PART 2: Homegrown Leadership | APD Interim Chief Mike Lamb

The Asheville Police Department hasn’t had a homegrown chief in 20 years. Local native Mike Lamb hopes that soon changes. Lamb grew up in Asheville and has been on the force since 1997. In December, city officials named him the interim chief with the sudden retirement of Chief David Zack. 

This is the second half of my conversation with Interim Chief Lamb. Part One posted January 10. 

Today, we bore into the often-stated statistic that Asheville Police is down 40 percent of its budgeted officers. We talk about elements of the job Lamb says don’t get the attention they should. I ask him about how he and his officers can change a perception many hold, that police come into situations with an adversarial mindset and often use unnecessary force. And Chief Lamb details his own traumatic experience on the job and how he worked through it.

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Transcript

Matt Peiken: The common statistic thrown out is the APD is down 40 percent of its officers. To the best of your knowledge, where are we at right now?

Chief Mike Lamb: So I'll explain the number to you. So right now we have our max number. If we were fully staffed is 238 officers. We're at 174 sworn. Now that 174 does not account for officers that are out on sick leave officers that are out on maternity or paternity leave officers that are on military duty officers that are out on vacation or in training.

So whenever you factor those numbers in, we've stayed at an average of about. 38 to 40%. We're currently, I think 37, 38%. 

Matt Peiken: Okay. So a max of 238, we have about 174 officers active right now. So down about 60 officers, 64 officers, I guess that would be. Actually, only about in the quick math on this, only about 25 percent down 25 to 30 percent down.

Yeah. So from your vantage point, has APD started seeing success in its recruit and retention efforts? And if so, what do you attribute that to? 

Chief Mike Lamb: So one thing to think about too with the numbers is 174 are less officers than when I got hired in 1998 than what we had. Wow. 

Matt Peiken: Yeah. And I'll bet the capacity was, it was also lower. Like you didn't have the budget for 238 officers back in 1998. 

That is correct. Wow. You, so you know firsthand the impacts of losing this kind of staffing. Yes. What do you believe are, so Throw out my question about the efforts of retention and recruitment for right now. Why do you think this city is so challenged in finding and keeping officers? 

Chief Mike Lamb: It's several things, but I think, you know, it's agency culture. It's law enforcement appreciation. But I think one big factor is the housing market and compensation. Cause like when I was hired in 98 I lived in Hall Creek Muse for a couple of years as a courtesy officer and that's at a discounted rate and was able to save money during that time for a house. And so that's something that is not really feasible for officers now. 

Matt Peiken: Can you see that happening or you must hear from peers in Charleston, other cities that might be tourist driven where housing prices have skyrocketed. Is this problem not unique to Asheville? Is this happening elsewhere? 

Chief Mike Lamb: It is, especially within cities that really saw, like we, we saw a population increase in during the pandemic.

Charleston also saw that because both cities were destinations where people would love to go and work remotely from, and so we saw both of those. And then the housing market has increased so much in, in both locations that, we only have five officers that have homes in the city of Asheville, and that really affects the sense of community that's there as well.

Matt Peiken: That's crazy that only five of your 174 active duty officers live in this city. 

Chief Mike Lamb: Yes. Now we have a few that live in apartments in the city. Oh, but have homes. But have homes because homeowners when you have a, when you have a home and you have Kids in that home and you're within the school system and you're going to the same grocery stores. Your kids are playing sports together. That's something that I think we're missing as a community of Asheville because so many live in Henderson County, Heywood County, McDowell County, Madison County, and then even some as far as Yancey and Mitchell County and they drive here. 

Matt Peiken: Now, even though You still have the interim on your title, have you had conversations with City Council and Mayor Manheimer, City Manager Deborah Campbell, about what is possible in terms of significantly raising the pay of police officers, both for the element of recruiting and to allow our officers to live in this city? You know, We have a decent living and afford a home. Have you had these conversations with them?

Chief Mike Lamb: Yeah, and and thankfully Chief Zack started those conversations In 2020 2021. So it's it's something that we're continuing to work on with city manager and city council. They have been open and receptive to the suggestions And we're able to work within the budget cycle as well to propose numbers, different things.

I think health care after retirement will help, especially with laterals, because if we can get lateral hires in from the state of North Carolina, they can go through a very short training phase and be on the streets in a short amount of time. 

Matt Peiken: When you're saying lateral hires, meaning people who might have been hired in Winston Salem or Charlotte or elsewhere. who worked there, hiring them in Asheville and then not having to go through all the steps you're saying. 

