Blythewood Online 691

Tag: richland county sheriff’s department

  • Routine checkpoint becomes high speed chase

    RIDGEWAY – A high speed chase that began in Ridgeway, ended on Garner’s Ferry Road and reached 123 miles per hour, resulted in attempted murder charges for Michael Odell Lewis, 24, of Columbia.

    Lewis

    The incident began during an early evening traffic safety check conducted by the Fairfield County Sheriff’s Department at the intersection of Syrup Mill Road and Peach Road on Jan. 26, when a blue Hyundai Elantra pulled up to the check point.

    Deputy Amber Shults reported immediately smelling the odor of an alcoholic beverage and what appeared to be marijuana coming from the vehicle. Shults said she observed an open container of liquor in the center console and a small scale on the driver’s lap.

    When the driver was asked to turn off the vehicle, he complied, then turned the engine back on and accelerated at a high rate of speed towards another deputy who was standing in the roadway speaking with the driver of another vehicle, according to the report. The officer moved quickly out of the way to avoid being struck while Dep. Shultz pursued the Hyundai onto Devil’s Race Track Road then right onto Syrup Mill Road, traveling back through the safety check point area.

    The Hyundai continued, reaching 90 miles per hour as it entered Richand County and turned left onto Blythewood Road, heading for Blythewood, the report stated. Turning south onto I-77, the chase was reported to reach 123 miles per hour.

    Richland County deputies attempted to use stop sticks at Exit 22. The vehicle swerved toward a Richland County Deputy during the pursuit.

    After leaving I-77 at Exit 9, the vehicle turned onto Garners Ferry Road and pulled into an apartment complex where the Hyundai’s front passenger side tire blew out. The suspect, later identified as Lewis, and a passenger fled on foot but were apprehended in the complex, the report stated.

    Both Fairfield and Richland County officers charged Lewis with attempted murder and failure to stop for blue lights.

    The passenger, Travol Robinson, 25, was charged with open container. Both were transported to Fairfield County Detention Center. Lewis was denied bond and Robinson and released on his personal recognizance.

  • Gunshot fired through window of Blythewood home

    BLYTHEWOOD – A Blythewood family was not at home on the afternoon of Jan. 12 when a bullet came crashing through the breakfast room window of their home and traveled through a kitchen cabinet, into the dining room before embedding into an adjacent wall.

    Rimer Pond Road resident Gina Lee points to a bullet hole left in her family’s breakfast room window during the afternoon of Jan. 19. So far there are no suspects. | Barbara ball

    “It had to have happened between 11:30 a.m. and 12:30 p.m. that Friday afternoon,” homeowner Gina Lee said on Tuesday.

    “My husband, Pete, and my mother-in-law left the house about 11:30 that morning,” Lee said.

    When Lee came home from work at her hair salon in downtown Blythewood about 12:30 p.m., she started to make coffee and noticed a bullet hole in the kitchen cabinet, just above her head.

    “It scared me to death!” Lee said. “I could see inside the cabinet that it went through the wall into the dining room so I checked in the dining room,” Lee said. “I could see where the bullet lodged in the far wall of the dining room.”

    “We won’t know the caliber of the bullet until we tear out a place in the wall to retrieve the shell,” she said.

    Curtis Wilson, Public Information Officer for the Richland County Sheriff’s Department, said on Wednesday that the incident is still under investigation.

    Anyone with information about shots fired in the vicinity of Highway 21 and Rimer Pond Road on Jan. 12 should call (803)576-3000.

  • RCSD still investigating BHS threats

    BLYTHEWOOD – Several students have been suspended but no criminal charges have been filed after threatening comments were reported at Blythewood High School last week.

    A student’s email to administrators reported “overhearing threatening comments by several students.”

    While Richland County sheriff’s deputies have determined that there is “no credible threat to the school building, students, or faculty,” extra police were on campus Friday, and deputies continue to investigate the comments that were made. The students in question have been suspended pending the outcome of the investigation.

    No criminal charges are pending at this time, deputies say.

  • 13-year-old drowns in Lake Carolina

    Jaylan Antonio Jones

    BLYTHEWOOD – A 13-year-old Lake Carolina boy, Jaylan Jones, slipped into the lake around 2 p.m. on Sunday and drowned, according to Richland County Coroner Gary Watts. His body was recovered about 4:30 p.m. that afternoon.

    According to Lt. Curtis Wilson of the Richland County Sheriff’s Department, a friend told deputies he and Jones were playing in the spillway near the dam when Jones slipped and fell into the lake.

    The friend called 911 and led first responders to the site where Jones went under water.

    Jones was a seventh grader at Kelly Mill Middle School.