Man dead in armed confrontation at Fletcher CVS

Sam DeGrave | Asheville Citizen Times

FLETCHER - A man is dead after police say he engaged in an armed confrontation with them inside CVS off of Hendersonville Road. Police have yet to name the suspect, who was fatally shot on scene.

Fletcher Police Chief Erik Summey said his investigators are working with the State Bureau of Investigations to determine what happened after the suspected gunman — whom police have only described as a white male — entered the CVS shortly after 12:15 p.m.

"Our officers responded fairly quickly and everything happened fairly quickly after," Summey told the Citizen Times at the scene.

Investigators are still working to establish a timeline of events and to answer some of the many questions that remain unanswered — including the identity of the suspected gunman and the reason why he allegedly entered a drug store armed — Summey said.

"We don't know what his intent was," Summey said. "We don't know if he knew somebody there. We don't know if it was a robbery. We don't know if he popped off a round when he entered the store. That's why we're investigating."

When asked about whether the suspect — who police say possessed "a handgun" —had in fact fired the weapon upon entering the building, Summey said he didn't know whether the suspect fired the weapon at all Wednesday.

Police said that according to witness interviews, the suspect entered the store through the front door and went to a back room, which Summey described as a “warehouse or a break room,” he said. It was there that he was confronted by six officers. Summey said multiple people called 911 to report that the suspect had a weapon.

“He produced a weapon. (The officers) told him to drop the weapon. He didn’t respond. Shots were fired,” Summey said describing the shooting in as much detail as he said he could.

The suspect was pronounced dead at the scene by emergency medical personnel, Summey said. Only the suspect was injured in the exchange.

Summey said that he doesn't think that there was anybody in the room with the suspect other than police when he was fatally shot. Summey didn't say how many officers fired on the suspect.

Summey said that everybody who was in the store at the time of the alleged armed exchange has since been accounted for and that the situation is "contained." He said he couldn't say whether the suspect had held anybody against their will before the police arrived. Summey wouldn't say how many people were there at the time of the shooting nor would he say how exactly how many people witnessed it.

"You can imagine a CVS on a busy road in the middle of the day is going to be busy," he said.

Summey said that the drug store did have security cameras and that investigators will retrieve the footage from them. Summey didn't know whether a camera had captured the shooting.

Investigators were interviewing witnesses behind yellow crime tape in the drug store's parking lot after the shooting.

Summey said that staff members at Veritas Christian Academy, which is not in session currently, were placed in lock down while the suspected gunman was at large. The lockdown was fairly short lived, according to Summey.

Wednesday's officer-involved shooting marked the first such incident that Summey has seen at the Fletcher Police Department since he joined in 2008. He has been chief since 2010.

"I don't recall if we've ever had (an officer involved shooting)," he said while standing in a parking lot across the street from CVS. "There hasn't been one since (2008), and I would know obviously."

Fletcher is a small town situated between Asheville and Hendersonville to the south. It sits within Henderson County and had a population of about 7,200 when the 2010 census was taken.

Henderson County deputy sheriffs were on the scene along with FPD and the SBI on Wednesday.

This story will be updated.