Fletcher and Henderson County cops blatantly murder a local man, leaving his family and community demanding justice. Both departments have an unusually violent record.
Graphic by Matilda Bliss
[Warning: This piece includes accounts of police murder, brutality, and racism]
Blade editor David Forbes provided reporting for this piece
Christopher Robert Hensley died on Wednesday, June 15, after Fletcher police officer Michael Teets and Henderson County sheriff deputy Seth Summey applied their full weight to his back and hind legs for at least three and a half minutes while he laid on asphalt at the Seasons at Cane Creek apartments in Fletcher.
An initial video of the killing, taken by a neighbor, shows the two officers restraining the already-handcuffed Hensley on hot asphalt while Fletcher police Sgt. Michael Elizondo looks on, playing with his taser. A bystander hovers over his struggling body and vapes. Several times during the six minute video, Hensley can be heard using his limited breath to shout “I can’t breathe, I can’t breathe” as deputy Summey applies pressure and repeatedly strikes him.
By the time he goes unresponsive, seven cops crowd his body, including deputies Zach Ritter, Josh Garren, Zach Warren, and Rob Martin. Hensley, a Latino man, was 35.
The two Fletcher officers involved in the killing of Christopher Hensley – officer Teets (hired in April of this year) and sergeant Elizondo – are on administrative leave. It appears that all Henderson deputies involved remain on active patrol, including deputy Seth Summey.
A graphic created by Hensley’s family in their effort to demand justice for his murder. Used with permission.
In the aftermath of his tragic death his family and community have demanded justice. While the violence of the Fletcher Police Department and Henderson Sheriff’s Office have gotten less headlines than that of Asheville police, they have their own ugly history.
Lies and omissions
Not surprisingly, a press release from the Fletcher Police Department omits many of these details and adds some outright lies. The release states that a 911 caller claimed that Hensley wouldn’t let her leave and was possibly on drugs. The release also states that Hensley had a “physical altercation” with police, but an eyewitness recently said she saw him throw no punches and claimed that the situation appeared to be a mental health crisis rather than an act of violence.
The press release also fails to mention that an officer tasered Hensley “twice,” according to the same witness. But on June 18, Fletcher Police Chief Daniel Terry admitted, “I do know a taser was deployed.” The release also completely omits that the department’s “custody” was officers and deputies putting their full body weight on top of him.
The “CPR” provided “in custody” occurred in the parking lot of the apartments, and followed increasingly frantic cries by Hensley. He then went silent after an officer struck his head and another added a knee to his left bicep – a third all the while pushed his crossed legs to his back.
Adding in yet another level of the department’s cruelty and disregard, the “CPR attempt was BOGUS,” according to public comments from an professional nurse who watched the video of his murder, a sentiment shared by many others in the medical profession who’ve seen the footage.
Despite years of de-escalation training and body cameras, police killings of racially marginalized people remain a mainstay of american “justice.” The Fletcher police are no exception and Hensley is not the first person they’ve murdered.
In 2018 their officers shot and killed Wesley Shelton after he supposedly attempted to rob a CVS. With Hensley’s killing, that’s a significant number of people murdered by the police for a town of 8,300. Given this history it’s perhaps no surprise that these cops would so quickly resort to violence then claim the old excuse that Hensley was “possibly on drugs.”
Driven by racial disparities in drug arrests, a comparatively high 13 percent of the small town’s arrests are for drug possession, according to Police Scorecard. Only one percent of their arrests are for violent crime.
Graphic by Matilda Bliss. Fletcher police social media often features “thin blue line” style propaganda associated with far-right police brutality
Communities that readily meet the needs of all of their members see the least amount of “crime”, harm, and violence. But Fletcher’s police budget exceeds its housing budget by roughly four times, its health budget 232 times over. And according to the budget document approved just days before Hensley’s death, Fletcher government now allocates $1.98 million to police, nearly a quarter of the town’s budget and nearly a 20 percent increase over last year’s funding.
Killing after killing
The Henderson County Sheriff’s office, which hasn’t even bothered with a press release, drains Henderson County of nearly $27 million to fund murder, violence, arrests, and incarceration. Henderson County also accepts 287-g funding, which deputizes its officers as ICE agents and overwhelmingly threatens members of Latine families and communities with sudden and brutal kidnapping, deportation, and death.
Graphic by Matilda Bliss. Henderson Sheriff’s office social media routinely glorifies police firearms and violence
The killing of Hensley comes just weeks after the Henderson County sheriff placed Deputy Terry Alan Brackett on administrative leave for assaulting a student at Fletcher Elementary School. The sheriff office gave him the job despite Brackett twice being fired from other law enforcement agencies.
The office’s record gets much worse. In 1999 a Henderson sheriff deputy, speeding, ran into Rigoberto Olvera Briones’s vehicle as he was leaving a barbecue. That deputy and another then proceeded to outright murder him, shooting him in the head and face. The sheriff’s office found no wrongdoing. A civil suit brought in response criticized the lack of “training” for deputies, a recurring theme.
Including Briones’ and Hensley’s murder, the Henderson sheriff’s office has killed 11 people since 1999. That’s a stunning amount for an overwhelmingly white county with a population less than half that of neighboring Buncombe. The sheriff’s office killed four of them just in the past six years. Half weren’t white. Most were in the middle of mental health crises.
In April 2016, deputies killed Kay Campbell, a 60 year old woman with a history of mental illness. The three deputies had been waiting on involuntary commitment papers for Campbell. After she allegedly “pulled out a gun,” they killed her.
In November 2016 Ritchie Lee Harbison, in the middle of a mental health crisis, collided with some parked cars. Wandering outside of his vehicle he was then tazed to death by sheriff’s deputies. He wasn’t just unarmed, but naked and injured when they killed him.
In September 2020, Henderson deputies killed Robert Ray Doss Jr after he allegedly became involved in a shootout that left one deputy dead. He was suspected of breaking into vehicles.
That’s at least 11 killings in 23 years. Many were unarmed. Many were experiencing a mental health crisis. At least five were not white.
Grief and justice
Christopher Hensley is survived by his mother, brothers, wife, and two daughters, one aged four, a newborn aged three weeks, and a community who loves him. Friends and family are fundraising to pay for his funeral and other costs. They are also asking that more attention, including national attention, be brought to his killing and have created an Instagram.
Outside of the Blade, many outlets have copied and pasted Fletcher police’s lie-filled press release. The same news organizations also refused to press the sheriff’s office on their silence. One even interviewed cop lobbyist Brandon McGaha, a former Hendersonville police officer, who defended the murder of Hensley.
In late 2017 McGaha shot and killed Rufus Baker, a Black man, as he attempted to leave a Walmart parking lot after an undercover drug operation was exposed. McGaha then spoke at an Asheville city council meeting in 2018, railing against incredibly mild NAACP-backed traffic stop and search reforms and blaming Black people for the police violence and terror they disproportionately experience.
While the State Bureau of Investigation works on its verdict likely absolving racist cops – another mainstay in this country – the Blade reminds readers that the institution of policing will never be held accountable by the corrupt and violent system that created it. There is no amount of training that will stop a cop in this system from inflicting overwhelming violence.
Policing will never be reformed. Time and again, persistent and overwhelming public outrage in many forms has been the only thing to bring a modicum of justice to families. The Blade is in solidarity with the family and friends of Christopher Hensley as well as everyone mourning the loss of a loved one at the hands of state violence. Christopher Robert Hensley should still be alive.
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Matilda Bliss is a local writer, Blade contributor and activist. When she isn’t petsitting or making schedules of events, she strives to live an off-the-grid lifestyle and creates jewelry from local stones
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