Okatie man reported 3 men shot and bound him. Surveillance videos told a different story
An Okatie man told police three armed men shot him in the leg, bound him with a zip-tie and attempted to steal his dog outside of his apartment, according to a report.
After talking to him, deputies watched surveillance footage from nearby Ring cameras and began to doubt the man’s version of events.
On Friday afternoon, the Beaufort County Sheriff’s Office responded to an apartment on Campus Lane next to the Bluffton campus of University of South Carolina, Beaufort, where a man recounted to deputies why he was shot in the leg.
The man said three “Black males” in hoodies and dreadlocks, one armed with a semi-automatic handgun, pulled up behind his car and followed him up to his apartment, forcing him to the ground at gunpoint. They tried to steal his 2-year-old French bulldog named “Esco” and bound his hands with a zip-tie. He struggled, which is when they shot him in the leg, according to a Sheriff’s Office report.
“At no point in any of the video clips are three armed Black males seen pulling up behind (the man’s) BMW .... (The man) has clearly already been shot in the leg before the clips begin and he is never seen with his hands bound,” a deputy wrote.
Different surveillance videos showed the man running from the alleyway next to his apartment, then a gunshot rang off and he ran into the road. “Don’t call 911,” the deputy reported that the man shouted.
In another video, the man told neighbors that “someone had shot him and his dog.”
The dog has not been located, according to Sheriff’s Office Maj. Bob Bromage.
“In the investigation, deputies discovered inconsistencies with what the victim reported and how the events transpired. It remains under investigation,” Bromage said.
The man is not being identified because he has not been charged with a crime.
Knowingly filing a false police report of a felony is a felony, according to South Carolina law. It can carry up to five years in prison.
This story was originally published February 23, 2022 at 2:52 PM.
