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Sheriff’s Office Training

The Training unit is committed to providing the best training possible to the hundreds of employees of the Sheriff’s Office. Online, classroom and reality-based training is administered at the coordination and direction of the Lieutenant of Training and Captain Kevin Calhoun.

 

Minimum State Standards for Certification

All sworn law enforcement officers and non-sworn detention officers at the Buncombe County Sheriff’s office are trained to the standards of the North Carolina Sheriff’s Training and Standards Commission. All sworn personnel must be graduates of the NC Basic Law Enforcement Training course (BLET), which exceeds 700 hours of training time. “General subjects include, but are not limited to, criminal, juvenile, civil, traffic, and alcoholic beverage laws; investigative, patrol, custody, and court procedures; emergency responses; and ethics and community relations.”

All Detention Officers at the Buncombe County Detention Facility, more commonly known as the county jail, are certified through the Detention Officer Certification Course (DOCC), which consists of 175 hours of training time and is “designed to prepare entry level individuals with the cognitive and physical skills to become certified detention officers. The course is comprised of twenty-two separate blocks of instruction.”

State mandated training that meets the standards of the NC Justice Academy must be completed annually. That consists of 24 hours per year for deputies and 18 hours per year for detention officers. 

The training includes topics pre-selected by the NC Sheriff’s Training and Standards Commission, with additional topics selected optionally by the Sheriff each year. These topics are intended to keep personnel up to date regarding the latest legal, technical and community based skills required of today’s officers.

Training Beyond Minimum State Standards

Once employed by the Buncombe County Sheriff’s Office, training continues through an in-house Field Training program of several hundred additional hours. It is during these trainings that employees learn the practical daily applications of those basic training skills while working alongside veteran training officers who continually evaluate their progress.

 

School Resource Officers require additional state mandated levels of training and certifications. Others, such as Crisis Negotiators, polygraph and explosives training, often require extended training outside the area at national or state sponsored schools.

Besides these required trainings, all officers are also eligible to enroll in elective courses, both in classroom settings and through limited and appropriate online trainings. It is here that technical skills are honed through classes such as emergency response, criminal investigations, community outreach and crime prevention. Personnel may locate and request these trainings through the NC Justice Academy, very much like enrolling in a local college course.

Effective training above and beyond these minimums, training that builds greater bonds with the community and improves our levels of professionalism and service as guardians of our community, is at the heart of the remainder of the unit’s yearly planning at the Buncombe County Sheriff’s Office.

We start with an agency-wide initiative each year to engage our personnel in four required quarterly training events, part of which are classroom based and the remainder of which are “reality-based training.” Using planned scenarios and/or role players, this reality based training provides for realistic physical training focused not only on officer safety and tactical skills improvement, but also on the necessary skills of Crisis Intervention, De-escalation techniques, overall communications and performance under stress.


Topics include:

  • Advanced Firearms and use of force decision making
  • Active shooters
  • Driving
  • Integrating Communications, Awareness and Tactics (ICAT) toward de-escalation
  • Fair and Impartial Policing and Procedural Justice
  • Proper control and apprehension techniques
  • Implicit Bias
  • First aid, traumatic injury care and CPR
  • Proper TASER use and certification
  • Crisis intervention and working with consumers of mental health care
  •  
  • Hazardous Materials response

Locate & Contact

Sheriff's Office

Contact

Sheriff's Office Administration
P: (828) 250-4503

Non-Emergency Calls
P: (828) 250-6670

Sheriff's Office
60 Court Plaza, 4th Floor
Asheville, NC 28801

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Hours of Operation

Monday through Friday
8 a.m. to 5 p.m.


Sheriff's Office Facility Locations

Sheriff's Office
60 Court Plaza, 4th Floor
Asheville, NC 28801

Detention Facility
20 Davidson Drive
Asheville, NC 28801

Magistrate's Office
20 Davidson Drive
Asheville, NC 28801

Patrol Division
339 New Leicester Highway
Asheville, NC 28806