Buncombe sheriff race pits opposites in 'critical' election

Sam DeGrave | The Citizen-Times

ASHEVILLE — Business as usual at the Buncombe County Sheriff's Office will soon reach an end.

Democratic candidate for sheriff Quentin Miller essentially ensured that when he handily defeated retiring Sheriff Van Duncan's heir apparent, Randy Smart, in the May primary.

But as election season heads into a final stretch, Miller's main opponent, Republican Shad Higgins, has made it increasingly clear that he, too, would not settle for status quo.

For the first time since Duncan won election in 2006, voters will be asked to choose a substantially different direction for the largest law enforcement agency in Western North Carolina.

With Miller, a 25-year veteran of the Asheville Police Department, that direction would be focused on de-escalation, jail diversion and increased community interaction — all recommendations of former President Barack Obama's Task 21st Century Policing Task Force.

Higgins, the owner of a Weaverville tire shop with no law enforcement experience, promises a "Make America Great Again" approach to policing that offers a back-to-basics approach.

Buncombe County's problems will be solved only once respect for law enforcement is restored, Higgins says. He says he would accomplish that by moving away from de-escalation tactics — which he calls a failed "social experiment" — and by taking an increasingly hard-line approach to the county's drug problem.

Miller says the sheriff's office needs to better respond to shifting community expectations. Higgins counters that it needs to double down on past practices.

Miller calls himself "the Andy Griffith candidate" while Higgins says he'll be a "law and order sheriff."

Barring a wild come-from-behind victory by Libertarian candidate Tracey DeBruhl — who to date has raised $20 in campaign donations and is posting signs "paid for by Christ" — it will be Miller or Higgins calling the shots after Nov. 6.

"This election is important," said Trish Hickling Beckman, a Woodfin resident and voter. "The last sheriff was in office for 12 years. My second-grader is 8 years old. In 12 years, he'll be 20. The next sheriff could be setting the police culture for the rest of my son's childhood."

Race between Miller and Higgins called "the most critical sheriff election"

On a brisk Saturday morning recently, Higgins stood in a Weaverville parking lot where hundreds of bikers had gathered for a motorcycle rally to raise money for Christmas gifts for impoverished children.

Over the rumble of engines and speakers blaring music from the rock band AC/DC, Higgins turned a talking point he has made every time he's spoken with the Citizen Times.

"This is the most critical sheriff election that has happened," he said.

Higgins said he believes this in part because, he says, Miller is pushing an "anti-law-enforcement" agenda.

For Higgins "anti law enforcement" and "de-escalation" are synonymous, and the latter "shows that you are weak" and means that "you don't arrest people."

"If we don't arrest people for crime, how do we hold them accountable?" Higgins said, explaining he would have deputies "treat people with respect even if they're a criminal in handcuffs."

When asked whether its possible Miller, a man who recently retired from a quarter-century career as a police officer, to be "anti law enforcement", Higgins said Miller's followers "don't believe in law and order."

And therein lies one of the reasons why Miller shares Higgins' opinion that this election is critically important. The way Miller said he sees it, law enforcement is a profession in transition, and building mutual respect with the community means police must "go from warriors to guardians."

What it means to be guardians

Asheville was within the clutches of the crack epidemic when, in 1993, Miller moved home after having spent 11 years as a military police officer in the Army.

By 1994, Miller had joined the Asheville Police Department and was working as a patrol officer in the Southside when — on a particularly cold winter night — his current take on policing began to take shape, he said.

While patrolling Livingston Street near the Grant Center, Miller said he encountered a man addicted to crack walking down the street wearing only a pair of shorts and flip flops.

"I had long johns under my uniform and everything at the time. I mean, it was cold," Miller said. "I said 'Man, what are you doing out here like dressed that?' He looked at me and said 'You think I want to be here? It keeps calling my name, man, and I got to answer."

Miller sat in the lobby of the Buncombe County Detention Center as he recounted his parable of addiction — the moral being that addiction is a disease, the cure for which is not simply arrest, he said.

Though he's able to see that now, Miller said it took him a while to come around. When, in the early 2000s, Judge Ronald Payne approached him about being a part of Buncombe County's Drug Treatment Court after its inception, Miller said no.

"I told him 'I arrest them, you deal with them after,'" Miller said. He said he changed his mind after Payne told him that sentiment would leave him on the wrong side of history someday.

"Now, I look at this jail and just think that there are people here that are sick. People are here who are addicted, and we need to help them now."

Kicking the county's drug problem

Miller says "we can't arrest our way out" of the drug problem — which many describe as an "epidemic" — that has Buncombe County in its grasp. Higgins says we can sure try.

The greatest gap between the two candidates lies in their take on the county's drug problem — a problem that has the attention of voters and law enforcement alike.

Speaking at a wedding venue she co-owns in Sandy Mush, Melissa Duckett said drug crime has changed the culture of the county.

