A man who was severely injured in a 2022 police shooting at his home in Cherokee County won’t see a resolution to his civil suit until August 2025 at the earliest, according to a recent filing in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of North Carolina. 

In a 65-page answer to an extensive lawsuit  filed in response to the December 2022 police shooting of Jason Harley Kloepfer in Cherokee County, the Cherokee County Sheriff’s Office emphasized that it was officers with the Cherokee Indian Police Department, not CCSO deputies, who fired the shots, and denied allegations that its deputies and supervisors mishandled the case from the beginning. 

The court has made its decision in the Cherokee County Sheriff’s Office’s request to dismiss  many of the complaints in a lawsuit stemming from the 2022 shooting of Jason Harley Kloepfer at his home near Murphy.

Nearly 11 months after a Cherokee County man was shot by police officers in the doorway of his own home, a State Bureau of Investigation probe into the shooting is complete. 

As police shooting victim Jason Harley Kloepfer’s sprawling federal lawsuit  makes its way through court, where he’s seeking millions of dollars in damages, some attorneys are speculating that it has the potential to spur a first-of-its-kind ruling on the limits of sovereign immunity, a defense that often protects Native American tribes from lawsuits. 

In an explosive federal lawsuit filed Tuesday in the U.S. District Court of Western North Carolina, the victim of a December 2022 police shooting in Cherokee County seeks millions of dollars in damages while laying out the sequence of alleged violations of policy and law that led to what he says was an attempted murder by police. The shots were fired by members of the Cherokee Indian Police Department, which had been called to assist the Cherokee County Sheriff’s Office.

D During its April 6 meeting, the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians Tribal Council unanimously approved an ordinance change  exempting police car and body cam videos from the tribe’s public records law. The vote comes on the heels of a Dec. 13, 2022, Cherokee Indian Police Department SWAT response  in which officers fired at Murphy resident Jason Harley Kloepfer after he opened the door to his home with his hands held above his head, according to a home security video Kloepfer posted Jan. 18.

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This story has been updated from the original version published Wednesday, March 29, to include reporting from additional public records related to Sheriff Dustin Smith's whereabouts the night of the shooting and a proposed law in Cherokee that would exempt police body cameras from the tribe's public records law.

As the State Bureau of Investigation continues its probe into the Dec. 13, 2022, police shooting that severely wounded Murphy resident Jason Harley Kloepfer, District Attorney Ashley Welch is seeking to recuse herself from handling the fallout — because statements members of the Cherokee County Sheriff’s Office made to Welch and one of her assistant district attorneys mean they are now witnesses in the investigation.

Jason Harley Kloepfer left his home near Murphy on Dec. 13, 2022, with bullets in his body and criminal charges in the courthouse. Now, more than two months after an officer-involved shooting that made international headlines, misdemeanor charges accusing Kloepfer of communicating threats and resisting a public officer have been dropped.

When officers shot Murphy resident Jason Harley Kloepfer, 41, while responding to a disturbance call Monday, Dec. 12, a press release from the Cherokee County Sheriff’s Office said it happened because Kloepfer “engaged in a verbal altercation with officers” and confronted them as he emerged from his camper trailer.