Another person sues Lexington sheriff’s dept over crash that injured SC trooper
A second person has filed a lawsuit against the Lexington County Sheriff’s Department, alleging one of its officers stopped in the middle of traffic, leading to a multi-car accident that injured S.C. Highway Patrol Master Trooper Wayne LaBounty in September.
The lawsuit, filed in common pleas court in Lexington County Feb. 3, is the second to accuse the sheriff’s department of negligence and to take issue with its hiring processes.
The woman who filed the latest suit, Samantha Mitchell, was one of the drivers involved in the crash that injured LaBounty. She is suing the sheriff’s department and the other driver, Jerrod Ricks, along with the company for which he was working, Alcovy Maintenance.
Mitchell is being represented by Jason Reynolds of Columbia-based Samuels Reynolds Law Firm. The State attempted to reach Reynolds and did not receive a response by time of publication.
Mitchell’s lawsuit comes just shy of three months after LaBounty’s suit, which was also filed against the sheriff’s department. That initial lawsuit, filed in mid-November by LaBounty, followed a multi-car accident on U.S. 1/Augusta Highway in September that resulted in him being hit by a car and airlifted in serious condition to Prisma Health Richland.
LaBounty was later released from a rehabilitation hospital on Nov. 7 and filed the lawsuit against the sheriff’s department a week after being released.
Both Mitchell, in her newly-filed lawsuit, and LaBounty alleged that sheriff’s Deputy Dave Witter stopped abruptly in the middle of traffic without giving warning to other drivers or turning on his lights. That action, the lawsuit said, caused Mitchell to crash into the deputy and led Ricks, the other driver who the lawsuit accused of distracted driving to swerve and hit LaBounty.
Ricks was arrested and charged with reckless driving a few days after the crash for allegedly hitting LaBounty. Witter, the Lexington deputy involved in the crash, had graduated from the S.C. Criminal Justice Academy in January 2025, according to the county sheriff department’s office. A spokesperson for the sheriff’s department confirmed that Witter was still employed with the department, but declined to comment further, citing pending litigation.
The crash followed a string of accidents, at least three occasions between August and early September, in which a state highway patrol trooper was injured on a Midlands road while making a traffic stop. In August, Trooper First Class Dennis D. Ricks died days after being hit by a passing box truck during a routine stop in Orangeburg County.
A week after LaBounty filed the lawsuit against the sheriff’s department, a home caregiver accused him of sexually assaulting her while she was caring for him in his home, according to a redacted incident report from the sheriff’s department.
