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BPR News Presents: A Conversation About Policing In Asheville

On Thursday July 23rd, Blue Ridge Public Radio hosted a live Zoom panel to discuss police funding in Asheville.  BPR News Presents: A Conversation On Policing In Asheville, is hosted by BPR's Matt Peiken.  His guests discussing the call to defund the Asheville police department include Robert Thomas of the Racial Justice Coalition, Zaria Abdulkarim of Democracy NC, retired UNC Asheville professor and founder of The State of Black Asheville report Dr. Dwight Mullen, local Fraternal Order of Police president Rondel Lance, and Buncombe County sheriff Quentin Miller.  You can listen to an abridged one-hour version of the conversation above, or on both BPR Classic and BPR News Friday July 31st at 9 a.m. and Saturday August 1st at 3 p.m.  The entire two-hour talk can be viewed on the BPR Facebook page.  

(Music featured includes The Vibes by Audiobinger)

Matt Bush joined Blue Ridge Public Radio as news director in August 2016. Excited at the opportunity the build up the news service for both stations as well as help launch BPR News, Matt made the jump to Western North Carolina from Washington D.C. For the 8 years prior to coming to Asheville, he worked at the NPR member station in the nation's capital as a reporter and anchor. Matt primarily covered the state of Maryland, including 6 years of covering the statehouse in Annapolis. Prior to that, he worked at WMAL in Washington and Metro Networks in Pittsburgh, the city he was born and raised in.