Police shooting in Lexington County the 40th by SC cops in 2021, SLED says.
The shooting of a man in Lexington County was the 40th involving police officers in South Carolina in 2021, according to the S.C. Law Enforcement Division.
In a news release, SLED said the 40 officer-involved shootings in 2021 were down from 2020, when there were 49 police shootings in South Carolina. Three of those involved the Lexington County Sheriff’s Department, the agency said.
The most recent shooting occurred Friday, when Lexington deputies who were attempting to execute a search warrant encountered a man with a knife, according to SLED.
The Lexington County Sheriff’s Department said the incident occurred at a home on Old Barnwell Road. A person at the home “presented” a knife and refused to drop it as deputies ordered, the county said.
The shooting victim, transported to a local hospital, was expected to survive, according to the S.C. Law Enforcement Division, which is investigating. Deputies shot the man in the upper body, then gave him medical attention, the department said.
“SLED’s goal is to conduct a thorough, independent criminal investigation as timely as is possible under the circumstances,’’ the state agency said in a news release. “SLED agents will conduct interviews with all potential witnesses in this matter. Further, SLED will collect all relevant evidence and will forensically test such evidence as needed. Information gathered in the SLED investigation of the incident.’’
While additional information was not available about the circumstances around the shooting in Lexington County, police shootings have been in the spotlight across the nation in recent years amid questions about whether some of them were warranted.
One of the most highly publicized cases occurred in Charleston County seven years ago, when a white police officer fatally shot a black man who was fleeing after a minor traffic stop. The officer was sentenced to 20 years in prison. The shooting brought national attention.
In June 2020, a black man shot by a Columbia police officer after a traffic stop sued in federal court, calling the shooting “an attempted execution.’’ City police disputed that and local prosecutors chose not to charge the officer with a crime after SLED investigated.
More recent police shootings include an incident last month in Simpsonville, in the Upstate. In that case, Greenville County deputies fatally shot a man who had been involved in a domestic dispute, according to local news reports. Deputies said they negotiated with the man, but shots rang out, and he was killed in the gunfire, one news account said.
This story was originally published January 1, 2022 at 8:55 AM.
