wistv.com - Columbia, South Carolina |Law enforcement officers train to deal with increased violence

Law enforcement officers train to deal with increased violence

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By Jack Kuenzie - email

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RICHLAND COUNTY, SC (WIS) - Instructors at the Richland County Sheriff's Department's shooting range had to be especially patient with a group of students Friday afternoon.

They were members of Midlands news media.  Most of them broadcasters, a group with notoriously short attention spans.

The idea was to give media figures a sense of the challenges facing law enforcement officers when they're called on to make split-second decisions on when to shoot or not shoot.

Those decisions are coming at an increasingly rapid clip for the cops, and not just in South Carolina.

"It's happened nationwide," said Richland County Sheriff Leon Lott. "And we've seen a drastic increase in it, of violence against police officers."

Sheriff Lott and other law enforcement leaders say when confronted by officers criminal suspects are now more likely to shoot first.

That's what happened Thursday night at the Brook Pines Apartments off Broad River Road.

Richland County narcotics agents say a man opened fire on them after they warned him they had a search warrant for his apartment.

Agents shot back, wounding 25-year-old Fredrick Withers.

A bullet fired by the suspect skimmed the pants leg of one of the deputies but he was not hurt.

"We're lucky, just very lucky tonight," said Sheriff Lott at a news conference after the shooting Thursday. "This is not a tragic situation like we've had too many times recently."

Those tragic situations include the killings of two Aiken Public Safety officers in less than three months.

And the deadly shooting of Richland K-9 officer Fargo.

Lott says those incidents and others call for changes in the way officers are trained.

"That's what we're doing in our training, is emphasizing that you've got to be on guard all the time," said Lott. "There is no such thing as a routine traffic stop. No such thing as a routine call."

The state of South Carolina is taking steps aimed at tracking down those who would kill cops. The new Blue Alert bill sets up a system similar to Amber Alerts, allowing information to get to the public faster when a police officer is attacked. 

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