SC teen mauled by police dog, shot by deputies settles case with county for $700K
The Anderson County Sheriff’s Office agreed to settle a lawsuit brought on behalf of a teenager who was unarmed when she was mauled by a police dog and shot five times by deputies.
The sheriff’s officer agreed to pay $700,000 in the shooting of the 16-year-old girl, according to a statement from the Strom Law Firm.
Attorneys Bakari Sellers, Jessica Fickling and Ben Crump handled the case.
“If law enforcement officers can shoot a scared 16-year-old girl who had no weapon and posed no threat, then it can happen to anyone,” Crump said in the statement. “This is a win for our client and a win for justice.”
In August 2020, the teenager was a passenger in a car with a 21-year-old man who drove away from the scene of a non-life threatening car crash, the lawyers said.
While being chased by Anderson County deputies, the 21-year-old crashed, according to the lawyers. The man and the teenager got out of the car and went into a nearby wooded area. The deputies sent a police dog after them. The dog began mauling the girl, the lawyers said. The 21-year-old shot and killed himself.
Deputies “opened fire without clear line of sight,” according to the lawyers. The teenager suffered a shattered tibia and femur as well as wounds to her feet, neck and back.
The deputies also shot the and killed the police dog in their blind firing, the lawyers said.
“I hope this is a wake-up call to the Anderson County Sheriff’s Office,” said Fickling. “Any person applying for a hunting license knows not to shoot at something you can’t see. It isn’t too much to ask for law enforcement to abide by the same standard.”
Crump has been in the national spotlight for representing families of police shooting victims such as 14-year-old Tamir Rice in Cleveland, Ohio, and Michael Brown, 18, in Ferguson, Missouri. Crump also represented the family of Trayvon Martin, 17, in Sanford, Florida.