When it comes to a high-speed chase, law enforcement must constantly ask the question: is it worth it?

A 23-year-old Franklin man took police on a chase through Macon County in August reaching speeds of nearly 125 miles per hour. The chase took off after a deputy tried to pull David Ridao over for going 74 miles per hour in a 55-mile zone on U.S. 64. 

One man’s mission to bring to light an obesity epidemic in Macon County has offended many in the community, prompted threats from some and even prompting a response from the sheriff.

The recently signed state budget bill will fund the hiring of 19 toxicology analysts for a new western crime lab, expanding available evidence testing in Western North Carolina. 

The Waynesville Police Department helped craft and then usher four bills, or some version of them, through the N.C. General Assembly this year, giving law enforcement officers statewide new tools in the fight against drugs.

Law enforcement agencies in Western North Carolina are cracking down on drug use in the region.

The Haywood Community College Board of Trustees has given preliminary approval for the construction of a training facility for law enforcement and emergency service workers.

Police across Western North Carolina have been stamping out the last bastions of illegal video gambling machines in recent weeks, calling the bluff of defiant operators who refused to go quietly.

By Paul Clark  • Contributor •

Norris Bunch called his dog Maxo to attention. Maxo, alert and ready, waited for his release.

Barbara Holt, a judge for the U.S. Police Canine Association, gave the go-ahead, and Bunch, a K9 handler at the nuclear Savannah River Site, shouted for Maxo to move.

Laser-quick, Maxo charged toward the “decoy” – a fellow K9 officer acting as a criminal suspect. The decoy had a 25-yard head start on the football field at Waynesville Middle School. And, he certainly had the sympathy of the civilians spending a sunny June morning watching the police dog trials from the stands.

A mentally ill man got a $22,500 settlement in a lawsuit against a Bryson City police officer who hit him multiple times with a baton and sprayed him with pepper spray.

The settlement came more than three years after the incident, which involved a 25-year-old with schizophrenia. The man sustained physical injuries and mental trauma after a Bryson City police officer hit the man repeatedly with a baton while serving involuntary commitment papers on him outside a downtown pizza restaurant.

The out-of-court settlement was reached through mediation in November.

The settlement is being paid by the town’s insurance company and not out of town coffers. In fact, the town didn’t even know it had been settled, said Bryson Town Manager Larry Callicutt.

Callicutt said he found out last week that the case had been settled by the insurance company back in November.

The suit by Jacob Grant claimed Bryson City Police Office Leon Allen sprayed him with pepper spray and hit him on the head, face, shoulders, stomach, back and legs, even after he was already on the ground. Grant’s family had petitioned for involuntary commitment because they feared Grant was not taking his medication.

When Allen tried to take Grant into custody, Grant asked to see the commitment papers, Allen couldn’t produce them, and a verbal argument ensued that allegedly escalated into Allen beating Grant. Ten witnesses stepped forward and filed police brutality complaints against Allen.

Allen, meanwhile, claimed Grant assaulted him. Grant was charged with assaulting an officer but those charges were dropped when Grant agreed to plead guilt to the lesser charge of obstruction of justice.

Allen was placed on leave while the department conducted an internal investigation, but was eventually reinstated on the force. He later left the Bryson police department and went to work in another county.

The settlement was signed on Bryson City’s behalf by Attorney Sean Perrin with Womble and Carlyle law firm out of Charlotte, who specializes in liability claims against police departments. The insurance company hired and paid for the attorney.

Grant was represented by Asheville attorney Andrew Banzhoff. The civil suit was filed almost two years after the incident, just shy of the statute of limitations cut-off.

Banzhoff said he could not discuss the settlement due to confidentiality provisions.

A state plan to eliminate a part-time magistrate in Highlands is being roundly condemned — and resisted — by Macon County law enforcement leaders and government officials.

Slashing the positions in the name of savings has been likened to a cutting-your-nose-off-to-spite-your-face measure. Good on paper, perhaps, if you’re sitting in Raleigh trying to make the numbers add up.

But inane if you’re among those who live in this region and drive the 10 winding mountain miles between Franklin and Highlands — a trip that costs cops and deputies an hour each time they need to charge someone with a crime.

The loss of two magistrates in Jackson County, reducing the number from five to three, is posing problems for the court system there, too, and has prompted official requests that the cash-strapped state Administrative Office of the Courts reconsider the cuts. The last time Jackson had just three magistrates, it was 1979 and the sheriff’s department had 14 employees, said Clerk of Court Ann Melton. Today, Jackson County’s sheriff’s department has 78 employees.

The magistrate situation is OK in Haywood and Swain counties for now, with Haywood standing at five magistrates and small Swain at three, Chief District Judge Richie Holt said last week.

But in light of the cuts in Jackson and Macon, Holt has been forced to reduce the amount of time magistrates in those two counties are available to book suspects, issue warrants and the like. Law enforcement is very unhappy about it, Holt said, and the public is often forced to wait for a magistrate to appear.

There is supposed to be a magistrate on duty 24 hours a day, Holt said. “With three in Jackson County, do the math — we just can’t do it. It’s not possible to have 24-hour, seven-days-a-week coverage,” he said.

Magistrates are on-call for law enforcement when they aren’t physically in their offices.

Elimination would take place in the fall of 2012. Macon County will lose another fulltime magistrate in Franklin, too, in the name of state savings, but it’s the part-time position in Highlands that’s causing the heartburn. That’s because if the elimination happens, Highlands would be left without law enforcement protection while officers make the drive down the mountain to obtain a magistrate’s services in Franklin. Or, more town officers or county deputies would need to be assigned to protect southern Macon County.

Most likely at a much higher cost than what the state is proposing to save, Highlands Police Chief Bill Harrell said. The magistrate in Highlands costs the state $20,000 a year.

“In Raleigh, it looks like 15 minutes (between the towns). It’s actually a 40-minute drive,” Macon County Sheriff Robbie Holland said. And that, of course, doesn’t figure in the amount of time officers and deputies spend on individual cases — that could be hours, not minutes; and in the case of mental-health patients, days and not hours.

What do they do?

Magistrates have legal duties in both criminal and civil cases. In many instances, a citizen’s first contact with the judicial system comes via a magistrate. The magistrate determines if, and to what extent, additional action is needed when a police officer or a citizen says that a crime has been committed. Duties include issuing arrest warrants, search warrants, subpoenas and civil warrants. Magistrates conduct bond hearings to set bail and conditions of release when someone is charged with a criminal offense, among many other duties.

Source: N.C. Magistrates Association