Overview

• On July 29 in a vacant Greenville County building, two deputies were wounded by live breaching rounds mistaken for blank ammunition.
• Deputies retrieved breaching rounds from a plastic bag in a desk drawer instead of the secured armory and failed to identify them when test-fired from too great a distance.
• One deputy suffered a severed artery in the groin and the other was struck under the arm; both required emergency surgery and are expected to fully recover.
• Sheriff Hobart Lewis cited multiple breakdowns in storage, labeling and testing protocols and tasked the Office of Professional Standards with reviewing safety procedures.
• No criminal charges have been filed, but internal investigators say disciplinary action is possible once their probe concludes.