ASHEVILLE - A man was charged with one count of assaulting a government official with a deadly weapon after authorities say he lunged toward a sheriff's deputy with a knife displayed. The crime is a felony.

Joshua D. Gibson, 30, of Canton, was arrested Friday. Warrant documents allege he displayed a knife and moved toward Deputy R. Fisher while the officer was trying to escort him out of a building.

​Read more here.

ALEXANDER - A Candler man was arrested Saturday, charged with defrauding an innkeeper, breaking and entering and simple assault.
​
Authorities say Cory A. Jackson, 21, broke into a building on Dry Leaf Road in Alexander. Warrant documents allege he caused more than $200 of damages and struck a person inside. 

​Read more here. 

ASHEVILLE – The question isn't so much why their protests matter, when in reality the deaths of two unarmed black men at the hands of white police officers happened hundreds of miles away. The real question is what happens next locally to keep frustrations from boiling over into violence as they have in other parts of the country, community activists say. "The environment here is ripe for it," said James Lee, a minister at St. Paul Missionary Baptist Church. "It's almost like having an open flame in a room with gas. It's only a matter of time before something explodes."

Hundreds of people have joined in at least seven rallies across Buncombe County since a grand jury decided not to indict Ferguson, Missouri, police officer Darren Wilson in the fatal shooting of Michael Brown and another grand jury in New York City failed to indict officer Daniel Pantaleo in the chokehold death of Eric Garner, who was allegedly selling loose cigarettes.

In some cases, demonstrators held pictures of Reynolds High football player A.J. Marion, who was killed in 2013 by an Asheville police officer following a residential break-in, report of a gunshot and ensuing foot chase. Like Brown, Marion was unarmed and the officer was later cleared of any wrongdoing.

Black Americans have spent decades under siege, said Tyrone Greenlee, executive director of Christians for a United Community, a local nonprofit interdenominational collaboration of churches that works to address the root causes of racism and racial disparity through advocacy, education and training.

Read more here.

ASHEVILLE – The protest at Pack Square Park Thursday evening may have been smaller in number than the group which rallied in defense of Michael Brown last week, but that didn't stop participants from making their cries of injustice heard. A crowd of just over 100 people assembled near the Vance Monument in downtown Asheville to protest Wednesday's grand jury decision to end the criminal case against a white New York police officer whose chokehold led to the death of an unarmed black man.

Jurors deliberated for less than a day before deciding there was not enough evidence to go forward with charges against officer Daniel Pantaleo, 29. Pantaleo testified on Nov. 21 that he did not intend to choke Eric Garner, 43, who was being arrested for allegedly selling loose cigarettes.  A medical examiner found that Garner's death was a homicide resulting from the chokehold, a move banned by the New York Police Department in 1993. The July death of Garner was captured on video and seen around the world.
​
"I'm just happy I can do something," said Marshall resident Deb Burns of the protest in the wake of the grand jury's decision "I just can't believe it. Ferguson was one thing, but with this, it is incontrovertible. (Pantaleo) should have at least been indicted and had his day in court."

Read more here. 

ASHEVILLE – Police and bomb-sniffing dogs responded to a bomb threat at the William H. Stanley Center on Woodfin Street Monday morning, after a caller made disparaging comments about the issuance of same-sex marriage licenses, said Natalie Bailey, spokeswoman for the Buncombe County Sheriff's Office. No explosives were found and the building was not evacuated.

"We have protocols and procedures in place to keep everybody safe, and in this particular instance everything worked the way it should," Bailey said. "Our folks went out and checked and nothing was found. Once they did that, people were able to go on and get their licenses."

​Read more here.