Sheriff’s Community Problem Solving “COPS” Team in Fairview

 An important meeting for everyone in our community!

An important community meeting will be held on Thursday, July 26 at 6:30 pm at the Fairview Community Center.

Lt. Helen Hall of the Buncombe County Sherriff’s Office will share the results of a four-week project carried out in Fairview by the Sherriff’s Community Oriented Problem Solving Team (COPS).

The COPS Team concept was created by Sheriff Duncan when he determined that the quality of life for our residents and the effectiveness of the Sheriff’s Office could improve at a better rate if issues were addressed by a team working on a specific issue for 4 weeks.

In recruiting team members, having no untasked personnel to choose from and not wanting to burden any one unit, Sheriff Duncan went to his Senior Command Staff and asked each to dedicate an officer for each team. Patrol would dedicate an officer, Civil Process would dedicate an officer, and so on up to the five team members desired. This team is taken from their regular duties for 4 weeks, given a community problem and placed in the identified community to help residents find resources to address that problem. After the completion of the project the team is returned to their regular duties and two weeks later a new team is assembled to address a new identified issue or concern in another section of the county.

The fourth COPS team has been working in the Fairview area. The team met with residents on Monday, June 18 to identify issues needing to be addressed and is also consulting with community members by phone. The issues discussed at the meeting were break-ins, juvenile issues, speeding and drug sales/abuse.

Lt. Hall encourages residents to ask questions or add their input to the ongoing project by emailing Lt. Hill at helen.hall@buncombecounty.org or calling 250-4466.