$1 million settlement won’t end questions about how an SC cop chased, killed man | Opinion
.jpg "The family of Robert Langley spoke during a “Stop Killing Us March” in which friends and community members gathered to honor Langley after a then-Hemingway police officer shot and killed him in Georgetown County. It was held at the Boys and Girls Club in Hemingway.")
A $1 million settlement for a dead man’s family is a fair start. But former Hemingway Police Department Sgt. Cassandra Dollard should have faced prosecution by now for killing him three years ago.
Dollard shot and killed 46-year-old Robert Langley after a high-speed chase in February 2022. Langley allegedly ran a stop sign in Williamsburg County and led Dollard on a police chase after she had pulled him over. Dollard thought the crime was so egregious, she hit speeds above 100 mph trying to catch him. The pursuit ended in Georgetown County — eight miles outside of Dollard’s jurisdiction — when Langley drove into a ditch and Dollard shot him in his car.
Prosecutors have plenty of evidence to show what happened.
It’s not just in a written police report. It’s on video.
After the crash, Dollard yells at Langley to show his hands. As she approaches the vehicle in the ditch and slips in some mud, he does so, extending his hands out of the driver’s side window. Shortly after, he is trying to exit through the passenger’s side. Within six seconds of Langley opening the door, Dollard shoots him at point-blank range.
That’s how quickly and irreversibly an alleged stop sign violation ended in death.
“I fall,” Dollar recounted to first responders on the scene. “I say, ‘Stay in the car, don’t come out the car.’” At this point, I don’t know what he’s got in his hand. He keeps coming out of the car on me.”
It’s unclear what she said to Langley just before shooting him.
But afterward, it’s clear she wanted it known she thought he had something in his hand. She repeated that claim multiple times, even as Langley lay still on the ground, dead or dying.
“He’s got something in his hand,” Dollard said on the video. “I don’t know what it is.”
Dollard later said she feared for her life, but Langley was unarmed.
She was charged with voluntary manslaughter three days after the shooting, but she has been out on a $150,000 bond for nearly three years now. Langley died, and Dollard hasn’t faced even a court appearance since May 2022.
The $1 million settlement Dollard, Williamsburg County and Hemingway offered Langley’s family is not much for a victim who reportedly had 10 children. And it doesn’t address important questions.
It hasn’t given the public a chance to discuss what’s reasonable for police officers to apprehend motorists who flee traffic stops, particularly if motorists leave an officer’s jurisdiction.
It hasn’t given the public a chance to discuss if it is reasonable for police officers to shoot and kill an unarmed man during those circumstances.
It hasn’t given the public a chance to discuss if police practices need to be reformed, given Dollard’s spotty history of police work, which led to a termination from two other law enforcement agencies before the shooting.
It hasn’t given the public a chance to discuss if the 15th Circuit Solicitor’s Office handled this case properly.
And it hasn’t given a jury of Dollard’s peers a chance to show it can reach a reasonable judgment about a case that has different kinds of racial undertones than the ones usually generating big headlines. This time, the cop is Black, as is the person killed.
The settlement may help Langley’s family members. They’ve been waiting for nearly three years to get some form of justice, even if it won’t bring him back. I will not begrudge them that. They know the struggles they’ve faced better than the rest of us.
But the settlement does not resolve the larger issues at stake. And those larger issues must be resolved.
The solicitor’s office can’t continue slow-walking this case. It must make clear where it stands.
And it must do so soon.