Chief Mike Lamb: Exactly. They wouldn't have to go through the basic school to get certified and they would go through a short field training phase before they're able to get out and help with answering calls.

Matt Peiken: You said Chief Zack started these conversations back in 2021 and I imagine there are certain other things and strategies around recruitment and retention. What kind of things are happening now that weren't even happening just a few years ago?

Chief Mike Lamb: Yeah, so we have a certain hiring bonus for brand new officers. I think it's 3, 500 if I remember correctly. And then 5, 000 for lateral officers. Our best recruiters are officers because other officers will call and ask and seek out like how's the culture at APD? How's it working within Asheville?

And so we have an incentive for our officers if they refer somebody To be hired by the police department a financial incentive there. I think that one element that we're missing is that community and Participation in recruiting because it's, if you have a friend, a family member, a schoolmate, whoever, who you think would be a great police officer or it would be interested in law enforcement, getting them to be interested in staying here within the community or even if somebody knows somebody in another city or somewhere that's interested is saying, Hey, consider Asheville. It's a great agency. 

Matt Peiken: You alluded a little bit ago to at least a perception of policing from the outside as one of the deterrents, one of the hard things to overcome in terms of finding police officers. What do you think are some realities of your work and in this city that the populace doesn't know? 

Chief Mike Lamb: Oh, gosh, there's so much in that question. I would not do anything else. It is one of the most rewarding professions that is out there because you're never bored. Every day you come in, the day is completely different, but a lot of people I think have a perception of law enforcement is we go out, we find somebody that's committed a crime and then we take them to jail, but it's so much more than that because we provide a sense of safety and security, but it's more that it's that sense of community and family because it's relationships with folks when they're in some of their most vulnerable, deepest, darkest moments. And our objective during that time is to help them and give them hope. I've had domestic violence victims that have come up to me later and said, Thank you for saving my life. Like you, you locked up my abuser and that stopped that cycle.

And, for me, I don't even remember because it was like another call, domestic violence call that I went to and I investigated and then I've had folks that have struggled with addiction that have came up to me and they've said, you were the only one that held me accountable for my addiction and I was in a bad place and I needed help to stop, but I wasn't going to get the help on my own. I don't think arresting people for addiction is the answer to everyone, but sometimes that helps people to get off that cycle. 

Matt Peiken: You're getting to a question that just occurred to me as you were talking about this. When Chief Zack was sitting in that chair last year, without naming specific agencies, specific names, he was indicting Some of the local partners for not doing enough some of the non profit agencies for being almost Enemies to the police or running as a counter to police in a sense.

Do you agree with that? He said we need Partners to step up and some people just are not stepping up who are in this community who are tasked with and charged with helping certain segments of the community, whether it's the homeless, the addicted, other constituents. Where's your assessment in terms of community partners, stepping up to partner with APD in these efforts?

Chief Mike Lamb: So I don't think it's that simple because I really believe that when people are motivated to do something that their hearts in the right place. There's folks that I know and have relationships with that don't like police. They believe that police should be abolished.

However, I can still have a conversation with them about it. And I know what they're doing is because they want to help people. And there's different viewpoints, different philosophies behind that. What I don't like is intentionally misleading folks and painting a different narrative than what is reality.

Matt Peiken: Speak specifically to that? What things have been said that, in your eyes, have vilified police unfairly? 

Chief Mike Lamb: I think there's general statements of the ACAB, the all cops are bastards. When I was downtown when I was on a call, having folks yell out obscenities to you, yell out threats. Probably the most hurtful thing that I heard was during one of the marches, a young man came up to me and he said, cops that commit suicide, they do it a lot. They should do it more. And I just remember feeling that and how difficult that was. So I think a lot of people have different motivations, but the narrative that policing is evil, that we should abolish police, I think that is, I think that is hurtful because the police serve a specific and honorable role within the community.

Matt Peiken: Yet at the same time, locally, you can point to the Johnnie Rush incident and things have happened nationally that Unequivocally have shown that police have used excessive and unnecessary lethal force, that they have wronged citizenry at various levels of violence and arrests and You name it. When you see things like that, you can't help but at least Say the community has some material as ammunition to vilify police. How do you respond to well, look at these videos. Look, this unequivocally shows that police were heavy handed here and did something it didn't need to do.

