Officer Francisco Flattes
By Randy Foster
editor@cherokeescout.com
Family and colleagues prepared for Wednesday’s funeral of Cherokee County Detention Center Transport Officer Francisco Flattes, 56, of Hayesville, who was shot and killed while taking an inmate to a medical appointment on Monday, June 30.
Several fundraisers have been launched to help the Flattes family, while emergency responders from Murphy to Winston-Salem have reached out in myriad ways to show their support and solidarity for the fallen officer and his family.
His funeral was at 1 p.m. Wednesday at Tri-County Community College.
Kelvin Wayne Simmons, 48, of Concord, faces a charge of first degree murder as well as potentially other federal charges stemming from the June 30 shooting.
Simmons was arrested June 1, 2023 in Buncombe County following a robbery of First Citizens Bank in Hendersonville. He led police on high-speed chase after he was spotted in the Black Mountain area before crashing his vehicle on Interstate 240 in Asheville. According to published reports, he attempted to carjack an elderly woman’s car but was detained by three off-duty military service members. He was hospitalized following that capture.
Initially held for bank robbery by force of violence, first degree kidnapping, common law robbery, assault on a female, felony possession of cocaine and fleeing/eluding arrest with a motor vehicle, Simmons was being held as a federal prisoner at the Cherokee County Detention Center in October 2024 when he attempted his first escape.
At 4:41 p.m. during yard time, Simmons was with other inmates in his pod in the inmate yard for an outdoor recreation period. Inmate recreation and exposure to natural light are required by law.
Simmons scaled a fence topped with razor wire and fell to the ground outside the fence.
He was surrounded minutes later about 200 yards from the detention center by detention center officers, sheriff’s deputies and police from Murphy and Andrews.
Simmons was returned to custody and hospitalized for injuries caused by the razor wire and the fall.
“He was cut up bad,” said Sheriff Dustin Smith said at the time. “The fence done what it was designed to do.”
Simmons was charged with felony escaping a local jail and misdemeanor resisting a public officer.
Injuries from his October escape attempt led him to a 2 p.m. appointment at Erlanger Orthopedic and Sports Medicine at 75B Medical Park Lane on Monday, June 30.
Details about what happened inside that medical office are still being sorted out, with the N.C. State Bureau of Investigation leading the inquiry.
What is known is that Simmons overpowered two detention officers who were guarding him – Flattes and George Feinauer, both seasoned law enforcement veterans with years of experience.
Flattes was fatally shot and Feinauer was assaulted but was expected to recover.
The 911 call
A little past 2 p.m. on June 30, Cherokee County’s E-911 center started receiving calls about the shooting. Two of the calls were from Detention Officer Feinauer trying to reach his supervisors at the jail.
It was one call, a woman inside the medical office where the shooting took place, that set the stage better than all the rest.
“There’s a gun,” the unidentified caller said. “A patient has a gun.”
Send emergency medics, she said. “Please hurry,” she said while catching her breath. “Please hurry.”
Tensions rise as the 911 dispatcher tries to get necessary details from a caller putting her life at risk to make the call.
Patient with a gun, she said. He is shooting in the lobby.
“We have patients here,” she said. “Please hurry.”
Until this point, about 1 minute, 10 seconds into the call, there was a hint – he’s in a gray jumpsuit, she said.
“He’s got a hostage,” she said repeatedly. “He’s robbing her,” she says.
Simmons took someone’s car keys and took off with the vehicle, headed toward Hayesville.
Despite the chaos, the caller gave the dispatcher a full description of the escape vehicle – a black 2018 Chevrolet Cruze – and the name of the gunman, which she had because he was a patient there.
“He’s leaving. He let her go, he took her car. He stole the car. Need EMS,” she said.
They are locking the doors, she said. Someone is injured, she doesn’t know who.
Shots fired, she says. “Somebody’s been shot.”
Three minutes and 30 seconds into the call, the caller shared new information that must have made the dispatcher’s blood run cold.
“He stole one of the correction officer’s guns,” the caller said.
“He what?” the dispatcher asked. What was the gunman’s name again?
Kelvin Simmons, the caller said, spelling out both first and last names. He was here for an appointment, she said.
Somebody was shot in a patient room, she said, but she didn’t know if it was a correctional officer or patient.
He came from Clay County or Murphy correctional facility, she said.
Simmons was an inmate at the Cherokee County Detention Facility in Murphy.
Both corrections officers were injured, she said, one, presumably Feinauer, with an elbow injury and Flattes, who was shot.
“Ma’am where is that ambulance?” the caller pleads. “We need somebody now, we’re losing, they’re losing, they’re dying.”
The clinic was being evacuated, she said and the call ended.
The response
Local law enforcement were descending on the scene as they first knew it – an active shooter in a medical office with possible injuries – but it was more than three minutes after the initial call that put the incident in its true light.
The shooting of law enforcement personnel is personal to them – they know the victim or know people who do. The bigger issues is public safety – someone who shoots a cop would be desperate and not hesitate to shoot anyone.
They needed to capture him, quickly.
Officers from the Cherokee County Sheriff’s Office, Murphy Police and N.C. State Highway Patrol learned about the inmate escape and detention officer shooting as they were en route or shortly after they arrived.
First units on scene had to deal with a grave medical aid situation, determine if there was still a threat present and protect evidence all simultaneously to other units heading out for the chase.
Simmons took keys from a patient at the medical office and fled in her car, taking U.S. 64 through Hayesville into Macon County, where about two dozen pursuit cars participated in his capture near the intersection of Old Murphy Road.
