Richland deputy tased man, ‘fabricated’ report claiming assault, a lawsuit says
A man who was tased and arrested during an encounter with a Richland County sheriff’s deputy in April 2024 has sued the county and the sheriff’s department. Kadeem Robinson alleges he was tased without justification and that an assault and battery charge against him that has since been dropped was fabricated, in a lawsuit filed in a Richland County court last month.
The suit claims that Deputy Kevin Horseman fabricated details in an incident report to claim Robinson acted aggressively and assaulted the deputy.
The complaint, filed April 17 by attorney Justin Bamberg, alleges the deputy’s body-worn camera “fell off and was not recording” when the Taser was deployed. It also alleges that bystander video contradicts the incident report and shows Robinson walking away when he was tased.
When asked to provide the incident report and available body camera footage from the encounter, the sheriff’s department directed The State to submit a Freedom of Information Act request. That request, filed April 30, has not yet been fulfilled.
While a FOIA request is standard to obtain body camera footage, the sheriff’s department typically doesn’t require a request to obtain incident reports. The department did not respond when asked whether an internal investigation was underway regarding the deputy’s conduct on the day of the incident.
The sheriff’s department failed to respond to any questions from The State beyond confirming that Horseman remains employed with the agency.
The incident report and two separate videos captured by bystanders were later provided to The State by Bamberg. Those videos show Robinson attempting to walk away from the deputy and do not appear to show Robinson hitting the deputy as described in the incident report. The videos do not appear to show the entire encounter, but show the moments leading up to and following Robinson being tased.
The lawsuit against the county and sheriff’s department asserts multiple causes of action, including assault, battery, false imprisonment and negligence, and alleges broader failures in training, supervision, and body-camera policies. Robinson is seeking a jury trial and damages.
In an interview with The State, Bamberg, Robinson’s attorney, called the encounter “the definition of unnecessary use of force.”
“And even more than that, they never should have bothered him in the first place,” Bamberg said.
What happened?
Robinson was among a group of eight men standing outside of Express Food Mart in Eastover, a small town in the southeast of Richland County, around the time the Richland County Sheriff’s Department was responding to a “shots fired” call at a nearby address, according to the lawsuit and incident report.
Express Food Mart is a gas station and convenience store roughly 0.2 miles from the address of the call, according to Google Maps.
The shots fired call came in shortly after noon on April 20, 2024. Deputy Horseman responded to the call. When he arrived on scene, he asked another deputy if she had observed a group of Black men walking from the shots fired location. She told Horseman she had not seen them, according to the incident report.
Horseman then told the deputy he was “going to investigate the group of males that were leaving where the Shots Fired call came out,” according to the incident report.
Horseman then drove toward Robinson’s group, exited his vehicle and told all eight men that they were being detained, the lawsuit and incident report state.
The lawsuit says the men were detained “despite … the absence of any articulable basis” to suspect any of them were involved with the shots fired call.
When Horseman arrived at Express Food Mart, he arrested one man, handcuffing him and placing him in the back of his patrol vehicle, according to the incident report. Horseman wrote that his body-worn camera fell off during that interaction after the man attempted to “get away” from him.
After the first arrest, Horseman then engaged Robinson, who attempted to walk away from the deputy, the incident report and bystander video show.
The incident report and video footage both show Robinson repeatedly trying to walk away from Horseman. In his report, Horseman wrote, “I attempted multiple times to grab [redacted] and he kept pushing away from me. I advised [redacted] to get on the ground which he did not comply with at all.”
In the video, Robinson can be seen walking away from Horseman while repeatedly saying he didn’t do anything wrong. Horseman, while holding a Taser, can be heard giving Robinson conflicting commands, including “get on the ground” and then “walk back to my car,” moments before firing the Taser.
Robinson appears to be holding a bottle of soda for the length of the encounter, only dropping it as he fell to the ground from being tased, the video shows.
Horseman wrote in the incident report that someone assaulted him by hitting the deputy in his right shoulder with his right fist after the person walked “aggressively” toward him. Names in the incident report have been redacted, but the lawsuit asserts that the incident report described the encounter with Robinson.
The lawsuit calls those claims fabricated, stating that Robinson could not have hit Horseman with his right fist, as Robinson’s right hand was occupied with a beverage for the length of the encounter.
Should Robinson have been detained?
In the complaint, attorney Bamberg defended Robinson’s right to walk away from Horseman, stating Robinson was exercising his “constitutional right ... to be free from unreasonable seizure and walk away from the unlawful encounter.” Robinson repeatedly told the deputy he had done nothing wrong, the suit adds, and the video footage confirms.
After being hit in the back with the Taser, Robinson fell onto the ground, injuring his face, according to the suit. The videos also show Robinson crying out in pain as he falls to the ground, hitting concrete and a small piece of grass. Robinson was seen by EMS and then arrested for third-degree assault and battery, a charge that Bamberg said was dismissed in May 2024 and which the lawsuit claims was fabricated.
While Horseman wrote that his body-worn camera fell off earlier during the incident, the bystander videos show another deputy standing behind Horseman as he deploys his taser. Then, four deputies including Horseman can be seen surrounding Robinson after he was handcuffed. The State has requested all body camera footage from the incident.
Democratic State Rep. Jermaine Johnson, whose district includes Eastover, called the incident “sad,” and said he would have liked to see the county resolve the matter with Robinson prior to the lawsuit being filed. Johnson is also a Democratic candidate for South Carolina Governor.
“This is the main reason why a good bit of South Carolinians and Americans in general do not trust the government and do not trust law enforcement,” Johnson said of the claim that details in the incident report were fabricated. “When you’ve got one or two, or however many bad apples, unfortunately, that type of image begins to spread and it hurts other law-abiding officers.”
Johnson said the incident doesn’t make him question the integrity of the sheriff’s department, “but it does make me question if there’s a cultural problem.”
The county and sheriff’s department had not responded to Robinson’s lawsuit as of May 8. Defendants in circuit court have 30 days after being served to file an answer to the suit.
