Protest at Columbia police station calls for officers’ firing after shootings
Protesters outside the Columbia Police Department Headquarters on Thursday called for the badge of two white Columbia police officers who shot two Black people in the last year.
Echos of “Fire Officer Rollins” reverberated through the city block at 1 Justice Square where the department’s headquarters are located just off Washington Street in downtown Columbia.
A group of about 50 people rallying for the termination and prosecution of officers Sean Rollins and Kevin Davis chanted “No Justice no peace. Prosecute the police” as they marched to the headquarters after gathering near the Richland Library on Assembly Street.
If Rollins and Davis are not removed, “then [Columbia Police Chief] Skip Holbrook needs to be skipped right over for the next candidate,” Jerome Bowers yelled into a megaphone while standing against a metal barricade protecting the grounds of the police station.
In August, Rollins shot 29-year-old Brandon Legette in the back of the head following a traffic stop. Police say that after Legette refused to get out of the car, the encounter escalated into a scuffle between the two. With Rollins at least partially inside the car — police say partially, Legette’s attorney says the officer was completely inside — the vehicle shot off at a high rate of speed and crashed into an embankment near the Food Lion parking lot on Broad River Road. Legette survived the shooting.
Rollins was exonerated of any criminal wrongdoing by the Fifth Circuit Solicitor’s Office but Legette filed a civil lawsuit with his lawyer, Marc Brown, who called the shooting an “attempted execution.”
Officer Davis shot and killed Joshua Ruffin, a Black 17-year-old, in April after trying to stop the teen in a north Columbia neighborhood following reports from residents about possible car break-ins. The teen had a gun that he pointed at Davis, according to the solicitor’s office, which declined to press criminal charges against the officer, concluding that the shooting was justified.
Protesters called for both cases to be investigated again and for charges to be filed against Rollins and Davis.
“We’re here because we understand right now that we have to prosecute the police,” said Lalo Bellamy, who guided the march to the station. “We don’t only want charges so that we’re quiet and pacified.”
Columbia protests, which were ignited in late May after the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis, have generally focused on reforming or defunding police agencies. They also have opposed racist policing and misuse of force by police.
Unlike the weekend of May 30-31, when marches to the Columbia Police Department headquarters led to confrontations between police and protesters, Thursday’s march was peaceful.
Thursday’s protest took direct and personal aim at the Columbia Police Department and the two officers.
Bowers called Rollins and Davis “cowards” who “hide behind the badge and public service.”
Protesters also jeered Richland County Sheriff Leon Lott, who, along with Holbrook, “keep patting themselves on the back for arresting protesters” while they refuse to address issues of police use of force against Black people, Bellamy said.
But while this particular protest set its sites narrowly on two officers, Bellamy understood the call for equal justice for Black people is decades old.
“This happened in the ‘70s, the ‘60s, it happened before then,” Bellamy told the group that rallied around him as the protesters assembled. “We are all here because things need to change.”