State, Federal Investigators to Meet On South Carolina Highway Patrol Investigation- Tapes show Officers Kicking, Beating Blacks

Columbia, SC -- The U.S. Attorney's Office for South Carolina confirms there will be a meeting this week to discuss investigations into the South Carolina Highway Patrol, but Nancy Wicker, chief of the criminal division, said she could not confirm who would be at the meeting or its details.

The U.S. Attorney's Office, the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice, the FBI and the State Law Enforcement Division confirmed last month they were investigating cases of trooper misconduct that were caught on the troopers' dash camera videotapes.

In one case from May 2006, troopers and local law enforcement were chasing a dump truck on I-95 that had refused to pull over. The driver crashed through road signs and didn't stop when police shot at his truck.

When the driver finally did stop in Sumter County, as he was lying on the ground, Highway Patrol Lance Corporal John Sawyer ran up and started kicking him in the head. He resigned from the patrol two months later, and says he simply lost his cool after the danger of the high-speed chase.

In another incident on April 28, 2007, Lance Corporal Alexander Richardson was chasing a driver who had led troopers on a chase that reached speeds of over 100 mph on I-26 in Lexington County. The driver came into Richland County, eventually pulling into an apartment complex and jumping out of the car. Another trooper later found that there had been two children, ages 5 and 6, in the driver's car.

As the driver fled on foot, Richardson continued chasing him, driving his patrol car through the apartment complex. At one point, Richardson hit the man with his car, but the man kept running.

Even when the man ran between apartment buildings, Richardson drove up on the sidewalk and between the buildings.

Theodore Fulks had been behind his apartment playing with his then-six-year-old son. They both had to jump out of the way as the trooper's car sped just a few feet past them.

"My son, he's having nightmares...he's saying that the trooper's gonna run him over," Fulks says.

The Department of Public Safety investigated the incident. In a memo to Richardson, Highway Patrol Commander Col. Russell Roark wrote, "Your decision to continue a vehicular pursuit throughout the apartment complex posed a safety risk to others, including the violator, who was hit by your vehicle."

But Richardson was given only a written reprimand and ordered to go to stress management classes.

"It needs to be criminal charges against him," Fulks says. "He could've killed someone! Now what about if that would've been his child and I would've done that? They probably would've been locking me up."

Federal criminal charges could be possible for some of the troopers involved in several incidents that have come to light after dash cam videos were released by the Department of Public Safety. In some of the cases, local solicitors had already decided not to file state criminal charges.

If the investigations were to find a pattern of civil rights violations, the Highway Patrol could be put under federal monitoring.

DPS spokesman Sid Gaulden says the videotapes are coming out now because the state Legislative Black Caucus had heard there were disturbing tapes, asked for them and the department gave them the tapes. Then media outlets heard about the tapes, so DPS released them to the media, too.

The federal and state investigations could lead to federal monitoring of the SC Highway Patrol...if they find a pattern of civil rights violations. The Department of Public Safety says these few cases, out of millions of traffic stops, show there is no pattern. [MORE]