CHESTER, S.C. (AP) - The mayor of a South Carolina city called for the firing of two of its police officers after newly released video from a fatal shooting appeared to show the department’s policy on body cameras wasn’t followed.
The police officers were cleared of state criminal charges in the shooting, but release of body camera video from the November shooting of her distant cousin led Chester Mayor Wanda Stringfellow to make the demand Tuesday.
Ariane Lamont McCree, 28, was killed in the parking lot of a Walmart in Chester where he had been detained and handcuffed on suspicion of shoplifting.
Chester Police Chief Eric Williams released body camera footage last Friday of the shooting, nearly three months after a state investigation finished and the officers were cleared. State law allows police agencies to decide when footage is released.
The v ideo shows two officers confront McCree in the store’s parking lot before opening fire, killing him.
Williams said McCree pointed a gun at the officers while his hands were cuffed behind his back, and demonstrated in front of news cameras at a Wednesday news conference how he says McCree was holding the gun.
One officer fired at least 13 shots, and the other fired at least 11, according to the investigative report from the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division.
Williams said one officer did not turn on his body camera, and was reprimanded for violating department policy. The other officer turned on his body camera just moments before the shooting. The camera systems have a delay between when the video and audio starts, meaning their is no sound of what the officer was saying just before and as he fired, according to news outlets.
Chester Mayor Wanda Stringfellow, who attended Tuesday’s news conference, said the officers should have turned on their body cameras when they began to pursue McCree.
“Because the moment is tense, you forget all of your training?” Stringfellow said.
The mayor acknowledged that she’s a distant cousin of McCree, but said she doesn’t think it’s a conflict of interest because she would seek transparency in this type of case no matter who it was.
Williams said the officer told McCree to drop his weapon but the command was ignored. But, when pressed by Stringfellow, the chief admitted there was no record of that command.
“So it’s the officer’s word only that he gave the command?” Stringfellow asked. Williams said that was correct.
McCree’s family said the video shows he was not a threat to officers.
Williams defended his officer’s actions, saying they were “facing an imminent threat” with a man with a gun.
Stringfellow said she plans to discuss whether to fire the officers at the next Chester City Council meeting on June 22.
After the body camera footage was released, South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson said he backs the decision not to charge the officers, but sent the investigate file to federal prosecutors to review the findings.
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