From Staff Reports 

Asheville recently was ranked in the top 10 percent of the most-violent cities in the United States, as reported Jan. 4 by the Asheville Citizen Times and on Jan. 5 by Asheville television station WLOS (News 13).

However, as the Asheville Police Department emphasized Jan. 12 to the Daily Planet, there actually were more violent crimes recorded in 2019 than in 2020 in Asheville, but the 2020 violent crimes were more lethal. 

Ten people in Asheville lost their lives to violent crime homicide in 2020, compared to seven violent crime homicides in 2019, APD spokeswoman Christina Hallingse wrote to the Daily Planet in a Jan. 12 email in response to questions about Asheville’s top 10 percent in a national violent crime ranking.

The email also included a quote from Asheville Police Chief David Zack asserting, “Law enforcement cannot simply arrest our way out of violent crime. We have to work collaboratively as a community to address the crime, as well as the systemic causes that drive crime in our community.”

The article referenced by the ACT and News 13 was from a publication called 24/7 Wall Street and was dated October 2019.

Hallingse noted that “the article utilizes publicly available crime statistics from the Federal Bureau of Investigation and analyzes Asheville violent crime rates compared to cities across the United States. The analysis concludes that Asheville ranks in the top 10 percent of most violent cities in the U.S. We (at the APD) had our crime analysts verify the information in the article and it is correct.

She also pointed out that, for calendar year 2020, the APD recorded 10 homicide victims, 45 individuals shot, 57 individuals stabbed and 652 calls for service reporting a shooting.

“When comparing calendar year 2020 numbers to previous years, you will see that despite a global pandemic, violent crime totals were only eight behind 2019, a year which marked a five-year high in violent crime in Asheville,” Hallingse pointed out.

“Lastly, there were more individuals shot and stabbed in 2020 than in 2019.”

Meanwhile, News 13 reported on Jan. 5, “Asheville isn’t alone in facing challenges in crime fighting. The issues and discussions by city leaders remain open as staff look to other police departments and municipalities that may have already begun initiatives that APD and the city can evaluate.”

Tthe Asheville Citizen Times reported on Jan. 4 that 24/7 Wall St. magazine “ranks Asheville in the Top 10 percent among the most violent cities in America based on violent crime tracking by the FBI for 4,548 cities with populations of at least 5,000 in 2019. Of those cities, 4,473 (98 percent) reported one or more cases of violence, and Asheville ranked No. 329 by violent crime rate...

“Murder, robbery, rape, and aggravated assault are among the charges filed under violent crimes. There were 367 violent crimes reported for every 100,000 people in the country in 2019 and in Asheville, which reported 695, it nearly doubled.

“Of North Carolina’s 92 cities with at least 5,000 people, Asheville’s violent crime rate ranks 20th, according to the report.”

Zack, the Asheville police chief, was quoted by the ACT as saying, “For a city this size, the crime rate is very high — that’s in both violent and property crimes. When you start comparing to other cities across the U.S., we’re not faring up too well.”