"Our drug problem is huge," she said. "Crime is up. You used to be able to leave everything unlocked and it's just not like that anymore."

The rising prevalence of heroin and meth is particularly troubling for Duckett, a registered Republican who said that she voted for Duncan and that she would again if he were running.

Like Duckett, Duncan said curbing drug crime will be paramount for whichever candidate wins his seat, though he didn't offer an endorsement.

Miller has been hesitant to say exactly how he will reduce drug crime, in part because he wants to hear from each county community before he sets major policy directives that will effect them, he said. He has been clear, however, that he wants to expand treatment options and alternatives to incarceration for addicts.

Higgins said he has a plan and that calls for law enforcement to "starve out" drug dealers: Arrest everybody beneath them, including users.

Since he announced his bid, Higgins has said drug crime, especially involving opioids, motivated him to run for office.

"If we go out and get everybody, we prove a point; we set and example," he said. "You've got to get your users and your street-level dealers. That's where you've got to start."

Higgins said he'd create an anonymous tip line county residents could use to report their neighbors for using drugs.

Jailhouse blues

Higgins' approach would likely increase the population of the Buncombe County Detention Center, which is maintained by the sheriff's office.

The Republican said the county shouldn't offer methadone — a widely used prescription drug for long-term treatment of opioid addiction — in the jail.

"I don't think it's right for taxpayers to support a drug habit," he said, adding that he'd have to consult a physician before making a final decision on the matter. "Why should we support a drug habit? I think we've got to help them but not by supporting them."

The jail can hold 604 inmates and on any given day it's housing about 580 to 590 people.

Miller said he's currently speaking with Buncombe County District Attorney Todd Williams about ways to reduce the number of people in jail, particularly those who are there simply because they can't post bond.

He said that, if elected, he will try to create diversion programs so the lowest-level offenders, such as alimony dodgers, are held accountable without taking up residence in the jail at the county's expense.

"Are we going to help people? Or are we going to build another jail?" Miller asked, explaining he hopes the county doesn't have to pay for another detention facility.

Higgins said he also worries about the jail population, but sees the solution in bricks and mortar, rather than reform.

"Our jail population is big, and it's a problem we're going to have to take care of," Higgins said. "I think we'll have to have a new detention center in our future. I don't know where, but definitely as soon as possible."

City and county split

Miller stood in spitting rain outside of the Community Resource Center in Barnardsville as Hurricane Michael passed over the Carolinas earlier this month.

He was there to explain that, if he wins, he'd like to see a reopening of the sheriff's office outpost once in the now all-but-abandoned resource center. The office closed a few years ago sometime after the Mountain Area Health Education Center clinic in the building shuttered.

Miller said he likes the sheriff's office's Community Oriented Problem Solving team — often shortened to COPS — which was implemented during Duncan's tenure. But he'd like to see it expanded and he'd like to create a citizen advisory board in each of the county's three districts that could serve as a bridge between the COPS team and commissioners.

"Even way out here in Barnardsville, they need to have input; they need to be able to talk to the sheriff," he said.

In Barnardsville, the heart of Buncombe County's Trump country, Miller is likely fighting a losing battle. "Elect Shad Higgins" signs are everywhere. A Higgins sign even occupies the spot where an American flag used to hang from a small bridge over a creek.

Anita Edwards and her mother, Wanda, are among Higgins' fans in the county's northern reaches. The two own and operate Sheena's Restaurant, a diner off of Barnardsville Highway with a giant Higgins sign in front.

Though she's a registered Democrat, Anita Edwards said she plans to vote for Higgins because they grew up together. She doesn't know much about Miller, she said.

Wanda Edwards, who said she's known Higgins and his twin brother Shane since they were boys, said that she plans to do the same.

"I'd vote for Shad over anybody because I don't know the other candidates," she said. "I think he'll do a good job, and if he don't, I'll turn him over a checkered apron."

Higgins is counting on county voters to turn out in big numbers for him, and he believes that they do, he'll be the next sheriff.

"We'll be successful with big voter turnout," he said. "If there's small voter turnout, we'll be in trouble. We have to get people in the county out to vote."

Miller said he recognizes the city will likely back him. He received cheers recently when he walked into a downtown Asheville coffee shop. But he's still trying to court county voters who might not think a former city police officer is prepared to branch out into the country.

He's not convinced his experience policing in the city — which, he frequently points out is inside the county — would be rendered useless in the county sheriff's office, as critics say.

"I can't argue that I spent 25 years with the city and not the county, but I've lived in the county," said Miller, an Arden resident. "And if I did just one traffic stop, one citation, one arrest, that would still be more than my competitors."

Though Duncan's Chief Deputy, Terry Rogers, has been campaigning for Higgins, Duncan hasn't endorsed a candidate since Smart lost in the primary.

Duncan, who recently switched his registration from Democrat to unaffiliated, said each candidate has "strengths and weaknesses."

"I'm going to go in the voting booth, and I'm going to vote for who I think is going to do better," he said.