Richard Combs, the former police chief and sole officer in the small town of Eutawville listens in court on Thursday, Dec. 4, 2014, in Orangeburg, S.C.ORANGEBURG, S.C. – 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, 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.