SC deputy whose K-9 died after being left in hot SUV was ‘stressed,’ won’t be charged

A South Carolina K-9 police dog who died of heat stroke last summer was left unattended in a hot SUV for hours because the deputy handler in charge of his care was under “immense stress” and forgot about him.

Those are the findings in a nine-page report by the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division obtained by The State newspaper under a Freedom of Information Act request.

No criminal charges will be filed against the dog’s handler, Dorchester County deputy Brandon Edwards, said 14th Judicial Circuit Solicitor Duffie Stone, the prosecutor in charge of making the final decision on whether to press charges.

Edwards’ attention was sidetracked by an unusual combination of stressful events, and he didn’t deliberately leave the dog in the hot car, Stone said. “Everything was going on at the same time for this guy.”

However, because of the dog’s death, Edwards had his pay reduced and his rank lowered from master deputy to private first class. He no longer works with the office’s K-9 unit and has been assigned to road patrol duties, a Dorchester County Sheriff’s Office spokesman told The State newspaper. Details were not immediately available on the pay reduction. Edwards has been a deputy for nine years.

Edwards’ attorney, Donnie Gamache, did not respond to a request by The State seeking comment from him or Edwards.

The K-9, a 5-year-old male half German Shepard, half Malinois named Orser, was left last July in the back of a hot patrol SUV in Edwards’ driveway.

The SLED report gave the following narrative: On the afternoon of July 28, a Sunday, another deputy in the office’s K-9 unit came to Edwards’ house to switch patrol cars. During the switch, Edwards accidentally locked his keys in one of the vehicles, a Chevrolet Suburban. Another deputy was summoned who could unlock the Suburban.

Orser, who was in a kennel in the garage, began barking. Eventually, Edwards put the dog inside the Tahoe, which was turned on and running. Edwards and the other deputy began the process of switching equipment between the Tahoe and the Suburban.

Edwards then noticed a tire on the Tahoe appeared to be flat. As the deputies inspected the tire, a golf ball from a nearby golf course shattered the windshield of the Suburban. The other deputy drove off in the Suburban. Edwards positioned his Tahoe in the driveway and turned off the motor, apparently killing the air conditioning. Then Edwards left on an errand in another car and “forgot the K-9 was still inside the Tahoe,” the SLED report said. SLED censored the reason Edwards left.

Edwards came back to the house around 7 pm. About 9 pm, Edwards went to check on the dog and discovered he had left him inside the Tahoe in the driveway. The dog was dead.

Edwards notified the office, and when other deputies responded, he told them “I messed up” and was “crying and distraught,” the SLED report said.

The SLED report also raised the question of whether Orser’s death could have been prevented.

At least one other deputy at the Dorchester County Sheriff’s Office, Cpl. Shawn Buchanan, a K-9 officer, had “concerns about Deputy Edwards’ commitment to training, as Deputy Edwards was experiencing stress at home.”

Moreover, a dog heat protection system called “Hot Pop” — which lowers a vehicle’s windows and sounds an alarm when the inside temperature exceeds 84 degrees — was inactivated because Edwards had turned off the vehicle in the afternoon, the SLED report said.

The dog basically died of a heat stroke, Stone said, although the doctor who examined Orser’s body found that an underlying heart condition may have been a contributing factor to the death.

Dorchester County is in the 1st Judicial Circuit. But under an agreement Stone has with 1st Judicial Circuit Solicitor David Pascoe, sensitive cases are assigned to a team of senior prosecutors from both offices called the Public Integrity Unit. They work with the investigating law enforcement agencies to decide what charges, if any, to bring.

Since Pascoe could be considered to have a possible conflict of interest because his office prosecutes criminal cases for the Dorchester County Sheriff’s Office, Stone made the final call on whether to prosecute with input from Pascoe, Stone said.

In Orser’s case, “what everybody decided was that there just wasn’t any crime here,” said Stone. Edwards was distraught over personal matters and then was distracted by a series of sudden events, Stone said.

It was Pascoe who asked the Dorchester County Sheriff’s Office to call SLED to investigate because Pascoe believed there should be an independent probe, even though former Sheriff L.C. Knight had done an internal investigation, Pascoe said. Knight did not seek reelection last year. The current sheriff is Sam Richardson.

SLED Senior Special Agent Ryan Kelly investigated.

“It was a tragic even but it was one that could have happened to anybody in that situation,” Stone said. “He was trying to take care of everything at once.”