Detention given white ex-officer in black man’s death
COLUMBIA, S.C. — A white former police chief will have to spend a year under home detention but won’t have to serve any prison time in the 2011 shooting death of an unarmed black man.
Prosecutors agreed Tuesday to drop a murder charge against Richard Combs, 38, the former police chief of the small town of Eutawville, in exchange for his guilty plea to misconduct in office. The murder charge carried a penalty of 30 years to life.
Circuit Judge Edgar Dickson suspended a 10year prison sentence for Combs as long as he completes his home detention and five years of probation.
Combs stood trial twice on the charge of murdering Bernard Bailey, but both cases ended with hung juries. Defense attorney Wally Fayssoux said Combs was ready to end a four-year ordeal.
“My client is financially and emotionally exhausted,” Fayssoux said.
Bailey’s family told the judge that Bernard Bailey was a good man who stayed out of trouble and was targeted for arrest by an officer who was on a power trip, which set the tragedy in motion.
“We have been on a mission of justice. We know the outcome of this trial will not help Walter. But perhaps it will help some other family, some other young man,” said Bailey’s sister, JoAnn Bailey-Lawton.
Combs shot Bernard Bailey in May 2011 as he tried to arrest him on an obstruction of justice charge weeks after he argued about his daughter’s traffic ticket on the side of a highway.
Bailey came to Town Hall to discuss the ticket and Combs told him he was under arrest. Bailey stormed out and got in his pickup truck and Combs followed, authorities said.
Bailey was shot three times as he backed his truck out.
The jury in the first case voted 9-3 to convict Combs. The jury in the second case voted 8-4.