Trooper who hit suspect with patrol car charged

January 08, 2009 06:44 AM

By Rick Brundrett
The State

COLUMBIA, S.C. — A state trooper seen on video hitting a fleeing suspect on foot with his patrol car at a Columbia apartment complex in 2007 has been charged with a federal civil rights violation.

Trooper Alexander Richardson is accused of using excessive force against Kevin Rucker on April 28, 2007, at Columbia Garden Apartments on Plowden Road, according to documents filed Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Columbia.

Richardson, 46, is the third current or former Highway Patrol trooper since June to face federal civil rights charges.

First Assistant U.S. Attorney Kevin McDonald said Wednesday he doesn’t expect any more troopers will be charged in the cases his office has reviewed since last year.

“I’m not aware of any other pending investigations regarding troopers at this time,” he said. "(The State Law Enforcement Division) provided a number of files to us, and we looked at every one of them.”

The State newspaper last year under the S.C. Freedom of Information Act obtained more than two dozen dashboard videos and hundreds of pages of internal affairs records revealing questionable behavior by some troopers.

Lonnie Randolph, president of the state chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, on Wednesday blamed an earlier “lack of leadership” at the Highway Patrol and Department of Public Safety, which oversees the Patrol, for many of the disciplinary problems.

“I’m hoping the future will be much better than the past has been with all law enforcement across the state, but especially with the Highway Patrol, which has had an ongoing history of doing what they please and answering to no one,” he said.

Richardson has been suspended without pay, said Department of Public Safety Director Mark Keel, whom Gov. Mark Sanford appointed last year during the controversy.

He declined to discuss specifics of his case, citing the pending charge. He also said he didn’t expect any other charges to come from this investigation.

McDonald and Richardson’s attorney, John O’Leary of Columbia, said Wednesday they expect Richardson to plead to the charge, though neither knew how soon.

Richardson is charged with a misdemeanor civil rights count, unlike two other troopers charged last year with felony civil rights violations.

McDonald said Richardson faces a misdemeanor count because there “didn’t appear to be injuries with the use of excessive force.”

If convicted, Richardson faces a maximum sentence of one year in federal prison and a $100,000 fine. The maximum penalty for a felony violation is 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine.

Former trooper John B. Sawyer pleaded guilty Monday in U.S. District Court in Charleston to a felony civil rights violation and is awaiting sentencing.

The other trooper charged with a felony violation, Steve Garren, was acquitted by a Greenville jury in October.

Like Richardson, Garren was accused of using his patrol car to strike a suspect fleeing on foot after a car chase. Sawyer was charged with repeatedly kicking a truck driver in the head who surrendered after a chase.

Richardson is black; Garren and Sawyer are white. The fleeing suspects in Richardson’s and Garren’s cases are black; the suspect in Sawyer’s incident is white. Authorities have said the federal civil rights charges against the troopers were based on the use of excessive force, not race.

“Regardless of what they say, race is always a factor,” Randolph said Wednesday. “With an African-American (victim), a car is a weapon of choice.”

In Richardson’s case, a dashboard video obtained last year by The State newspaper shows Rucker being hit by Richardson’s patrol car at the Plowden Road apartment complex off South Beltline Boulevard.

The video shows the patrol car driving over sidewalks and curbs in the apartment complex. A man and his young son are seen on the video running out of the way of the oncoming cruiser.

In his internal affairs statement, Richardson said he was on his way home about 7 p.m. when Rucker’s burgundy Chevrolet Caprice sped through a red light at Shop Road and South Beltline Boulevard, nearly hitting him.

Richardson said he pursued Rucker to the apartment complex, where Rucker abandoned his car and fled on foot. Richardson said he didn’t realize two young children were in Rucker’s car, which had dark-tinted windows.

While chasing him through the complex, Richardson said he tried to get out of his car to chase him on foot but couldn’t because the electronic control panel for the windows and locks was loose and in the way of the door handle.

He said in his statement that while he was briefly looking at his door, he “accidentally bumped the violator with the push bumper on the front of my patrol vehicle.”

Rucker continued running but quickly gave up and was arrested without incident, authorities said.

Rucker, who is identified in court papers and SLED records as both Kevin and Calvin Rucker, filed a federal lawsuit in September seeking unspecified damages against the state Department of Public Safety.

The suit contends he was hit three times by the trooper’s car and suffered “physical, psychological and emotional harm.”

Rucker was convicted of driving under the influence, driving without a license, failure to stop for a blue light, child endangerment and seat belt and child restraint seat violations, records show.

He was placed on two years’ probation on the child endangerment charges and received mostly fines on the other charges, records show.