Chief Mike Lamb: Yeah, police are the front line of government, so we are the most visible arm of the government. And when people get mad at government for the wrong things that, that happen a lot of times we become, we become the outlet for that aggression and that anger. But really, with 300, 000 or plus cops, and I think that was the last count I remember nationwide, you're going to have a segment of those that do the wrong thing.

You know, policing is not a perfect, like we're humans. So human beings are apt to failure. If you look within any group or organization, doctors, teachers, there's, there are things that come out of the news like, Oh, this teacher did this or this doctor did this.

But. I don't think those entities are being vilified as law enforcement are. 

Matt Peiken: I guess some of the people who quote, oppose police would say there's a culture in policing that the police see people, when they go out on reports, they go out seeing that person as the bad guy, as the enemy, and they need to neutralize or stop that enemy.

Is that wrong? Is that a wrong perception? 

Chief Mike Lamb: Yeah. So just like we talk about bias, everybody has bias. It's rooted in science and there's implicit bias that we have. I think that is a bias towards police officers and having that assumption that Every cop is looking at somebody as a bad guy or something like that.

And that's a wrong viewpoint. My belief is that most people are trying to do the best they can with the circumstances that they have with the background that they have for how they grew up, and the opportunities afforded to them.

So it's like, a lot of times it's more complex whenever somebody commits crime on why they committed that crime, but with our agency culture and what we train is that our hope is that through doing an investigation, making an arrest, is that We get that person off that track and try to get them on a more positive track, because it's in a lot of times that happens where we'll have folks that were, whether it was a cycle of anger, cycle of addiction, a lot of that stuff is rooted in trauma also in trying to get them to where, yes, they're being held accountable for the crime, but they're also getting services so that they stop doing that cycle and that lifestyle.

Matt Peiken: I don't imagine that these kinds of things you're talking about were in the conversation in the late 90s, early 2000s, in the way that they are now. What have you learned on the job? You're not a beat cop anymore. You run the department. But what have you learned on the job? What are you doing differently now as a police officer than you were doing, say, 15, 20 years ago, yourself? How do you approach the job day to day differently than you did back then? 

Chief Mike Lamb: I guess back then, especially, like I was hired at 22 here in Asheville and the culture's different. The city's a little different, but I still remember, and I didn't grow up rich. I had everything that I ever needed, but it wasn't like we didn't have cable TV. We didn't have electric heat. We had a wood stove. I had to bust wood to fuel the wood stove. But I remember being in Pisgah View Apartments and seeing a toddler playing on a front, porch of one of the apartments and then like a rat come up on the stoop and then run across.

And, this was 1998 and, but I remember even being from Asheville, not being aware that there was a certain level of poverty within the, the, the city. So, having that understanding of there has to be compassion in policing. And it's really important to try to offer better services for people, but also give them a hope and expectation that things can be better as well. 

Matt Peiken: That sounds like something you learned early on and you just said something that struck me and I should have done the Math earlier you were 22. I can't help but think and you tell me where you feel in this, 22 is almost too young for someone to be charged with being A police officer with a gun in our community and making judgment calls in the moment, no matter what their training at the academy was. Is 22 too young to be a street cop with a gun?

Chief Mike Lamb: I'm glad you brought that up because I think that's one of the biggest things that have changed over the decades that I've been a police officer is the level of training and the type of training. We didn't have de escalation training back then. We did not have crisis intervention training back then. So I don't think 22 is too young, especially if given the given the type of training that that we have now, and also we have more realistic training between VR to using actual force on force equipment where you understand the realities of force and and not only with firearms, but also just hand to hand as well.

But then you learn the realities of, like through CIT training, we put on a Headphones and the heads are VR set and headphones, and you're able to experience what somebody who's experiencing voices that has schizophrenia, like how they're perceiving the world around them at that point. So I think officers are better prepared because not only is it just firearms and physical training, but it's also the de escalation, the mental training, but in addition to that, coping mechanisms, because I think one thing that law enforcement did not do well, especially in the 90s and 2000s, was teaching officers how to cope with the traumatic things they experience, and they see on a regular basis.

Matt Peiken: Some of those things that you see and experience, that only happens in time, right? And, training is one thing, but you have to experience it to really know it, don't you? You do. What would you say is one of the most traumatic experiences you've had on the 

job? 

Chief Mike Lamb: Oh gosh, So I've done a lot of things, been through a lot. I was a homicide supervisor at one time. So I've seen some pretty, pretty horrific homicide scenes. I've seen people die that were struggling after they got shot. And then I've been attacked before. I was attacked in 2018 by a guy with a box cutter and had to use deadly force to have him stop attacking me.

