Buncombe County District Attorney Todd Williams, who is regarded with distrust by the vast majority of area law enforcement officers for his pattern of favoring lawbreakers over victims, needs to be voted out of office in the 2022 general election, local Fraternal Order of the Police President Randall Lance said in a July 25 interview with the Daily Planet.

“That’s the biggest thing that could be done” to bring about a return of law and order to Buncombe County in general, and the city of Asheville in particular, he said.

Williams did not return telephone calls from the Daily Planet seeking his perspective on July 23 and 26.

Lance, an Asheville native who retired in 2014 after 26-1/2 years in law enforcement, leads the area FOP that represents about 250 local officers.

Regarding Williams, Buncombe’s DA, he said, “Find some person to run against him who believes in law and order, someone who believes in holding people accountable for their actions, for compensating victims who were hurt.”

Also, he pointedly stated that the “law states that victims of crime (always) must be notified,” which he feels is not happening.

In a reference to last year’s protests in downtown Asheville that included violence and vandalism, Lance said, “During the riots, they’re dropping every charge (in the DA’s office). In one case, they said, ‘They’re young and have a future ahead of them, so we’ll give them a break’” — and the FOP chief believes that thinking guides Williams’ actions as the DA, while ignoring the crime victims.

What’s more, Lance said, “He (Williams) seems to have something against police officers. He’s been too lenient” with lawbreakers who have been arrested. “Look what’s happened to our community.”

To defeat Williams, it will take “someone who is not beholden to a (any political) party. They need to go strictly by the laws that regulate crimes — the laws that are on the books. Someone to do the job without influence from far-left or far-right groups.

“Politics should not be involved in the courts or courtroom. But time and time again, someone with status shouldn’t be given more,” Lance said, but, to his utter dismay, they are given more in the local legal system.

 Specifically, he referred to “a lady was under suspicion of driving while impaired, when she hit a Woodfin police officer. Highway Patrol was called and charged her with DUI.

“Todd Williams met with this victim’s father (with the victim’s attorney), who is very well-to-do, and dismissed the case,” Lance claimed, adding that Williams dismissed the case because he felt “it was in the media she couldn’t get a fair trial.

“Right now, the vast majority of the law enforcement officers that the local FOP represents — as well as some we don’t represent, including state officers — have no trust in the district attorney’s office…. They’ve lost confidence in him … It’s sad. it really is. I think Todd is really just pandering to that far-left group.”

Lance then noted that former Henderson County District Attorney Greg Newman recently was removed from office, but in Newman’s case, Lance said there is a widespread belief in the local law enforcement community that it was a political “hatchet job” by Democrats wanting to remove a Republican and replace him with someone from their own party.

Newman was, and remains, well-thought-of in the law enforcement community, Lance noted.

“If you go back and watch the testimony, attorney Sean Devereux was testifying on behalf of Greg Newman,” in which Devereux (according to Lance) “noted that if you apply these same standards to every DA in North Carolina, Greg Newman ... what he did ... would be way down at the bottom and most of the other DAs would be” guilty of much more serious transgressions.

“The men and women of Henderson County (and Hendersonville) law enforcement supported Greg Newman. The (Henderson) sheriff, Lowell Griffin, supported him. And the officers felt it was a political thing where they wanted to get rid of a Republican.”

Lance then asserted that Newman had   “two of the best-possible character witnesses —Deveroux and Griffin — testifying on his behalf” — and still was removed from office, which, he sad, did not make sense to him, other than that party politics seem to triumph over everything in the area.

“I think we could build a good case to remove Todd Williams from office. We were hoping we wouldn’t have to do that — and the public would see the problem and vote someone with a law-and-order mandate into office. 

“We’ve got a file (on Williams), but we’re nowhere near going that route, at the moment,” Lance told the Daily Planet.

“From talking to officers and talking to the groups that monitor the DA’s office in court cases, we don’t see it getting any better” with Williams at the helm. “We see that those who break the law, who would hurt others and their property and disrupt the community, are not being held responsible. They’re just following that far-left national agenda — and they don’t think anybody will call them on that” in Williams’ office.