Newly released dash-cam video of a police-involved shooting in Charleston County, S.C., reveals that a homeowner who was armed with a handgun to protect himself from intruders was barely given a warning before a sheriff’s deputy opened fire, WCIV reports.
According to the report, Bryant Heyward had taken up the .40-caliber weapon in defense of his life and his home after a pair of intruders broke into the Hollywood residence. By the time deputies Keith Tyner and Richard Powell arrived on the scene, the intruders had left the area, but Heyward kept the weapon close.
The two deputies had circled around the building when they encountered Heyward, who was coming out of a utility room located behind the house, WCIV notes. It was then that Tyner shouted twice for Heyward to show his hands.
The rapidly issued command, however, had barely left Tyner’s lips for the second time when gunshots erupted, with Tyner firing his weapon twice and hitting the homeowner in his neck. According to family attorneys, the 26-year-old is paralyzed and currently unable to speak or move his legs.
Heyward was speaking when an ambulance arrived to transport him to the hospital. He reportedly told a detective inside the ambulance, "I should have put the gun down but I didn't. … He thought I was the crook and shot."
The dash-cam footage is still being reviewed, attorneys said, and officials are urging the public not to jump to conclusions based on what they see or hear. "To rely solely on someone's untrained ears and eyes to evaluate the contents of the dash-cam video, to include the time period to which this very complex sequence of events occurred, would be totally unfair and inappropriate to all parties involved," officials said, according to WCIV.
Read more at WCIV.