By Laura Graff
Winston Salem-Journal
WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. — Monte Denard Evans went to the Bojangles’ restaurant on Peters Creek Parkway yesterday morning to talk to his former wife, whom he had been charged with abusing.
Sometime during that talk, it all went wrong, and what followed left two Winston-Salem police officers shot and wounded, and Evans shot to death.
Sgt. Mickey Hutchens, 50, a patrol supervisor and 27-year veteran of the Winston-Salem Police Department, was in critical but stable condition at Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center.
Officer Daniel Clark, 28, who has served on the force for five years, was in serious condition there.
Hutchens and Clark had responded to a 911 call at the restaurant and chased Evans on foot. Police said that Evans shot the officers from the gully between the Marketplace Mall and the Bojangles’ parking lot. Witnesses said they heard six or seven gunshots.
And a dispute that started at least nearly three years ago -- the first time that Evans was charged with assaulting his former wife -- had ended.
Evans married Sally Ann Boyette on Feb. 15, 2006. They divorced three years later.
Their marriage was troubled, fraught with assaults and run-ins with the law, court records show.
In July 2006, Monte Evans was accused of hitting his wife in the face and choking her, according to an arrest warrant. At the time, Sally Evans was holding her 8-month-old child. A prosecutor dismissed the charges that December.
Around that time, Evans was also convicted of several misdemeanors, including larceny and resisting a public officer, court records show.
In 2007, he was convicted of shoplifting. In 2008, he was convicted of common-law robbery. He was released from prison on Oct. 31, 2008, state prison records show.
Yesterday morning, Sally Evans went to work. An employee at Precision Tune Auto Care next door said he saw Monte Evans pacing outside the auto shop’s garage. Then the employee saw him approach the restaurant.
Lucretia Smitherman was working the cash register at Bojangles’ when Evans came inside looking for his former wife. Smitherman said that about that time, Sally Evans had said that her former husband was out of prison.
Sally Evans was afraid of him, and she warned her fellow employees to watch out for him.
“We heard he had been on the run,” Smitherman said.
She said that when employees saw Monte Evans, one of them hit a panic button that calls 911. Police got the call at 10:29 a.m.
Sally Evans and Monte Evans went outside behind the store to talk, Smitherman said. When they came back inside, Monte Evans saw the police, apparently panicked and started running.
Smitherman said she heard someone say that Evans had a gun, so she and Sally Evans hid in a walk-in freezer.
“I was crying -- I thought I was going to die,” Smitherman said. “I was calling people to tell them my goodbyes.”
She said they stayed in the freezer for about 10 minutes.
The freezer is insulated, she said, and they couldn’t hear anything happening outside.
The employee at the auto shop said he saw Monte Evans run from Bojangles’, dropping a backpack as he ran. He then sprinted between the auto garage and a Subway restaurant, with the two police officers chasing him.
At some point, the officers called for backup.
Employees at the Alpha Commercial Printing Corp., which is behind the Subway, heard the commotion and ran to a loading dock. They could see the top of the gully behind Bojangles’.
Ronnie Gregory, a co-owner of Alpha, said he heard a single gunshot.
“And then, just a second later, I heard, ‘BAM! BAM! BAM! BAM!’” Gregory said. “And then, within seconds, I could smell the gunpowder.”
A few minutes later, he said, he saw a police officer lying on the ground.
“He was crouched over and holding his head down,” Gregory said, “and there was an officer with him.”
By then, more law-enforcement officers had arrived, Gregory said; one stayed with the officer on the ground.
Daryl Hinshaw, the other co-owner of Alpha, said he saw other officers descending into the gully with guns drawn.
As the calls came in -- “Officers down!” -- Forsyth County sheriff’s deputies and troopers from the N.C. Highway Patrol sped to the restaurant. They stretched yellow crime-scene tape around Bojangles’, Precision Tune, Subway, Alpha Commercial Printing and the Parkway Ford body shop, which is behind the printing company.
All lanes of Peters Creek Parkway were closed. The road was lined with cruisers and unmarked police cars.
Subway customers told employees there that an officer had been shot, and Sheila Roberts, the general manager, grabbed another employee. Together, they walked outside to talk with police.
“That’s when we saw them pick the cop up,” Roberts said. “He was moving, and we thought it was all right. Then the cops told us that two officers had been shot.”
For the rest of the morning and into the afternoon, the employees of those businesses were kept behind the yellow tape.
Some later went downtown to the police station for interviews. The State Bureau of Investigation arrived to examine the shooting scene. A television-news helicopter hovered overhead.
At 2:30 p.m., the police department called a news conference.
Assistant Chief Barry Rountree said that Hutchens and Clark had chased “the suspect” -- Rountree would not give Evans’ name. When the officers caught up with Evans at the creek, Rountree said, “a struggle ensued.”
The SBI is investigating the shooting. It was unclear yesterday whether Evans shot himself or was shot by police.
Police believe that the suspect was alone, Rountree said. He could not say how many times any of the men were shot.
Police are required to wear bulletproof vests when on duty, he said.
Clark was conscious and able to speak with investigators yesterday, sources said.
“They are good police officers,” Rountree said.
Dozens of law-enforcement officers kept vigil at the medical center, directing traffic near the entrance to the emergency room.
Lights atop cruisers flashed. The sirens were silent.
Copyright 2009 Winston-Salem Journal