What changes will Midlands town make after officer shooting
Police officers in the small town of Batesburg-Leesville will be pulling extra shifts to cover for an officer shortage during a state investigation into how an officer’s gun went off during an altercation with a suspect.
Batesburg-Leesville Town Manager Jay Hendrix said services from the town police department would not be disrupted by the incident on Tuesday, in which a town police officer scuffled with a suspect at a gas station who attempted to take the officer’s gun.
The gun fired without injuring anyone, the S.C. State Law Enforcement Division said in a statement. But the same officer was also tased with his own taser during the altercation, the agency said. The suspect was subdued when a second officer arrived on the scene.
Standard procedure is to put officers involved in a shooting on leave, but Hendrix said the office would be able to staff all its patrols with additional officers.
“We’ve made some adjustments, and can cover with our normal staffing, but there will definitely be some overtime,” Hendrix said.
Batesburg-Leesville has about 20 officers on staff, including the chief, assistant chief and other administrative posts who can be shifted to patrols if needed. The town of 5,000 people usually has three officers on the road at a time working in four shifts.
“They’ll grab a shift here and there during a vacation, so it’s not out of the ordinary,” Hendrix said.
This was the first officer-involved shooting in Lexington County this year, although in July a federal agent exchanged gunfire with a suspect on the Saluda County side of Batesburg-Leesville, which straddles the county line. Forty shootings by police officers have been investigated by SLED so far in 2025, the agency has reported.
This story was originally published November 6, 2025 at 1:11 PM.
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