South Carolina State Law Enforcement Division (SLED) agents are investigating after a Sunday shooting incident involving a Mullins police officer.
Mullins Police Department officers were responding to a domestic call Sunday evening when “gunfire was exchanged during a confrontation between a man and an officer from the Mullins Police Department in Marion County,” SLED officials said in a news release Monday.
WMBF News reported that the man fired shots at a Mullins police officer and the officer returned fire.
He then barricaded himself in the home, Mullins Police chief told WMBF News. The unidentified suspect is in police custody.
No injuries were reported in the incident, according to SLED.
The investigation is ongoing.
“SLED conducts law enforcement officer involved shooting (OIS) investigations at the request of the agency involved in the incident,” the agency said in a news release. “When requested to investigate an OIS, SLED’s goal is to conduct a thorough, independent criminal investigation as timely as is possible under the circumstances. SLED investigators will conduct interviews with all potential witnesses in this matter, including the involved officers and the individual in question. Further, SLED will collect all relevant evidence and will forensically test such evidence as needed.”
That information will be submitted to a prosecutor in a report, SLED said.
SLED said no other information on the shooting would be released by the agency at this time.
The Marion County incident was the 29th officer-involved shooting in 2020. There were 45 officer-involved shootings in 2019. None of the other incidents this year or last year involved Mullins Police officers.
In 2017, the Palmetto State set a record for the most officer-involved shootings in one year at 49.
Mullins, South Carolina is a small town with a population of around 4,600.
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