U.S.A. — “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,” Smoky Mountain News reports. “The lawsuit lists 25 counts of action, with different combinations of defendants named in each. It seeks a jury trial and wants that jury to award Kloepfer a judgment to cover damages, punitive damages, and attorney’s fees.”
It’s a story AmmoLand News has been following since its initial exclusive post in January presenting the original video of the Cherokee Indian Police opening fire on an unarmed Jason Kloepfer while his wife stood behind him and he was answering their demands to come out of his trailer while his hands were in the air. It also detailed inconsistencies from the Cherokee County Sheriff’s Department as it pointed fingers in its own Facebook post, denying responsibility and flat-out spreading a narrative that has since proven to be false.
That report was followed up by two in February, the first documenting lack of major media coverage and presenting key questions left unanswered in the sheriff’s attempts to absolve himself and his department of any responsibility for events he set in motion and the second posting a time-lined transcript of the Calls for Service Report and Dispatch Recording, and highlighting the dangers of SWATting based on unproven allegations.
Those reports were followed in April with a follow-up article that showed a new SWAT shooting video taken seven hours after the initial one and featuring State Bureau of Investigation officers, and raised conflict of interest concerns over the District Attorney recusing herself.
“This is the first nine pages out of 195-page civil complaint that is public record as of today,” Kloepfer announced in a Tuesday Facebook post. “When everyone has asked about lawyers and what they are doing, this is what they have been doing. Going through tons of evidence hours and hours of video evidence, and after months of ups and downs and doubts and arguments between us.”
“I am very satisfied and happy with what they have produced and have full faith they will do their absolute best to win,” he continued. “If anyone would like to see and read the whole complaint just ask. This now shows without a doubt how guilty and corrupt the system is in the Bible Belt Smoky Mountains.”
AmmoLand readers don’t have to ask. The complaint in its entirety is embedded below. It provides comprehensive details of everything that happened before, during, and after the raid and substantiates causes of action with documentation. The “explosive” nature of the complaint is evident in its charges:
Jason and Ali’s lives are forever upended by these events. They live in fear that the powerful government forces will finish the job, and murder them, to complete the cover-up… If [law enforcement] had complied with the policies… it would have prevented this illegal attempted murder… If not for Jason’s additional surveillance camera inside the home… then the truth never would have come to light and the Defendants would have gotten away with attempted murder and convicted Jason on false criminal charges… the only investigation going on after the attempted murder was the SBI investigation… Hiring all of the CCSD deputies, officers, employees, and agents who acted negligently and grossly negligently… culminating in the attempted murder of Jason and Ali by the SWAT team… culminating in the attempted murder of Jason and Ali by the SWAT team…
And there’s another issue, a pressing one.
“We are going to be suing in civil court and that could take two years to win,” Kloepfer notes in a pinned Facebook post. “Then they jam it up more…”
That’s a reality covered that AmmoLand readers have seen before, how the state, with virtually unlimited resources, can drag things on and make things so expensive for citizens of limited means that their ability to seek justice and redress is effectively nullified.
“We have nothing to live in,” Kloepfer revealed, underscoring that point. “The trailer is full of bullet holes, and the pipes broke 2 months ago. Mold is everywhere now plus pipes and fixtures [are] still broken. So, we literally have nowhere to live back home.”
To that end, they have established a “Justice for Jason and Ali” Go Fund Me account to help sustain them as they traverse the long road to settlement and conclusion as if the memory of what happened can ever be truly settled or concluded. Meanwhile, the state actors who disrupted their lives and almost killed them, and the ones who refuse to make things right without being forced to, all have places to go home to.
The lawsuit follows. Readers are encouraged to set aside the time to go through it completely to understand the totality of events that happened and are still happening to a citizen attempting to comply with police orders, and to know if it can happen to Jason Kloepfer it can happen to any of us.
And then share his story with those within your spheres of influence.
About David Codrea:
David Codrea is the winner of multiple journalist awards for investigating/defending the RKBA and a long-time gun owner rights advocate who defiantly challenges the folly of citizen disarmament. He blogs at “The War on Guns: Notes from the Resistance,” is a regularly featured contributor to Firearms News, and posts on Twitter: @dcodrea and Facebook.
