AG Stein speaks on law enforcement staffing, training after alleged police brutality

EDNEYVILLE - North Carolina Attorney General Josh Stein, who is running for governor in 2024, continued his trip in Western North Carolina May 31, making a stop in Hendersonville at the Western Regional State Crime Lab to discuss plans for law enforcement recruitment and retention.

"Keeping people safe is job No. 1 for all of us," Stein said. "That is why law enforcement do the work that they do. Too many cities and too many towns, too many counties are experiencing dramatic shortages in law enforcement officers in their departments."

Hendersonville Police Chief Blair Myhand, who is the president of the N.C. Association of Chiefs of Police this year, said as a chief, the challenges they're facing across the state is "tremendous."

"We have more and more people leaving the profession than are coming into the profession today. The numbers are something we can't sustain long term," Myhand said. "I applaud the efforts, the out-of-the box thinking the attorney general and his office has presented ways that we can improve and increase our numbers and bring more and more people into this profession and make this a much more attractive job for people to do across the state of North Carolina."

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While the Asheville Police Department has been short-staffed, down as much as 40% of its usual sworn staff, and has had a difficult time attracting new officers, Hendersonville and Henderson County seem to be doing well as far as maintaining their law enforcement staffing.

The Hendersonville Police Department currently has three vacancies out of 47 authorized officer positions, a staffing shortage of 6%. The police department is working to fill those vacancies, but Myhand said they currently only have applicants in the pipeline with no law enforcement officer experience who would need to go to basic law enforcement training.

"Our profession has taken a tremendous hit in public opinion over the last three years, and we are suffering because of it. In my professional opinion from talking with other chiefs, the main issue affecting recruitment is the sense that there is no public support for what a police officer does generally," Myhand said prior to the press conference.

"Chief Myhand has talked about some of the challenges that happen when there are not enough officers on the job. Study after study show that fewer well-trained law enforcement officers on the job means more violent crime," Stein said.

But Myhand told the Times-News that crime has not increased in Hendersonville due to the recent vacancies, in contrast to Stein's comment.

Stein said he and his staff have been working with the state chiefs association and the sheriff's association and others to develop a series of recommendations. Those include:

• Expand the CJ Fellows Program: Stein said he wants to expand this to all 100 counties. The program repays community college loans for those who work four years in a North Carolina law enforcement job.

• Offer hiring bonuses: These would be for new or out-of-state or former military officers. Stein said basic law enforcement training graduates would be offered a $5,000 bonus, while out-of-state transfers and former military police would be offered a $10,000 bonus.

• Eliminate the pension penalty: This allows retired officers to come back to work without impacting their retirement pay.

• Offer mental health resources: Stein said this was very important due to the stress a law enforcement officer has daily on the job.

• Use trained civilians to respond to minor car accidents: This will free up sworn law enforcement officers to respond more quickly to serious calls.

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"Some of these solutions, we are working on together. But others require legislation, and we've not seen the action from the General Assembly that we need to at this point. Current versions of the budget don't include funding to address the challenges I just expressed. It's not enough to say we honor and respect the work of our officers. We need to put our money where our mouth is," Stein said.

"I'm going to do everything in my power to make sure that our law enforcement agencies and sheriff's office are well staffed and well supported. The community's safety depends on it."

The Times-News asked Stein how training law enforcement officers has been changed in light of the death of Chris Hensley, a father of two, who died in the custody of Fletcher Police officers and Henderson County Sheriff's deputies in June 2022 in the parking lot of an apartment complex, and the SBI investigation into Alan Brackett, a school resource officer, who was claimed to have assaulted an elementary school student in May 2022.

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"It is important that officers know how to respond to every call. When someone is in a mental health crisis, we want them to have the skills to be able to identify and know how to then properly respond. We lower the pressure. We do not raise the pressure," Stein said.

"As a result, we've changed basic law enforcement training curriculum to have more emphasis on de-escalation, crisis intervention training and other important skills that will help officers in those situations.

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"We've been urging agencies to consider what is called a 'co-responder model,' where when you are responding to a 911 call, it isn't a violent crime, but it's someone who is in a mental health crisis, to have an officer accompanied by a social worker, who is a trained mental health professional, who has a career of training and experience to know how to best respond to that in a way that an officer simply cannot know," Stein said.

"If we see more of that happening, we think there will be more positive interactions between the state, government and people who are in crisis."

Henderson County Sheriff Lowell Griffin was unable to attend the press conference but said in a pre-written statement: "Now more than ever, North Carolina needs and deserves dedicated professionals with staunch integrity to protect and serve its communities. To attract and retain these professionals, North Carolina must appreciate and support the men and women who answer the calling to become law enforcement professionals."

No one from the Henderson County Sheriff's Office returned calls asking how many total deputies are on staff.

Others in attendance included N.C. Association of Chiefs of Police Executive Director Bill Hollingsed, Asheville Police Department Capt. Brandon Moore, Henderson County law enforcement officers, along with other N.C. elected officials and law enforcement leaders.

Dean Hensley is the news editor for the Hendersonville Times-News. Email him with tips, questions and comments at DHensley@gannett.com. Please help support this kind of local journalism with a subscription to the Hendersonville Times-News.

This article originally appeared on Hendersonville Times-News: NC Attorney General Stein speaks on law enforcement staff shortages