Bear Paw – More than a year after a federal magistrate judge dismissed most of the charges against Cherokee County officials filed against them by a local couple following a violent SWAT raid in 2022, declarations filed in the civil lawsuit have returned the focus on local law enforcement.
A declaration submitted by District Attorney Ashley Welch revealed major issues in the Cherokee County Sheriff’s Office’s role in the SWAT raid and explains why she recused her office from the case.
A declaration was filed by Emily Floyd, a neighbor whose complaints led law enforcement to the scene on Dec. 13, 2022, that led to Jason Harley Kloepfer being gravely wounded by gunfire as he attempted to comply with orders from a SWAT team.
Two more declarations describe personal relationships two deputies involved in the case had with Floyd prior to the SWAT raid.
The lawsuit continues to target the Cherokee Tribal Police’s SWAT team, which was summoned by the Cherokee County Sheriff’s Office and opened fire on an unarmed Kloepfer and his wife, Allison Mahler, moments after Kloepfer opened his front door.
The SWAT raid left Kloepfer critically wounded. Mahler escaped injury.
The couple filed a lawsuit in federal court against the Cherokee County Sheriff’s Office, Sheriff Dustin Smith, numerous deputies and its former lawyer; and the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians Police, its chief, SWAT team and many of its members.
U.S. District Judge Max O. Cogburn Jr. issued a partial ruling on Dec. 4, 2023, dismissing charges against Cherokee County’s role in the raid. Although the Cherokee police SWAT team was requested by the Cherokee County Sheriff’s Office, only SWAT team members fired their weapons at the scene.
But the Cherokee County Sheriff’s Office is central to actions leading up to and following the shooting.
The case is scheduled to go to trial in federal court in Asheville in August.
Emily Floyd
Floyd, in a declaration signed Jan. 21, said between 10-11 p.m. Dec. 12, 2022, she recorded four short videos using her cell phone of her neighbors, whose home was 250-300 yards away on the other side of a creek and 70-100 feet higher in elevation.
She said it was dark and she could not see anything, but she thought she heard gunshots. Floyd later admitted that she did not see anybody shooting guns or any muzzle flashes.
“It was too dark and too far away to make out any shapes of humans,” she wrote.
Her nine-paragraph declaration made no mention about any yelling or threats.
Deputies
Deputy Sheriff Dillion Daniels submitted a declaration just over one page long in which he said he had a sexual relationship with Floyd. He said another deputy may also have had a sexual relationship with her.
A declaration from another witness similarly contends that another deputy was involved with her. However, because both declarations at the moment are hearsay, the Cherokee Scout is refraining from going into detail about the second deputy.
Daniels wrote that Floyd sent him the four videos she recorded from her cell phone. The videos were dark, but he could hear the sounds of fireworks or possibly gunshots and loud music. Like Floyd’s, his declaration also made no mention about yelling or threats.
District attorney
Welch is the district attorney for Prosecutorial District 43, which includes Cherokee County. She was DA at the time of the December 2022 SWAT raid.
In a 30-paragraph declaration she signed on Jan. 24, Welch said she received inaccurate information from Cherokee County sheriff’s officials, saw no evidence that Kloepfer had committed any crimes and learned that Emily Floyd was “overly familiar with Cherokee County sheriff’s deputies” who responded to the scene for a welfare check performed hours before the SWAT raid.
Floyd had made recordings of her neighbors and described them to law enforcement as showing Kloepfer shooting a gun, threatening the neighborhood and any officer who arrived at his house, Welch was told.
Welch later watched the videos and said she heard loud music, a motorcycle engine revving, yelling and some fireworks being shot off, but “no credible evidence of any criminal activity by Jason Kloepfer or Ali Mahler, or anyone else.”
Cherokee County sheriff’s officials claimed they made a welfare check at the property but could not get a response from the residents, according to previous reporting. Worried that someone was being held hostage, wounded or killed, they called in the SWAT team.
The SWAT team set up positions outside the home and tossed a video drone through a window.
Smith issued a release following the incident alleging that Kloepfer confronted the SWAT team before he was shot. However, video recorded inside Kloepfer’s home told a completely different, more accurate story.
Kloepfer, stirred awake and wearing only night clothes, got out of bed, picked up the drone and, just as he opened the door as ordered, was fired on by the SWAT team.
The video
Welch also watched that video, which Kloepfer released weeks later following his hospitalization. The video refuted law enforcement’s claims about the shooting.
Yet, during the period between the shooting and the video’s release, she saw a search warrant obtained for the home that claimed to be part of an investigation for a suspected murder and a request by sheriff’s Detective Milton “Sport” Teasdale to charge Kloepfer with attempted murder and accusing him of threatening law officials and opening the door armed with a gun.
“After I saw the video and became aware of what the SBI uncovered about Emily Floyd’s relationship with law enforcement and that the information received the morning of the shooting from law enforcement was inaccurate, I decided to recuse myself and my office from further investigation into this matter because we would likely become witnesses in this case,” Welch wrote.
“I knew that I could not participate in the investigation when I was also a witness to the fact that the Sheriff’s Office, through Detective Teasdale, had given me and my office false information, which put us in the position of acting as witnesses. I do not know who Detective Teasdale received his information from.
“When I saw the search warrant that Detective Teasdale obtained for Jason Kloepfer and Ali Mahler’s home later in time, I was shocked to see that it appeared to be for investigating a suspected murder,” she wrote, adding that there was no credible evidence to support such a claim.
“After I became aware of the facts surrounding the shooting of Jason Kloepfer, I instructed my office to drop the criminal charges that the Cherokee County Sheriff’s Department had brought against him,” she wrote.
Welch said when she spoke to Smith about a week after the shooting, he told her that he was not on the scene during the shooting.
Attorneys for Kloepfer and Mahler are expected to try to poke holes in that, alleging that Smith was on the property at the time of the raid or shortly afterward.