Man who was shot during mental crisis suing sheriff

COLUMBIA, S.C. — A man is suing a sheriff’s office in South Carolina saying deputies shot at him nearly 50 times when he was having a mental health crisis in a parked truck with a shotgun in his lap, even though he says his hands were raised.

Trevor Mullinax survived being hit nine times in May 2021, with three wounds to the head, according to the lawsuit filed against the York County Sheriff’s Office earlier this month.

The four sheriff’s deputies started shooting only a few seconds after arriving on the scene and yelling “Hands!” several times, as seen in police dash cam video released by Mullinax’s lawyers. The barrage lasted all of five seconds, leaving the pickup windshield riddled with bullet holes.

“Those officer went out there like John Wayne cowboys. They came out there like gunslingers,” attorney Justin Bamberg said at a news conference Tuesday.

Prosecutors reviewing the case did not charge the four deputies who shot at Mullinax. Each officer gave a statement to investigators 11 days after the shooting and after reviewing body camera and other footage.

The officers said in those seconds they thought Mullinax was getting ready to flee, then they saw him reach back to the truck’s rear seat, grab the shotgun and point it at them, according to the State Law Enforcement Division report on the shooting.

Mullinax’s mother, Tammy Beason, said she’d been trying to comfort her son after he threatened to kill himself. She was standing by the driver’sside window when the officers opened fire.

She wasn’t wounded. But deputies handcuffed her, wailing and clearly distraught, less than a minute after the shooting. Two deputies hustled her away as she cries, “What are they going to do with my son?”

The video begins with the deputies driving up to Mullinax’s truck parked on his family’s land near Rock Hill on May 7, 2021. A family member had called 911 because Mullinax was threatening to kill himself. He said “We’re just trying to get our buddy some help,” and gave the operator the cellphone numbers for him and his mother, according to the 911 call.

The deputies never called either of them, driving to the truck after Mullinax’s grandfather told them where it was located, Bamberg said.

There were 47 shots fired.