Sheriff: Internal probe clears deputies in fatal shooting
April 6, 2021 GMT
GREENVILLE, S.C. (AP) A South Carolina sheriff says an internal investigation has cleared deputies who shot and killed an armed man they were trying to arrest in February.
Greenville County Sheriff Hobart Lewis said in a YouTube video released on Sunday that all six deputies at the scene have been cleared in the Feb. 18 death of 39-year-old William Clayton Blackwell.
Four of the six fired at him, said Lt. Ryan Flood, the sheriff’s spokesman.
He said deputies had come to a mobile home to serve warrants accusing Blackwell of sex charges and child neglect. Blackwell came out with a pistol, ran behind the mobile home and got a magazine-fed rifle, Flood said.
The Greenville County deputies who shot at an armed man while attempting to serve arrest warrants on him in Greer have been cleared of wrongdoing through an internal affairs investigation.
All six deputies, four of whom fired gunshots, were in line with Sheriff s Office policy when they fatally shot the man on Feb. 18.
The deputies actions to return fire were justified under our policy, said Greenville County Sheriff Hobart Lewis in the critical incident community briefing shared to YouTube on Sunday.
The State Law Enforcement Division is still conducting its own investigation.
Body camera footage released by the Sheriff s Office on Sunday showed a portion of the events that unfolded outside a mobile home at 11 Gibson Oaks Drive around 5 p.m. Feb. 18.