COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — A jury on Friday found a former small-town South Carolina police officer not guilty of voluntary manslaughter in the shooting death of an unarmed man after a five-minute high-speed chase.
In February 2022, Cassandra Dollard shot Robert Junior Langley in the chest as he tried to get out of his car after crashing it into a ditch. Cassandra Dollard faces 2 to 30 years in prison if she is found guilty.
Dollard, a Hemingway police officer, tried to pull over in Langley one morning for running a stop sign. Langley didn’t stop and Dollard chased the car for more than five minutes, much of it at speeds in excess of 100 mph (160 kph), 8 miles (13 kilometers) outside her town and into the next county.
A dashboard camera on Langley’s Dollard cruiser captured her asking Langley to show her his hands after his car crashed. As she approached Langley’s vehicle, she slipped in the mud and fired a shot as Langley’s head and chest emerged from the vehicle.
Dollard told investigators that when she looked into Langley’s eyes after the fall, she felt vulnerable and felt she had lost the tactical advantage that kept her safe.
“I didn’t know what he had in his hand. I just knew he had something in his hand,” she said.
Investigators said Langley had $100 in cash when he was killed.
Authorities allege Dollard said she didn’t need to pursue Langley for a minor traffic violation or get as close to the vehicle as she did.
Langley’s family received a $1 million wrongful death settlement from the insurance company of the Hemingway Police Department, a town of 530 people in Williamsburg County.
Dollard worked for six police agencies and was fired twice during a nearly 30-year law enforcement career, according to police academy records.
“These cases are never easy. We thank the jury for their service this week and we respect the jury’s decision,” attorney Jimmy Richardson said in a statement announcing the verdict Friday.