ORANGEBURG, S.C. — Dec 4, 2014,
5:51 PM ET
By MEG KINNARD Associated Press
A white former police chief
here was indicted on murder charges in the 2011 shooting death of an unarmed
black man after an argument, a case that instantly drew comparisons to the
Ferguson shooting and the chokehold death in New York.
The indictment of Richard
Combs, the former chief and sole officer in the small town of Eutawville
(YOO'-tah-vihl), was released Thursday. He faces 30 years to life in prison if
convicted in the death of Bernard Bailey.
Combs' lawyer accused
prosecutors of taking advantage of national outrage toward police and the
justice system to get the indictment.
"He's trying to make it
racial because his timing is perfect," attorney John O'Leary said.
"He's got all the national issues going on, so they want to drag him in
and say, look what a great community we are here, because we're going to put a
police officer who was doing his job in jail for 30 years. That's wrong. That's
completely wrong."
Prosecutor David Pascoe said he
had always planned to seek a murder charge if a judge threw out the former
chief's "stand your ground" self-defense claim, which happened last
month.
Combs, 38, had previously been
charged with misconduct in office for the shooting. He had faced up to 10 years
in prison.
The indictment is one of three
this year for white officers in the shootings of unarmed black men in South
Carolina, which has a dark and painful past of civil rights violence.
The shooting happened in May
2011. Bailey's daughter received a traffic ticket from the chief for a broken
taillight and called her father to the scene. Bailey and Combs argued, but
eventually went their separate ways. The police chief got an arrest warrant for
Bailey for obstruction. A few days later, Bailey went to Town Hall to argue
about his daughter's ticket. When he showed up, the chief tried to arrest
Bailey, a 6-foot-6 former prison guard.
Prosecutors said Bailey marched
back to his truck, and Combs tried to get inside to turn off the ignition. The
two briefly fought, and Combs shot Bailey, 54, twice in the chest.
Combs said he was tangled in
Bailey's steering wheel and feared for his life if Bailey drove away. Last
month, a judge threw out his self-defense claim and ruled Combs should have let
Bailey leave.
In March 2013, the Justice Department
cleared Combs. Pascoe announced he would begin his own investigation and in
August last year, a grand jury indicted Combs on the misconduct charge.
David S. Weinstein, a former
federal prosecutor now in private practice in Miami, said that was an unusual
way to handle the case. Pascoe wouldn't talk about the grand jury proceedings.
Combs' trial on the misconduct
charge had been set to start next week, but after the murder indictment, a
judge delayed it until at least January.
Combs' bail was set at
$150,000. He is unemployed. He was placed on leave after the shooting, and the
town let him go six months later.
In August, Bailey's family
reached a $400,000 wrongful death settlement with Eutawville, which is 50 miles
southeast of Columbia.
They said they don't think this
case should be compared with Ferguson and New York because everyone in
Eutawville knows everyone.
"That is comparing oranges
and apples," said Bailey's widow, Doris Bailey.
Eutawville has about 300
residents, one-third of them black. Its Main Street has a hardware store, a
pharmacy and medical supply store, and a number of empty storefronts.
One of Bailey's cousins
remembered him as a kind person.
"He wasn't the type of
person to harm anybody. I don't know why someone would shoot him or take his
life from his family. He was good people," said Betty Williams, 57.
Detrick Jenkins Sr., a neighbor
of Bailey's who worked with him at a state prison, said he didn't fear riots
like in Missouri or the massive protests that happened nationwide after grand
juries declined to indict Ferguson officer Darren Wilson and New York officer
Daniel Pantaleo. That could change if Combs is found not guilty, Jenkins said.
"People probably won't
like it and will have a more aggressive attitude," said Jenkins, who is
black.
Combs worked as a deputy for
the Orangeburg County Sheriff's Office for six years before being fired in 2007
for "unsatisfactory performance," according to documents from the
South Carolina Criminal Justice Academy obtained by The Post and Courier of
Charleston for a 2011 story.
Combs completed police chief's
training in Eutawville just four days before the fatal shooting, the newspaper
reported.
Thomas Bilton, a white
Eutawville resident who was friends with Bailey, said the police chief should
have let him leave Town Hall that day.
"The whole thing has been
kind of crazy," he said. "It's taken a long time and I think some of
the recent events across the country might have contributed to a final verdict
to charge him with murder."
Kinnard can be reached at
http://twitter.com.MegKinnardAP.
Kinnard reported from
Orangeburg, S.C. Associated Press reporters Jeffrey Collins in Columbia and
Curt Anderson in Miami contributed to this report.
A previous version of this
story incorrectly said a judge ruled against the chief's self-defense claim
earlier this week. The judge ruled in that case last month.
