Asheville police investigating suspected gunmen situation near A-B Tech

ASHEVILLE — Police were searching Tuesday for two suspects involved in a shooting near Erskine Apartments.

Officers responded shortly before 10:30 a.m. to reports of a gunshots in the 100 block of Erskine Street, north of Asheville High School and near Asheville-Buncombe Technical Community College, said Christina Hallingse, spokeswoman for the Asheville Police Department.

Speaking to reporters gathered at an on-scene press briefing off of South French Broad Avenue, Hallingse said two suspects fled on foot before officers could apprehend them. Hallingse declined to describe the suspects.

"That's all under investigation right now," she said.

No injuries have been reported as a result of the shooting, according to Hallingse. But at least one car appeared to have been hit.

Shortly after noon, several officers and detectives gathered around a red car parked at the edge of the apartment complex. The car had been shot at least four times. There were two bullet holes in the driver-side rear window, one hole in driver-side rear door and one hole in the gas cap, which was on the same side of the vehicle. The rear tire was flat.

Police interviewed the woman who owns the car, according to Hallingse. They searched the vehicle for more than half an hour as about a dozen bystanders watched, occasionally taking pictures with their phones.

Monica Harrison, a Livingston Heights resident, was among them.

"This neighborhood is getting worse," she said. "I pray every night that a stray bullet don't come through my window and harm me or my kids."

A-B Tech and Asheville High school both locked down their campuses after APD notified school officials armed suspects had fled the scene of a shooting, heading in their direction. A-B Tech was locked down from 10:40 a.m. to about 10:50 a.m.

Though the lockdown was short, college spokeswoman Kerri Glover said it was intense.

“If you’re told there may be somebody on campus with a gun, you have to treat that as seriously, the same as if there was an active shooter," she said. "It was brief, but it didn't seem it because there was an actual threat. It was not a drill."

Though A-B Tech's campus population was smaller than it would've been during the spring or fall semesters, Glover said that several hundred people were still affected by the lockdown.

Ashley-Michelle Thublin, Asheville City Schools communications director, said the lockdown at Asheville High and SILSA ended at 11:28 a.m. Student-athletes practiced inside the high school, which is near A-B Tech's campus, for the rest of the day, she said.

A-B Tech officials received lots of questions from concerned students and faculty during the lockdown, Glover said.

At the beginning of each semester, instructors are required to show an instructional video about what to do during a lockdown. Glover said several students and school officials were disturbed to put those lessons into practice.

The school locked down briefly last year for a similar situation — a shooting in the Erskine Apartments — Glover said. But that lockdown took place at night and only impacted two buildings. Tuesday's was the first daytime lockdown A-B Tech has called in at least five years, Glover said.

Closer to the shooting in the Southside, a handful of residents from the Erksine Apartments and Livingston Heights were outside looking around.

Several people told the Citizen Times that they hadn't heard gunfire, only sirens and the loudspeaker announcing the lockdown at A-B Tech.

"Asheville's getting worse than New York City these days," Harrison said as she shook her head.

Police had made no arrests, or taken reports of any injuries, Hallingse said.