Waynesville Police to launch new app

Cory Vaillancourt photo

As the world becomes more and more accessible in the palm of our hands, local governments must adapt to ensure the most up-to-date information is available for residents.

Such was the impetus behind the Waynesville Board of Alderman greenlighting a new app for its police department that will offer a number of different services all in one location. Tyler Trantham, a former Waynesville Police lieutenant, worked with the developers to determine how the app could best meet the needs of community members. Even now after he’s stepped away from law enforcement, Trantham has still worked part-time on the project.

“I’ve been working with [the developers] still weekly, if not more,” he said. “It’s a pretty complex process.”

Trantham said the decision to get the app was an easy one, given the way technology has shifted.

“It’s going to be in 2022 where almost everybody has a smart phone, whereas 10 years ago we’d push people to the website,” he said.

Not only will the app provide push notifications to inform residents of law enforcement activity, it will also offer those residents a chance to leave a tip regarding illegal activity, look up inmates in the Haywood County Detention Center and even simply compliment an officer they feel has done a good job.

“It will also link to our Facebook page, so anything that we put out on there will also be in the app,” Trantham said. “Not everybody has Facebook, but they may have the app.”

The app cost the town about $14,000 up front and will run about $4,000 per year to maintain. Waynesville Police Chief David Adams was enthusiastic about what it will bring to the community.

“It’s a great resource for us and the public. We can get information out quick,” he said. “I appreciate the town helping to fund this since it’ll be such a good tool.”

The app will launch in the next couple of weeks and will be free to download from any app store. Kyle Perrotti, News Editor

existing red flag laws. Both support maintaining the county’s existing compliance with ICE detainers, something neighboring Buncombe County has refused to do, and both understand the importance of the less-than-glamorous but vitally important aspects of the job, like civil process service.

But as either Bryson or Wilke go on to assume the duties of sheriff, they’ll do so in an environment where the landscape of law enforcement continues to change dramatically.

Considerations over use of force policies, pretrial incarceration and even the basic tenets of the job have prompted much public debate over the role of law enforcement today and have also directed intense scrutiny toward those sworn to uphold the law, from the greenest of small-town beat cops all the way on up to the most experienced Federal Bureau of Investigation agents.

Some agencies are also seeing problems with staffing — HCSO not among them — however, in light of the recent Coronavirus Pandemic, perhaps the most burning questions revolve around how much discretion, exactly, a sheriff feels they can exercise in the enforcement of existing laws.

Back in 2020, some Haywood residents demanded that commissioners pass a resolution designating the county a “Second Amendment sanctuary.” Although largely symbolic, if passed, such a resolution would supposedly empower sheriffs to disobey local, state or federal laws they don’t agree with, specifically regarding gun control.

But there’s one big problem with that — it doesn’t work that way.

“I support our citizens’ protected right to bear arms under the Second Amendment and the doctrine of judicial review that grants to the United States Supreme Court and the lower courts the power to determine the constitutionality of any law,” Sheriff Christopher told commissioners on Jan. 20, 2020. “Sheriffs do not possess the legal authority to interpret the constitutionality of any law.”

Commissioners ultimately opted to pass something called a “Constitution protecting county” resolution that expressed support for the entire document, and not just a single sentence from it.

Still, the “constitutional sheriffs movement” continues to assert the right of sheriffs to pick and choose which laws they’ll interpret.

Darris Moody, a Haywood County woman arrested by the FBI on Sept. 7 for sending a series of threatening documents to local elected officials including Christopher, espoused support for the movement in regard to the enforcement of mask mandates and said she’d even given Christopher a “handbook” on how to be a constitutional sheriff.

“They [law enforcement officers] made an oath to the Constitution and in my opinion, they have failed,” Moody told The Smoky Mountain News on Sept. 2. “They bowed to the government. They bowed to the SOP [standard operating procedures]. They bowed to the narrative, to the propaganda, to the TV.”

Still, during a Primary Election candidate forum hosted by the Haywood County Republican Party on March 31 of this year, chair Kay Miller asked Wilke and his fellow Republican opponent, former HCSO Capt. Tony Cope, if they would join the Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association upon election.

Cope said absolutely. Wilke was a bit more circumspect about joining the CSPOA, saying he would be hesitant to join any organization because they can change ideologically, but he also said that if a sheriff attempts to decide what is constitutional, that act would be unconstitutional in and of itself.

Asked for clarification on his stance last week, Wilke was unequivocal.

“How much more constitutional does it get than when I take oaths coming into office that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States, [and] support and defend the Constitution of North Carolina? That doesn’t grant me extra judicial authority to enforce laws that aren’t in place in place, nor does it give me the ability to neglect certain things that have been ruled constitutional by courts in the past,” Wilke said. “If we operate outside those boundaries, there’s a word for that — it’s called ‘vigilante.’”

Bryson, a Democrat, wasn’t part of the March HCGOP forum but at that time told SMN, “I think you have to go by the law that’s in place.”

During his candidate interview earlier this month, Bryson maintained a consistent position.

“Being a constitutional sheriff, there’s a line you have to walk, and some of that strays just a little bit from what the General Assembly has placed as a law in North Carolina,” he said, adding that he wouldn’t be spending his time in office interpreting which laws to enforce.

Wilke and Bryson both have different priorities they’ll pursue if elected. Bryson wants to rearrange and augment personnel to provide better coverage across the county, and Wilke said he’d form a community partnership with medical professionals and court officials to modernize the county’s approach to the opioid crisis.

But plans and perspectives such as those of Bryson and Wilke are nothing without the means to implement them while at the same time performing the myriad other duties sheriffs are charged with; they maintain the jails, serve civil process documents, set department budgets and policies, manage human resources and uphold courthouse security.

Each candidate thinks it’s their experience that will help them accomplish their goals.

“Do you really feel like you can turn this [job] over to somebody to try on?” Bryson asked. “I just don’t think we can take a chance. I think I’m more rounded. I think my 35 years of experience and my over 3,000 hours of advanced training in all facets puts me in a position that I think the people should look more favorably toward me because as I’ve said, with the state that our country is in now I don’t think we can say haphazardly, ‘This guy don’t know a thing about it, but let’s put him in there and let him try it out.’”

Wilke contends that since Bryson’s retirement in 2013 his law enforcement experience with the Marshalls has been quite different than that of a day-to-day, street-level officer and that his own experience presents a truer picture of the challenges associated with policing in the 21st Century.

“I will tell you that it’s true that I haven’t worked in the same place, doing the same thing for 40 years. I was seven years old when [Bryson] started in law enforcement, doing things with paper reports and rotary telephones,” Wilke said. “I’m very well versed not just in the industry, but how that intersects with public service and I think that far better prepares me for this position than being in the same place at the same time doing the same thing for 40 years. I don’t think folks want to go back to the way it’s been done for so long.”