Tribal officers in Cherokee County shooting say they thought victim was armed

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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.

M More than six months after beloved Swain County educator was shot and killed  at his motel in Cherokee, District Attorney Ashley Hornsby Welch has announced that the South Carolina resident who pulled the trigger will not face criminal charges. The man fired in self-defense after Wilson brandished a handgun, the investigation found.

A An autopsy report released by the N.C. Office of the Chief Medical Examiner has ruled the death of beloved Swain County educator Lambert Wilson  a homicide caused by gunshot wounds to the neck, arms, chest and abdomen. It also reports a significant concentration of alcohol in his aortic blood.

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.

There’s some truth to the old cliché that one readily recognizable sound is the ultimate deterrent against a would-be home intruder.

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.