Months after Beaufort Co. man died following clash with deputies, family awaits answers

Four months after a Seabrook man died days after being stunned with a Taser and restrained by Beaufort County Sheriff's Office deputies, authorities still have no answers as to how he died or what role the encounter with officers and paramedics played in his death.

Trey Pringle, 24, died Feb. 20 at Beaufort Memorial Hospital, three days after going into cardiac arrest during a struggle with deputies and other first responders in which Pringle was stunned three times with a Taser, handcuffed and bound at the feet.

"As you can imagine, the family is very frustrated," said Shannon M. Chandler, a Columbia attorney representing Pringle's mother and his personal estate. "It's hard for them to even begin to start the process of getting closure in this situation without them having that information ... We're not at a place where we're jumping to conclusions — we want to know."

The family has not been given a cause of death, and state investigators haven't closed their investigation of the officers' actions. Tuesday marked 18 weeks since Pringle's death.

The Sheriff's Office said at the time Pringle was combative and hit an officer in the head when first responders tried to engage him.

The S.C. Law Enforcement Division is still investigating the incident, agency spokesman Thom Berry said Monday. When asked whether the time required for the investigation was typical, Berry said each case was unique based on the amount of work required, that "it takes as long as it takes."

"I know that we are working on the case, and we are working on it actively," he said. "But as far as a deadline, no, we take as long as it takes to make sure that it's done thoroughly and yet fairly."

Berry declined to discuss details of the investigation.

The cause of Pringle's death is pending a pathologist's report from Medical University of South Carolina, Beaufort County deputy coroner David Ott said. He said no preliminary results were available.

Chandler said she filed an open-records request for the coroner's report and received a reply that the report wasn't completed.

A Sheriff's Office internal review of the incident is "95 percent" complete and pending the result of SLED's investigation, Beaufort County Sheriff P.J. Tanner said this week. He wouldn't comment on what his investigation found until state investigators are finished and said no officers had been placed on leave as a result of the February incident.

Tanner said it had been about two months since he had spoken to SLED about the case.

On Monday, Tanner said he has an opinion on how his deputies handled the altercation but wouldn't offer it while the SLED investigation is open.

"The family has asked for peace during the investigation, and we completely respect that," Tanner said when asked if his office had been in touch with Pringle's family.

In the days after his death, members of Pringle's extended family and the community questioned how the incident had been handled. A family member this week referred questions to Chandler.

Officers, firefighters and paramedics responded to a home on Detour Road on Feb. 17 after a relative called 911 and said Pringle was "out of control," hurt and needed help, the Sheriff's Office said at the time.

Deputies said in their report Pringle was near a broken television and was bleeding. They said he declined medical help when first responders arrived.

According to that report, a paramedic referenced Pringle's medical history in advising officers Pringle be taken to the hospital.

Chandler said this week she wasn't aware of any underlying medical issues.

"We're waiting for essential pieces of the puzzle," she said. "From what we know at this point, Trey was a healthy 24-year-old young man."

Pringle hit and kicked an officer when deputies tried to pick him up off the floor and later picked up and swung a broken piece of glass, the report said.

Officers stunned Pringle with a Taser three times in an effort to restrain him, the final time holding the Taser to the back of Pringle's leg — a technique know as "drive stunning" — until he could be handcuffed, deputies wrote in their report. He also was bound at the legs.

First responders then noticed Pringle had gone into cardiac arrest and began CPR before he was taken to Beaufort Memorial Hospital.

Tanner said he called SLED that night. Two deputies were treated and released from the hospital the same night. Tanner has declined to identify those deputies.

Pringle died three days later. An autopsy was scheduled the next day.

At the time, Ott told The Beaufort Gazette and The Island Packet he didn't expect results for eight weeks.

The family is still waiting.

"This is a family that has lost their son, their brother, their nephew, their cousin, their friend; and they're grieving," Chandler said. "Finding out the cause of death is not going to bring Trey back, but certainly it will again give them an opportunity to at least start on the road to closure."

This story was originally published June 27, 2018 at 11:51 AM.