Asheville police receiving tips in home invasions – Asheville Citizen

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ASHEVILLE — City police continued Friday to follow community-generated leads in their search for those involved in a series of home invasions that have shaken residents of several city neighborhoods.

Lt. Wally Welch said an arrest in one of the six cases is possible early next week, based on tips from the community. He said he could not comment on whether the tips were related to four violent West Asheville robberies. Police are also investigating a home invasion in Montford and another in Kenilworth.

“I feel really good we may have an arrest by next week,” Welch said.

Meanwhile, the crimes continue to be a hot topic as more people learn about them and join the communitywide discussion on crime and safety. Tony Gutierrez, 32, did not learn about the robberies until Thursday. He joined West Asheville Watch, a Facebook community forum, the same day.

Gutierrez said the home invasion robberies concern him more than burglaries.

“I’ve been worried before that someone would do it while I was gone or while I was at work,” he said. “I never thought about armed robbery. That’s really crazy.”

Jonna Eichenlaub, 27, lives in the area and works at Universal Joint. She’s one of two employees there who knows a victim of the recent robberies.

“A couple weeks ago, it was all anybody was talking about,” she said.

Eichenlaub doesn’t think the home invasions will tarnish the reputation of West Asheville.

“It’s just making those individuals look bad,” she said. “West Asheville is a really close community, so I think we try to look out for one another.”

Welch encourages residents of any neighborhood to get to know their community resource officer. For example, he said people can tip officers about drug dealing or voice concerns about anything else suspicious in the neighborhood.

“That could really get the ball rolling for extended community assistance,” Welch said. “Those guys can work wonders in a neighborhood if they have community backing.”

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Horror flick kicks off new Facebook facet

Horror thriller The Perfect House will be the inaugural film to première on FlickLaunch, the first independent-movie distribution platform built on Facebook.

The film, a haunted-house anthology that tells three separate stories using different horror-film techniques, will debut on FlickLaunch on Oct. 1 as a seven-day, $5 rental accessible through its Facebook page.

The debut was announced Friday by FlickLaunch and by the makers of The Perfect House, which stars Monique Parent, Felissa Rose and Will Robertson and is directed by Kris Hulbert and Randy Kent.

FlickLaunch was designed to be a simple platform that independent filmmakers can use to upload and stream their films quickly and easily, receiving up to 70 per cent of the revenue. The films can be viewed full-screen directly on Facebook, and stopped, paused and resumed within the rental period.

Warner Bros. recently expanded its Facebook-based streaming for major films such as The Dark Knight, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone and Inception, but the FlickLaunch platform was aimed at indie filmmakers looking for alternative distribution avenues.

“Currently, many independent films are not lucky enough to secure distribution from a major distributor and rarely have a meaningful marketing budget to reach a mass audience,” said FlickLaunch co-founder and CEO Craig Tanner.

“FlickLaunch provides an immediate solution to filmmakers for both of these issues.”

Added co-founder Erik Moore, “For a film to be ensured success in this competitive environment, each actor, director, and producer must use their Facebook friends and Twitter followers to drive traffic to their movie. It’s much easier when the movie theatre and marketing arm reside on Facebook.”

Prior to the FlickLaunch debut, the cast and crew of The Perfect House will take the film on a 30-day tour around the country, which will be documented on its Facebook page and official website.

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