Neighbor: Armed Sun City man killed by Beaufort Co. Sheriff’s deputy was a ‘threat’

All was quiet Saturday morning in Sun City.

A few golf carts buzzed down the roads as residents walked their dogs. Neighbors waved to one another.

You would never know that a man with a gun was shot by a Beaufort County Sheriff’s Office deputy hours earlier.

That is, until you turn on Twinkling Court where the shooting happened.

A group of women were gathered on the street talking a little after 10 a.m. Some lived on Twinkling Court and others stopped by on golf carts and in cars to check on each other.

“I just hate to see a human being killed that way, even if the police did what they had to,” one woman, who asked not to be identified, said.

Donald Williams Allamong, 56, of 2 Twinkling Court in Sun City Hilton Head, was shot and killed between 11 p.m. and midnight Friday by a Beaufort County Sheriff’s Office deputy who responded to a 911 call about a disturbance in the area involving an armed man, according to officials.

Allamong, who was identified by Deputy Coroner David Ott on Saturday morning, was transported from the scene and pronounced dead at Coastal Carolina Hospital around 12:30 a.m. A forensic autopsy will take place at 9 a.m. Tuesday at the Medical University of South Carolina, Ott said.

Allamong had a history of creating problems in his neighborhood, according to residents in the Twinkling Court area who asked not to be identified.

“It’s a shame that it happened but we can finally breathe deep again,” one woman told a reporter from The Island Packet and The Beaufort Gazette.

“He threatened all of us,” she added.

A Google search of Allamong’s name revealed that he has a history of run-ins with police.

According to a December 2002 report in The Blade in Toledo, Ohio, Allamong, a chiropractor, was once involved in an armed standoff with police at his office.

The article states that his wife called 911 and asked authorities to check on her husband’s safety. Authorities found Allamong in a doorway at the office where he allegedly threatened to shoot anyone who entered.

A negotiator in Toledo at the scene eventually persuaded Allamong to give himself up, and police found a loaded revolver locked in a drawer of his desk.

Details about what happened in Sun City, however, have not been released. Maj. Bob Bromage of the Beaufort County Sheriff’s Office declined to provide details of any previous encounters the Sheriff’s Office had with Allamong, citing the ongoing investigation.

The deputy involved in the Sun City shooting has been placed on administrative leave pending an internal investigation by the department and a review by the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division.

Bromage of the Beaufort County Sheriff’s Office declined to release the deputy’s name Saturday morning citing the ongoing investigation.

In the case of officer-involved shootings, the sheriff’s office asks SLED to independently investigate whether the use of force was justified.

Investigators were no longer on the scene as of 10 a.m. Saturday, SLED spokesperson Kathryn Richardson said.

Sun City is a retirement community with more than 16,000 residents over the age of 55 in Beaufort and Jasper counties.

Twinkling Court is on the Beaufort County side of Sun City and near the back entrance accessible by S.C. 170, close to the Mill Creek portion of the Cypress Ridge neighborhood in Bluffton, where residents are saying they heard shouting voices, gunshots and sirens around the time of the incident.

“We have a wonderful street,” a woman on Twinkling Court said. “Everyone has been really good, but he was a very sick man. It’s a sad situation.”

This story was originally published July 27, 2019 at 8:48 AM.