers
involved in such investigations.
Councilman Mumpower
criticized by 2 APD officers
Asheville City
Councilman Carl Mumpower has come under fire from two police officers
who claimed in e-mails that he interfered with them during a traffic
stop on Jan. 12.
Mumpower made
the e-mails public last Wednesday, saying that he first heard of the
complaints the day before, just prior to a council meeting at which he
criticized police officers.
Sgt. Mike Yelton
complained of Mumpowerës actions in an e-mail that was sent to his
supervisor, as well as to Police Chief Bill Hogan and City Manager Gary
Jackson.
Yelton
reportedly accused Mumpower of distracting an officer who was watching
for signs of trouble during an arrest that involved a cocaine seizure
outside the West Asheville police substation on Haywood Road.
In another
e-mail to Hogan, Lt. Chris Young, head of the the departmentës
drug-supression unit, complained that Mumpower has undermined officer
morale with his actions.
Mumpower has
repeatedly criticized police efforts to combat drugs, saying that
Asheville police are not doing enough about the problem.
Hogan countered
Mumpowerës claims last week by publicizing a study that shows Asheville
has the highest drug-arrest rate per capita in the state.
As part of a
campaign to draw attention to the issue, Mumpower recently began an
effort to visit various housing projects and neighborhoods where drug
dealing is common every day for 30 days to see if he would be offered
drugs. Mumpower ended his project after 10 days, claiming he was
directly solicited 20 times during his visits and observed transactions
five more times.
District attorney given report
on attacks at youth prison
Buncombe County
District Attorney Ron Moore last Friday received a state report on
which he will decide what actions, if any, to take in response to
attacks by juvenile prisoners at the Swannanoa Valley Youth Development
Center.
The State Bureau
of Investigation presented the report, most of which had been compiled
over the past four months about attacks at the youth prison.
Moore, who has
been an outspoken critic of the state juvenile justice system, will
review the report, which is more than six inches thick, over the next
couple weeks.
He reportedly
read the 50-page synopsis of the document over the weekend, but
declined to comment on its contents until he had read the full report.
Moore has
criticized the actions of officials at the center in the past, saying
that they ignored violent attacks as well as abuses of inmates by
staff. Furthermore, he has claimed that officials allowed the
facilityës police presence to lapse.
The SBI
investigation was begun at the behest of Gov. Mike Easley, after
lawmakers complained that violence at the center had become
unmanageable.
That complaint followed an attack in which a guard at the facility suffered brain damage from an assault by an inmate.
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