No charges for officers in fatal South Carolina shooting

Jun 14, 2022, 3:56 PM | Updated: 6:46 pm

COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — A prosecutor in South Carolina decided Tuesday not to charge two police officers in the fatal shooting of a Black man who lunged at them with a broken piece of wood from a chair after family members warned them the victim was mentally ill.

The Richland County deputies were justified to shoot Irvin Moorer Charley because he was a danger to the officers and family members who called police to their home, initially telling them Charley was armed with a knife, Solicitor Byron Gipson said in a statement.

Gipson called the shooting “reasonably necessary” based on Charley’s “unfortunate response” to lunge at the officers with the stick, which they thought was a sharpened stake.

“The use of force was applied in good faith based upon the perceptions of a reasonably trained officer and the objectively reasonable facts the officer had at the time of the incident,” Gipson said.

The deputies are white. Gipson, the elected prosecutor for Richland County, is Black.

Lawyers for Charley’s family said in a text message Tuesday that the family would hold a news conference later to respond to Gipson’s decision.

The family was unhappy because the Richland County Sheriff’s Department investigated the shooting by its own deputies. Sheriff Leon Lott said his investigators had the expertise and temperament to fairly investigate their fellow officers and Gipson would review the findings.

Gipson said he had two professors who are police force experts from the University of South Carolina review the evidence too, but he didn’t include any of their comments or findings in his statement.

Deputies were called to the home outside Columbia on March 19 by someone who said Charley was attacking his mother. Body camera video showed Charley’s brother telling the first officer to arrive that Charley was mentally ill and had a knife, which he quickly corrected to scissors while saying, “don’t shoot or nothing. He don’t got no gun.”

Body camera footage showed the first deputy, John Anderson, pointing his gun at Charley after he suddenly came out of a house with a piece of wood with what appeared to have a pointed end. He told the deputy “y’all can shoot me.” A second deputy, Zachary Hentz, arrived about the same time and shot Charley with a Taser, but he had no reaction.

Charley then charged at Hentz, who fired his gun seven times while backpedaling, stumbling on his back about the same time Charley fell bleeding to the ground.

The sheriff’s department initially only released a 15-second clip with Charley walking at the deputy, saying the shooting itself was “just not something everyone needs to see.” They then released the dashboard camera video that showed the shooting from a distance, but when the family held a news conference suggesting deputies were hiding evidence, the sheriff’s department released the full 13 minutes of body camera footage.

The footage primarily showed the deputies doing CPR on a bloody Charley as his head wobbled uncontrollably back and forth with each chest compression.

The day after the shooting, the sheriff said he thought his deputies did the right thing.

“We can’t expect these deputies to go out here and be killed,” Lott said. “They have to protect themselves. And that’s what this deputy did yesterday. He protected himself.”

___

Follow Jeffrey Collins on Twitter at https://twitter.com/JSCollinsAP.

Copyright © The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

AP

(Facebook Photo/City of San Luis, Arizona)...
Associated Press

San Luis authorities receive complaints about 911 calls going across border

Authorities in San Luis say they are receiving more complaints about 911 calls mistakenly going across the border.
2 days ago
(Pexels Photo)...
Associated Press

Daylight saving time begins in most of US this weekend

No time change is observed in Hawaii, most of Arizona, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, American Samoa, Guam and the Northern Marianas.
10 days ago
Mexican army soldiers prepare a search mission for four U.S. citizens kidnapped by gunmen in Matamo...
Associated Press

How the 4 abducted Americans in Mexico were located

The anonymous tip that led Mexican authorities to a remote shack where four abducted Americans were held described armed men and blindfolds.
10 days ago
Tom Brundy points to a newly built irrigation canal on one of the fields at his farm Tuesday, Feb. ...
Associated Press

Southwest farmers reluctant to idle farmland to save water

There is a growing sense that fallowing will have to be part of the solution to the increasingly desperate drought in the West.
17 days ago
A young bison calf stands in a pond with its herd at Bull Hollow, Okla., on Sept. 27, 2022. The cal...
Associated Press

US aims to restore bison herds to Native American lands after near extinction

U.S. officials will work to restore more large bison herds to Native American lands under a Friday order from Interior Secretary Deb Haaland.
17 days ago
Children play in a dried riverbed in Flassans-sur-Issole, southern France, Wednesday, March 1, 2023...
Associated Press

Italy, France confront 2nd year of western Europe drought

ROME (AP) — Bracing for Italy’s second consecutive year of drought for the first time in decades, Premier Giorgia Meloni huddled with ministers Wednesday to start mapping out an action plan Wednesday, joining France and other nations in western Europe grappling with scant winter rain and snow. Meloni and her ministers decided to appoint an […]
19 days ago

Sponsored Articles

...
Fiesta Bowl Foundation

Celebrate 50 years of Vrbo Fiesta Bowl Parade magic!

Since its first production in the early 1970s, the Vrbo Fiesta Bowl Parade presented by Lerner & Rowe has been a staple of Valley traditions, bringing family fun and excitement to downtown Phoenix.
(Photo via MLB's Arizona Fall League / Twitter)...
Arizona Fall League

Top prospects to watch at this year’s Arizona Fall League

One of the most exciting elements of the MLB offseason is the Arizona Fall League, which began its 30th season Monday.
...
Quantum Fiber

Stream 4K and more with powerful, high-speed fiber internet

Picking which streaming services to subscribe to are difficult choices, and there is no room for internet that cannot handle increased demands.
No charges for officers in fatal South Carolina shooting