Among the most important races in North Carolina is the contest to see who will become the state’s next attorney general, the office that represents the state in legal proceedings while also offering legal advice to prosecutors and law enforcement across the state. 

Waynesville Police Chief David Adams had all of his law enforcement instructor certifications suspended by the North Carolina Criminal Justice Education and Training Standards Commission; however, he told The Smoky Mountain News late last week that he plans to appeal the commission’s ruling. 

Architects selected by Canton’s governing board to plan renovations on a pair of buildings purchased to replace those damaged in deadly 2021 flooding presented recommendations and cost estimates to officials last week — a major milestone that keeps the town moving on the road to recovery with an eye on the future. 

Sylva began its budget process last week with presentations from department heads about what they need in the budget, as well as what they want to see in the budget.

Newly elected Haywood County Sheriff Bill Wilke stepped into some big shoes following the retirement of longtime Sheriff Greg Christopher, but earlier this year Wilke showed Haywood County, along with some of its most vulnerable residents, that he wears some pretty damn big shoes himself. 

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. 

There’s an old mantra in law enforcement: don’t take credit for the good times unless you’re willing to take equal responsibility for the bad. 

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

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.