Ex-trooper guilty in shooting of unarmed driver

S.C. officer fired on black man seconds after traffic stop.

COLUMBIA, S.C. — A white former state trooper was led out of a South Carolina courtroom in handcuffs Monday after pleading guilty to a felony charge in the 2014 shooting an unarmed black driver seconds after a traffic stop.

Sean Groubert will be sentenced later, but Circuit Judge Casey Manning appears to have already decided there should be some prison time because he sent Groubert to jail while he mulls the punishment. Groubert faces up to 20 years for assault and battery of a high and aggravated nature. There is no minimum sentence.

Before the hearing started, Levar Jones, shot once in the hip by Groubert, walked into court with a limp. He constantly turned and twisted a Rubik’s Cube, perhaps to calm himself. As prosecutors replayed the video of the shooting taken from Groubert’s dashboard camera, Jones’ shoulders jerked.

He didn’t speak at the 20-minute hearing Monday, but prosecutors said he may when Groubert is sentenced. No date has been set for that hearing.

Groubert answered questions from the judge. The only hint of an explanation for what happened came when his lawyer requested he continue medication and visits to a psychiatrist to deal with posttraumatic stress disorder from an on-duty shoot- ing in 2012. In that incident, his supervisors said, Groubert chased a man who fired on him during a traffic stop, and was awarded the Highway Patrol’s Medal of Valor. The man is now serving 20 years in prison on an attempted murder charge.

The Highway Patrol fired Groubert after watching a video of his encounter with Jones on Sept. 4, 2014. When the video was released a month later, it shocked a country dealing with a wave of questionable police shootings.

In the video, which prosecutors showed at Monday’s hearing, Groubert pulls Jones over for a seatbelt violation. Both men get out of their cars at a convenience store and Groubert asks Jones for his license. Jones says he took off his seatbelt because he was stopping at the store after work.

Jones then turns and reaches back into his car, and Groubert shouts, “Get outta the car, get outta the car.” He begins firing as Jones staggers away, backing up with his hands raised. Jones’ wallet is seen flying out of his hands.

But in a statement Groubert made after the shooting, he claimed Jones was a threat. “The subject was highly aggressive and belligerent and ready to attack me from the second I initiated the traffic stop.”

Groubert has spent the past 18 months driving a truck. He and his wife were arrested for shoplifting in October.

South Carolina’s Insurance Reserve Fund agreed to pay Jones a $285,000 settlement in the shooting.