Tape shows trooper hitting suspect with his car.

COLUMBIA — A state trooper who hit a fleeing suspect with his car has been indicted by a federal grand jury on a civil rights violation charge in what may be the first of several cases against highway patrolmen.

Trooper Steve C. Garren, 39, of Greenwood, could face up to a $250,000 fine and 10 years in prison for striking a man with his cruiser and later telling other officers, "I nailed the f--- out of him. ... I was trying to hit him."

The 2007 incident, caught on Garren's dashboard video, was dismissed as "locker-room talk" by a solicitor who declined to charge the trooper. The grand jury saw things differently, and members of the Legislative Black Caucus, who pushed for an investigation of the Highway Patrol, applauded that decision.

"To me, it was attempted murder," said state Rep. Leon Howard, D-Columbia, chairman of the caucus. "These guys are nothing more than criminals with badges."

Garren's case is one of more than a dozen controversial trooper stops publicized by The Post and Courier earlier this year after the newspaper obtained copies of the tapes through the Freedom of Information Act.

In one video, a trooper uses his cruiser to chase a suspect on foot through an apartment complex; in another, a trooper tells a suspect, "You better run, (n-word), I'm fixin' to kill you."

When those tapes became public, Gov. Mark Sanford forced out former Department of Public Safety Director Jim Schweitzer and Highway Patrol Col. Russell Roark.

Maj. Mark Keel, the new Public Safety director, on Tuesday suspended Garren without pay.

"It ought to be sending a message to the Highway Patrol," he said. "This type of behavior will not tolerated."

The incident in question happened June 24, 2007, when a man involved in a high-speed chase near Greenwood parked his car on the side of a residential street and took off running.

As he ran across the road, Garren's cruiser clipped the man, sending him flipping into the air.

Garren was given a three-day suspension for the incident, but is appealing that decision.

Eighth Circuit Solicitor Jerry Peace reviewed the case in August, and told The Post and Courier last month that his decision not to charge Garren with a crime was a "no-brainer." There was, he said, no proof of intent.

"All you have to do is look at the tape and see that the guy ran in front of the patrol car," Peace said.

The indictment contends that Garren deprived Marvin Grant of his constitutional right to be free from the use of unreasonable force by a law enforcement officer.

"Allegations of law enforcement abuse are serious, and must be considered carefully," U.S. Attorney W. Walter Wilkins said. "I am confident the grand jury has done just that."

First Assistant U.S. Attorney Kevin McDonald confirmed that the Justice Department is looking at other trooper incidents and that additional figures are expected to be pursued.

Garren is not in custody.

He is expected to turn himself in for an arraign- ment in Greenville later this month.

"It's unfortunate, but it needed to happen," said Lonnie Randolph, president of the state NAACP.

So this criminal is a hero because he ran away from the cops? I don't get it, isn't he still a criminal who was fleeing capture?

It seems to me that when you are trying to stop a fleeing criminal after a crime has been committed stopping him with the vehicle may be a necessity or how else can you stop crime. Maybe we should just not bother trying to catch them if they flee.
Certainly the officer bragging as he did was unnecessary and he should be reprimanded for his insensitivity.
It is my feeling and only my opinion that criminals really get off easy these days and I think it is crazy.
Take murders/rapists and other violent and habitual offenders for instance in many cases only getting slapped on the wrist with only a few years prison time Seems absolutely ridicules to me. Someone loses their entire life or mind and retribution is a short sentence of a few years out of the life of the perpetrator. How is that a fair exchange?
I think it is a bit ridiculous.

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the officer was just doing his job but the talk was wrong and the other officer who used the n-word should get retrained

screw this bullshit i'm sick of this crap.. HE WAS INVOLVED IN A HIGH SPEED CHASE AND THEN TRIED TO RUN ON FOOT!! who cares if the cop hit him he deserves to be hit. jesus christ America is full of pussies! no wonder criminals get better treatment than our veterans