Between Peachtree and Hayesville, one patrol car caught up to Simmons and was soon joined in by two dozen others as officers from Clay and Macon counties joined the chase.
Video recorded by a motorist showed the scene, with a Highway Patrol SUV damaged by an earlier PIT maneuver (Precision Immobilization Technique, a law enforcement tactic used to stop a fleeing vehicle by causing it to spin out and come to a stop) as it performed another PIT maneuver.
Simmons drove across a grassy median as the camera stopped. Witnesses said a Cherokee County sheriff’s deputy performed the final PIT maneuver that ended the hour-long chase.
Back in Peachtree
It can’t go without saying the tragic irony that Flattes was wounded in a doctor’s office next door to a hospital.
Dozens of officers responded, many armed with AR-style rifles, most in uniform, some in plain clothes. Smith was on scene as well.
Lockdowns were initiated at Erlanger Western Carolina Hospital and related offices in the vicinity, including Tri-County Community College and next door to the shooting, Appalachian Mountain Health-Murphy, which was holding a ribbon cutting.
Traffic was disrupted at the intersection of U.S. 64 East Alternate and N.C. 141 during the initial response.
Two ambulances arrived and a Life Flight helicopter was summoned, but the ambulance crew could not access the scene until after the all-clear was given.
Flattes was moved from the building to an ambulance via a stretcher, with one medic holding an IV while others held up a sheet to protect the wounded officer’s privacy.
The air ambulance landed and shut off its engine. The mood of emergency responders was beginning to shift, now more somber. Social media was ablaze with speculation.
It wasn’t until five hours later that Smith, during a press conference at Tri-County Community College just down the road from the shooting, officially confirmed that Flattes died.
An emergency command post was also set up at the college. Later, District Attorney Ashley Hornsby Welch and other officials arrived and participated in the press conference.
The third escape
This was the third escape attempt involving the Cherokee County Detention Center jurisdiction since October 2024 and the second involving Simmons – his October 2024 escape attempt and his June 30 escape attempt and fatal shooting of a detention officer.
In March, a Cherokee County inmate was captured about four hours after he escaped from a work crew at the sheriff’s shooting range in Marble.
Robert Keith Revis Jr., 50, of Andrews, was being held at the jail in lieu of numerous charges including being a habitual felon and bond forfeiture. Earlier charges included possession of methamphetamine, shoplifting, driving without a license, misdemeanor larceny and other similar offenses dating as far back as 2009.
The detention facility
The Cherokee County Detention Center began operations in the summer of 2008, replacing a jail in Downtown Murphy built in 1922 designed to hold a maximum of 43 inmates.
The detention center has 150 inmate beds, including separate medical, juvenile, female and male pods. The facility is designed to handle the inmates with indirect supervision and laid out with seven separate dorms, including one 10-inmate maximum security dorm.
The facility was designed to expand in the future to house an additional 100 inmates being a total 350 bed facility.
The facility houses inmates from Cherokee and surrounding counties as well as federal inmates.
Comments
N.C. Sen. Kevin Corbin posted this on his Facebook page:
“Macon County Sheriff’s Deputies arrested Kelvin Simmons yesterday and transported him to the Macon County Detention Center after he was medically cleared. Later that night, some of those same deputies returned to Cherokee County to retrieve Sgt. Fransisco Flattes’ handcuffs. When the U.S. Marshals Service arrived to transport Simmons to Buncombe County, it was Flattes’ handcuffs that were placed on him – a solemn and powerful symbol.
“This was a senseless and tragic loss. I want to commend the swift and coordinated response of our first responders – including the North Carolina Highway Patrol, the Sheriff’s Offices of Macon, Cherokee and Clay counties, Franklin Police Department, local firefighters, dispatch and EMS personnel. Their professionalism in the face of heartbreak, as they apprehended a man responsible for killing one of their own, was nothing short of remarkable.
“Thank you to the U.S. Marshals Service and to District Attorney Ashley Hornsby Welch for your quick and decisive actions as this investigation unfolds.
My family and my staff continue to pray for Sgt. Flattes’ family – both by blood and in blue — across western North Carolina. He was a devoted public servant, a loving father, a kind friend and a respected leader in his department. We also lift up Officer George Feinauer in our prayers as he recovers from the injuries he sustained during this tragic incident.”
Matt Lowe, on his Facebook page:
“This is a difficult post to make, but I feel the need to give my condolences, not from the perspective of a community member, but from the perspective as a former inmate at the CCSO jail. It was Sgt. Flattes who booked me and was on weekend duty. He was kind, he was compassionate when he didn’t have to be. His stature and presence was intimidating, but he hadn’t become jaded. He was kind, he treated me and others as human beings, to include others with attitudes and tattoos that should have turned him angry, but it never did. For some reason he saw the human inside the orange jumpsuit. The world and this community needs more like Francisco Flattes. He didn’t deserve this, his family didn’t deserve this. Sgt. Flattes was a great man.”
N.C. Gov. Josh Stein issued a statement:
“I was deeply saddened to learn of Francisco Paul Flattes’ tragic murder. Our law enforcement officers go above and beyond the call of duty to keep us safe and tragically yesterday Detention Officer Flattes paid the ultimate price. I am grateful to western North Carolina law enforcement and the Highway Patrol for their quick response. Anna and I are praying for his family and community as they grieve his loss. May his memory be a blessing.”
Stein ordered all U.S. and North Carolina flags at state facilities to be lowered to half-staff immediately until sunset July 1, in honor of Flattes.