A Cherokee County Sheriff's deputy was knocked to the ground by a fleeing ATV rider near Murphy, North Carolina, and then got back into his patrol vehicle and kept chasing the man who ran him over. The suspect, 33-year-old Thomas Lee Prince, was eventually stopped with a Taser and taken into custody after a physical struggle with the deputy, according to the Cherokee County Sheriff's Office.
The pursuit began on August 27 when a Cherokee County deputy attempted to pull Prince over, and Prince instead accelerated toward the deputy, striking him and knocking him to the ground, according to the Charlotte Observer. Prince then fled east toward Murphy, roughly 225 miles southwest of uptown Charlotte, per the same report. The deputy, despite the injuries, got back into his vehicle and continued the chase rather than breaking it off.
The confrontation actually started across the state line. According to the Cherokee County Sheriff's Office, the Polk County Sheriff's Office in Tennessee first pursued Prince as he rode the ATV on US 64 toward North Carolina, before Tennessee deputies ended their chase on Pack Mountain and handed the pursuit off to Cherokee County. US 64 functions as a direct interstate link between Polk County, Tennessee, and Cherokee County, North Carolina, running straight into downtown Murphy, per Wikipedia, which helps explain how a chase can so quickly cross jurisdictions in that stretch of mountain country.
ATV Gets Stuck, Fight Breaks Out
The chase ultimately ended on Candy Mountain Road near Murphy, per the Charlotte Observer. Prince's ATV became stuck on the shoulder of the roadway, but he managed to free it before deputies caught up. When the deputy did catch up to him, the two engaged in a physical altercation, and a Taser was deployed against Prince before he was subdued and taken into custody, the outlet reports.
Cherokee County Sheriff Chris Wood said the deputy's training kicked in and that he showed excellent resolve during the encounter, according to the Observer's report. Wood also said he was thankful the deputy was not seriously injured. The sheriff's office has not released details of the deputy's specific injuries.
Prince now faces a stack of felony charges: felony flee to elude arrest, felony assault on a law enforcement officer with a deadly weapon, assault on a law enforcement officer inflicting injury, and felony resisting arrest. A Cherokee County deputy later located the ATV near Felix Road, per the Observer's account.
What North Carolina Law Says About the Charges
North Carolina statute treats assaults on officers who suffer physical injury while performing official duties as a Class H felony under G.S. § 14-34.7, according to the Legislative Reporting Service at UNC Chapel Hill. Separately, fleeing or eluding arrest in a vehicle escalates from a misdemeanor to a Class H felony when two or more aggravating factors, such as reckless driving or speeding, are present, per the Powers Law Firm. Under North Carolina motor vehicle law, any vehicle used to commit a felony flee-to-elude offense is also subject to state seizure and civil forfeiture, according to the Garrett, Walker, Aycoth & Olson law firm.
The deputy involved belonged to the Cherokee County Sheriff's Office Special Operations Division, a unit created on August 10 through a restructuring of the department's Narcotics Division to focus on proactive interdiction, repeat offenders, and warrant service, according to The Mountain Buzz. It was not this division's first high-stakes stop along US 64 in recent days. Just two days before the ATV pursuit, the same division was involved in another vehicular chase on West US-64, apprehending a Knoxville, Tennessee fugitive found with methamphetamine and an AK-47 style firearm after a foot pursuit, the outlet reported.
A Broader Pattern of Risk for Deputies
The Cherokee County incidents fit into a larger and troubling national trend. Nationwide assaults on law enforcement officers reached a 10-year high in 2023 with 79,091 reported incidents, then exceeded 85,000 in 2024, according to data cited from the FBI's Law Enforcement Officers Killed and Assaulted program. Multi-year FBI analysis has also found that traffic stops and physical arrest attempts consistently account for more than 25 percent of felonious officer killings and remain the leading scenario for line-of-duty injuries, per the FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin.
In North Carolina specifically, the State Bureau of Investigation's 2024 annual summary reported 30,651 aggravated assaults statewide, a 4.6 percent decrease in the aggravated assault rate compared to 2023. Open questions remain about the full extent of the deputy's injuries, which the sheriff's office has not disclosed, and whether Tennessee authorities will pursue additional charges against Prince tied to the portion of the chase that began in Polk County.
