2 South Carolina deputies shot in training exercise after not testing to see if rounds were blanks

COLUMBIA, S.C. — Two deputies shot and injured in a training exercise in South Carolina were wounded by ammunition taken from a plastic bag in a desk drawer and not property tested to see if they were blanks, a sheriff said Wednesday.

The officers were injured by what turned out to be breaching rounds used by police to break down doors and windows that were fired by an officer acting as a gunman in the July 29 training scenario, Greenville County Sheriff Hobart Lewis said. Both deputies are recovering.

Instead of getting rounds for the training out of the heavily controlled sheriff’s armory, deputies took rounds they believed were blanks from a plastic bag in a desk drawer, Lewis said.

The officers followed regulations and test-fired the rounds to see if they were blanks, but fired into a berm from too far away and didn’t realize they were breaching rounds, which contain gunpowder and have enough power to knock down doors at close range, the sheriff said.

No criminal charges were filed but internal investigators are still reviewing what happened and the deputies involved in obtaining the ammunition could be disciplined, Lewis said.

“I don’t know how long those rounds were in that desk drawer. But I can assure you I don’t think anybody would keep any kind of round in a baggie in a desk drawer at the Greenville County Sheriff’s Office ever again,” Lewis said at a news conference Wednesday.

The two injured deputies were part of a SWAT team undergoing regular training at a vacant school building.

They were practicing checking rooms for people when another officer who was supposed to be a suspect fired at them with a shotgun that was supposed to be loaded with blanks.

The injured deputies immediately realized they were bleeding and medics on the scene applied tourniquets that likely saved the life of one officer who had an artery severed after being shot in the groin, Lewis said.

The other officer was struck just below his armpit and just above his bulletproof vest, the sheriff said.

Both had to have emergency surgery and are still out of work a week after the shooting, Lewis said.

The Greenville County Sheriff’s Office has stopped training with shotguns as they investigate the shooting.