The Status of the Charles Mackey Shooting Story After the McBride Interview

On Friday, May 12, I sat down for an interview with Sheriff McBride of Anderson County, South Carolina. We discussed the sheriff's office and related topics, first among them being the shooting of Charles Mackey in Anderson County last summer. Mackey was killed by his neighbor, and it was ruled self-defense. McBride's predecessor communicated very little with Mackey's family, and the family has a number of serious complaints about the conduct of the previous sheriff's office surrounding this investigation. My previous interview with Charles Mackey's family and Traci Fant of Freedom Fighters can be seen here.

Anderson County Solicitor David Wagner joined me and Sheriff McBride for the portion of the interview dealing with Charles Mackey's case. Solicitor Wagner took office in January just as Sheriff McBride did, so they were both new to the case. Both were in agreement that the shooting was self-defense. Sheriff McBride spoke of his disagreement with the previous administration's lack of communication with the Mackey family and told what his own approach has been.

There remain unanswered questions after my interview with Sheriff McBride. There is a discrepancy between the family's account of the approach to the collection and preservation of evidence and that of the sheriff and solicitor. (I chose not to get bogged down in details during our interview, but I want to follow up on this.) Also, Sheriff McBride did not have an answer for the allegation that officers prevented aid to Charles Mackey when he was dying. He did not have an answer on how the sheriff's office responded to any emergency calls during the feud between Mackey and his neighbor (the family alleges prejudice).

Sheriff McBride has promised to continue discussions with the family to see that their questions are answered. I will be following up on the progress of those discussions and doing some further investigation of my own. Stay tuned!

The first video deals with the Sheriff's platform that he ran on and the overall situation in which he is making changes to the Sheriff's office. The video was interrupted, so we continued in the next video to talk about Second Amendment legislation and the Mackey case.