Matt Peiken: Not all that long ago, you've trained, this is part of the job, you knew this going in, in a sense. Now, let me ask you, is that the only time you've had to use deadly force? 

Chief Mike Lamb: That is, yes, and thank God he lived.

Matt Peiken: Oh, he did? Okay what, how do you process that when you go home?

And in the days and weeks and months and how has that incident changed or has it, have you been hardened enough to where it doesn't affect you day to day when you go out on the street? 

Chief Mike Lamb: And I think that is where our culture has shifted because if officers look at the world through a hardened lens, because of trauma if they just continue to get tougher and tougher, there is a disconnect with emotions and a disconnect with relationships as well.

So it's being able to process those incidents using trained clinicians and and not just saying, Hey, I can deal with this. I'll push this down. So post my incident, I was able to receive Therapy through our contracted clinicians, responder services. And they were great.

What I had to do was prolonged exposure therapy where I had to go back to the hotel room where it happened and sit in there. I had to talk about it over and over again. And what helps is the more you talk about it, the more you process it, it moves it from one part of the brain to another, to where it doesn't affect you as much.

Matt Peiken: Amazing. I'm so happy you told me that detail that you had to go back to that hotel room and what that did. I don't think anybody would know that's part of your recovery that you had to do that. 

You are technically the interim chief. I don't think it's a secret you probably want to be named permanent chief. Is that correct? That's correct. Did you ever want to be permanent chief before, did you ever apply for the openings and were not considered or were you interviewed and then not move forward? What happened previously? 

Chief Mike Lamb: Yeah, no, whenever I was hired at 22, we would be asked questions about what is your goal within the Asheville Police Department and having just graduated from Western with a class from the chief, I said I guess one day it would be nice to be chief, but I saw all these older guys who were chiefs and deputy chiefs and captains.

I thought, I won't get there. I remember when I made lieutenant in 2016, I thought, I'm good. I'm good. Here's lieutenant. I'll retire as a lieutenant, but Then I made captain and thought you know, captain's a good place to be. I'll retire as a captain. And then it was deputy chief. So this has not been like an articulated, laid out plan that I've had.

It's just doors that have been open for me. And I see that as if the door is open, then I, I need to do my best to be the best that I can in that role. 

Matt Peiken: How do you see your. Tenure as chief going? Do you see yourself as a change agent?

Do you see yourself as a source of continuity and keeping everything going the way it's going and moving forward as technology advances, as training advances, but not really moving the margins here and there? How do you see your tenure as chief?

Chief Mike Lamb: I see it as a mix of both. I see it also adjusting to what the community needs.

I think it's been difficult over the last, gosh, almost 20 years to have the changing in chiefs. However, these different chiefs brought in a lot of innovative ideas from different areas. And so we've been able to capitalize on what Chief Hogan brought in with the guiding principles, our vision, our mission statement.

And then what Chief Hooper brought in as far as revamping our use of force policy. And she, using the Vera Institute, to look at Are our policies sufficient. She brought in body cameras. And so and then With, with Chief Zack looking at a focus on improving training, improving equipment, improving pay and compensation. I think taking all of those things that we've learned and applying those and trying to push those forward. The one thing that I really want People to understand are the innovative and progressive things that we can do as an agency as we continue to increase our staffing and then really use data driven approaches and community policing principles to do the best that we can to make the city safe in collaboration with the community.

I think that not only do we have innovative ideas within the agency, but I think we also have innovative ideas in the community that people want to bring forward. So we're welcome to those ideas.

Also just the understanding that police can't do it all. So it's gonna be mixed between police, social services, mental health, and I think with the expansion and Medicaid that's going to help out with some more folks being able to get services that they need.

We've got compass point village that has opened up some more permanent supportive housing that's coming online. So I think As a city, we're in a good place, but we need to do it together. 

Matt Peiken: You mentioned before we were rolling tape that you used to skateboard nearby on Cox Avenue. You said you wanted to get out more on the street, get out in front of people.

Any chance of you getting back on a skateboard and intersecting with that community here? 

Chief Mike Lamb: I would love to be able to skate again. I remember, you know, growing up, we would go down to tunnel road, get on the city bus, ride it all the way to the tunnel, and then skate from the tunnel all the way just to downtown.

Of course, downtown was totally different in the eighties. But I love being out there. This morning, I did a three mile run with our new cadet, so I like to be out there physically active.