Video released showing Richland Co. deputy fatally shooting man, along with 911 call
The Richland County Sheriff’s Department on Tuesday released a 911 call and video showing a deputy fatally shooting a Black man.
Richland County Deputy Zachary Hentz, who is white, shot 34-year-old Irvin Moorer Charley on Saturday after responding to a call about Moorer Charley assaulting family members and wielding a weapon, the department has said.
The department said it “is releasing a dash cam video and 911 call to be completely transparent with the community and in an effort to provide clarity to misstatements that this was a mental health call for service.”
However, lawyers for the family said the one-minute video released Tuesday afternoon is not the full story.
“We find it curious that the sheriff’s department has released a one-minute grainy dash cam video and not the body cam footage that was shown to the family on Monday afternoon,” said a statement released by family lawyers Shaquanna Cuttino and Brendan Green.
“We would call for full transparency and all videos to be released. To be clear, there was no knife, and officers were told there was no knife,” they said.
What the video shows
In the 911 call, a woman tells a dispatcher to send deputies to a home on Heyward Brockington Road because a man has a knife and is assaulting her relatives.
The video, filmed from a police car dash camera, shows deputies repeatedly shouting at Moorer Charley to “drop the knife.” They also ask a woman near Moorer Charley to get away from him.
The woman appears to says “please don’t” hit or hurt “my son” to the police.
In the video, one deputy keeps telling Moorer Charley to drop his weapon and uses his first name, “Irvin,” indicating that the deputy perhaps was previously familiar with Moorer Charley.
Another man near the scene can be heard saying something that sounds like, “He has a mental health problem,” to police, who are shouting for Moorer Charley to get on the ground and to “drop the knife.”
Moorer Charley appears to say, “Y’all gonna have to shoot me” or “Y’all can shoot me” twice.
A male voice — it is not clear who, from the video — can be heard saying, “Don’t get yourself hurt,” to Moorer Charley.
One of the deputies seen in the video lowers his hand gun and takes out his Taser. The deputy shouts that he’s shooting his stun gun at Moorer Charley after he had refused to drop the weapon. After the deputy fires the Taser, it isn’t effective.
The Richland County Coroner’s Office said on Sunday that the stun gun shot failed to pierce Moorer Charley’s skin.
The video shows that after the stun gun failure, Moorer Charley charges a deputy, who raises his handgun and who shoots at Moorer Charley seven times.
After an autospy, the coroner’s office said the deputy shot Moorer Charley four times.
The item Moorer Charley had in his hand was discovered to not be a knife, but a 15-inch knife-like wooden “stake,” Sheriff Leon Lott said.
Lott has said Hentz, the deputy who shot Moorer Charley, was acting to defend himself from a combative and armed person. Lott said Tuesday that in the 5th Circuit Solicitor’s Office preliminary review of the shooting there was no wrongdoing by Hentz.
The S.C. Black Activist Coalition has been offering their perspective on the shooting, saying that Hentz was overly aggressive and that Moorer Charley was known to be mentally ill.
The family of Moorer Charley has asked for a new investigation into the shooting by a state agents.
Ordinarily, the State Law Enforcement Division investigates — at the request of the involved agency — officer-involved shootings around the state. However, the Richland sheriff’s office’s policy is to investigate its own officer-involved shootings.,
Sheriff Lott says his department, one of the largest in the state, has the resources to do a good job.
But SLED Chief Mark Keel said independent investigations by an outside agency instill trust in law enforcement. “It’s not about who is investigating. It’s about doing what’s right,” Keel said.
This story was originally published March 22, 2022 at 4:08 PM.