Al Cannon, sheriff of South Carolina county where Walter Scott was shot dead by police, had assault charge erased after completing 30 hours of clean-up

The highest-ranking law enforcement officer in the South Carolina county where Walter Scott was shot dead was punished with trash collection duty after his team of officers dragged a man from his truck, punched him and allowed a dog to bite him as he lay on the ground.



Al Cannon, the sheriff of Charleston County, had an assault and battery charge for hitting Timothy McManus erased from his record after completing 30 hours of litter collection and an anger management class, he said. No other officers were disciplined over the incident.

Cannon said in an interview on Friday that the experience had given him “a greater appreciation for litter”.

“I think it was an appropriate punishment in light of other cases and given my position,” he said.

Cannon, 68, was elected sheriff in 1988 and is serving his seventh term. This week he attended a candlelight vigil for Scott, who was repeatedly shot in the back by North Charleston patrolman Michael Slager as he fled a traffic stop.

Video from a police car dash cam showed McManus being pulled from his Dodge Ram, punched at least six times and then manhandled by four officers from Cannon’s department during his January 2012 arrest. A K-9 officer then allowed his dog to bite McManus’s right arm for more than 20 seconds.

Cannon was later arrested and charged for slapping McManus as he sat handcuffed in a police vehicle. McManus said the blow was heavy enough to make his nose bleed. Six officers denied the sheriff had struck McManus, before Cannon confessed, apologised and admitted it was “inappropriate”.

McManus alleged in a civil lawsuit against Cannon that he required “17 staples to his upper right arm where the dog chewed at and ripped apart his flesh” and requested $600,000 in damages.

Alleging that he had been “physically, brutally, maliciously and savagely assaulted by Al Cannon”, McManus claimed the sheriff had “busted him in the nose” and left him suffering pain and mental anguish. The lawsuit was dismissed last month after McManus failed to attend court. Cannon denied the allegations.

The sheriff said the actions of his officers were justified because McManus ignored an order to open one of his hands to show an item he was holding. It turned out to be his cellphone. Officers also told investigators that McManus had appeared to reach for something inside his truck when first approached. “It was all looked at,” he repeated.

Kevin Brackett, the state solicitor for York County, recommended the charge against Cannon after considering an inquiry into the arrest by the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division (SLED). Brackett wrote in a letter explaining his decision that the response of all the other officers had been “reasonable and appropriate” as they had feared for their safety.

“I conclude that the actions of the officers were appropriate under the circumstances they faced,” Brackett wrote. “While I had the benefit of multiple viewings in slow motion, these officers did not.”

McManus had led officers on a 25-mile car chase after allegedly almost colliding with Cannon’s police vehicle in January 2012. His driver’s licence had been suspended. The high-speed pursuit ended beside a road running through the Francis Marion national forest, after the last of 19 shots fired by three different officers blew out the truck’s tires.

Then aged 31, McManus was sentenced to 30 months in prison in April 2013 after pleading guilty to being a “habitual traffic offender” and failing to stop for the flashing blue lights on Cannon’s police vehicle. By then he had also been arrested for falling asleep at the wheel.

Cannon avoided full prosecution because he qualified for “pre-trial intervention”, a program designed to prevent first-time offenders being jailed for non-violent offences.

Brackett said a charge of third-degree assault and battery was not classed as a violent offence. “There is an element of violence to it, but it is not statutorily defined as a violent crime,” Brackett said on Friday.

The nature of Cannon’s punishment is being reported for the first time here. It was not disclosed by local media in Charleston, most of whom noted only that Cannon was eligible for the program.

Under South Carolina law, “any individual who unlawfully retains or releases information on an offender’s participation in a pretrial intervention program” may be criminally prosecuted and punished by up to a year in prison.

Cannon said he supported the more frequent use of cameras in police vehicles and favoured all police officers wearing body cameras. McManus could not be reached for comment.