Ya kno its pretty bad that murders/rapists and people like this guy noted above in the story....get off with slaps on the wrists...but god forbid if my girlfriend sticks up for her handicapped brother, she gets arrested for DISORDERLY CONDUCT. Mind you her brother has the worst type of muscular dystrophy there is and he's bound to a wheelchair until (god forbid) something happens to him. (People with the type of MD he has usually only live till their late teens, early 20s.) Her brother is 13 now so to say he's spoiled is an understatement. Anyway, my g/f got mad at this one chick (black chick) for parking in front of the ONLY handicap accessible ramp to his school last winter that was clean when there was like a foot of snow on the ground. My g/f said something about she can't park there cause her brother can't get into the school..and the bitch said "i'm not walking CLEAR across the parking lot to get into the school." Thats when my girl said "well at least you CAN walk." The bitch starts yelling and telling my girl to fuck off and was threatenin' to beat her ass....might i note...my g/f NEVER ONCE put her hands on this girl or threatened her...most my girl said was bring it on if ur feelin' froggy....but my g/f gets arrested for disorderly conduct and the black bitch (not meaning to offend sry) gets away scott free. Here's the kicker...my g/f turns herself in, tells the cops her side.....and the fuckin fat ass donut stuffer told her HER BROTHER HAS NO RIGHTS. That her HANDICAPPED brother was infringing on everyday person's rights by just being there and still charges her. Yes she got the conversation recorded on her cell phone. Whoops lawsuit. Now the school, PD, city, and that bitch are all gettin' sued for defamation of my g/f's character and for breatching handicap right laws . She's in the process of fighting this and WHEN she wins, her and her family are gonna be bankin. Maybe her brother can actually get everything he needs to live and survive everyday and it'll teach people to not block handicap access ramps and to stop parking in handicap spots. People don't seem to realize how hard it is for that lil boy to make it out the door in the mornings. People take for granted getting out of bed, walking, dressing themselves eating, using the bathroom, basically being independent in everyday things you do. That lil boy can't do ANY of that. That's where my g/f comes in. Just some background on her....she dropped out of school at 14 to take care of her brother when he became wheelchair-bound...never has been in trouble with the law.....occasionaly smokes a lil weed to deal with stress ya kno but who doesnt...works from 10pm till 2:30pm THE NEXT DAY sometimes longer....and has personally put her life on hold to be there for her lil brother. I can't get in the way of that personally....but who sounds like they were the ones at fault? Her? Or the city, school, PD, and that bitch?

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You guys are forgetting something...innocent until proven guilty. Until that guy was captured, charged and tried, and found guilty...he has the right to be free of violence regardless of the situation, even if he raped a woman before he was chased. Now i am sure that someone will disagree with me and there are two sides to every story but..........if i had committed a crime and ran from the cops and been intentionally hit with a police car, you bet your ass i would sue the socks off of whoever. What saddens me is that there are really good law enforcement officers out there and these types of cops give the good ones a bad name.

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true but the piece of shit still ran...which is a felonly..and i still don't see how criminals get off guilty of running from the cops when its a cold hard fact that they did and its on video from 4 different cameras..the justice system is screwed up and its sad b/c don't really see how it can be changed

well, if he ran then the fucking pig, I mean officer shoulda ran after him. Aren't they trained to handle these types of situations??? Racist muhfukkers, Fuck The Police

Bah, bring back the death by firing squad or the chair. Stop appeals. We are in trouble w/our legal system; criminals lose NOTHING to shoot a gun doing their thing. It's disgusting. Innocent until proven guilty? We are sooo past that.

Swift and decisive punishment - we need to go back to that.

Innocent until proven guilty is not applicable in an arrest. That is a judicial precedent and does not apply to apprehension. Law enforcement officials operate on a reasonable cause edict and for you to evade capture you are gifting them the reasonable cause/suspicion and signing the permission slip yourself for them to use excessive and reasonable force. They will take this matter to court and the criminal will lose. The patrolman will be reprimanded regardless, but there is no crime against enjoying your work. Innocent until proven guilty does not exist in the eyes of the police and nor should it. Placing that level of decision-making in the hands of uneducated humans is a recipe for disaster and it is always a better bet for any perpetrator to shut their mouth and wait for legal counsel. Thank God most criminals are ignorant to this fact and do the job of the police for them. I am not in a position to judge, but hey, don't run. Nothing good will come from it and you will lose. Case closed. One action supersedes all others and that was there was reasonable suspicion that this alleged perpetrator committed an infraction of the law. The police were well within their rights to question and detain him. Once he chose to bail, he embraced his destiny. If that was my occupation, I'd probably say all kinds of things in pursuits, so not exactly sure what his verbiage had to do with the fact that the guy still evaded the police.

i think the thing about the officer saying something else was another incident seperate from that trash being hit/bumped/whatever w/ the patrol car..either way he shouldn't have put the public @ risk by running from the cops @ high speed in a vehicle then trying to run on foot

I agree there is no way that he should have hit him with the car and should have instead headed him off and caught him on foot, but at the end of the day he did need to be stopped as a criminal (black or white) if he had committed no crime he wouldn't need to be running in the first place so the whole incident would have (and could have) been avoided. I really don't think it's racism and down to colour though, just stopping a fleeing criminal which I agree he done in the wrong way and deserves some form of reprimanding.

That being said I have no real pity for criminals or people evading police (obviously if they are guilty) and I believe that there should be much stricter punishments on any and all crimes to help to stop offences and especially re-offences from taking place rather than sending them to a place where they get everything laid out for them without necessarily needing to worry about where it is coming from and believe that time should be hard time, etc.

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You are very well spoken Jerry...................


I agree though, the criminal should have been stopped. Like i said, they are trained to handle perpetrators who flee on foot, they can tackle them, they can do numerous things to handle the situation. But running the man over with your squad car, that already has that iron bars in front for ramming, c'mon man. I'd understand if he shot at the officer or something like that, then he'd feel he had no choice, but all dude was doing was running away, he could have easily parked his cruiser and chased him on foot, he could have radioed for help and cornered him somewhere, a helicopter could have been used to track him by air. So many alternatives, so so so many, yet he chooses the less humane approach.