COLUMBIA, S.C. — A judge in South Carolina set a $150,000 bond for a small-town police officer charged with voluntary manslaughter in the shooting death of a man who investigators said led her on a high-speed chase after running through a stop sign.
Hemingway police officer Cassandra Dollard was released from jail less than two hours after the bond hearing.
An arrest warrant says around 1:24 a.m. on February 6, Dollard tried to pull over Robert Junior Langley for running a stop sign in the town of Hemingway, which is in Williamsburg County. The warrant says it turned into a chase, with Langley disregarding traffic signals and driving over 100 miles an hour.
SLED agents say the pursuit continued onto Highway 261 in Georgetown County. About eight miles from where the pursuit started, Langley crashed his car in a ditch at the intersection of School House Road and Choppee Road.
Agents say Langley was trying to get out the passenger door when he was shot in the chest. Dollard told investigators she feared for her life and fired her gun once, hitting Langley in the chest.
According to an affidavit, Dollard did not see a weapon in Langley's hands, and no firearm was recovered from the scene.
SLED said Dollard had no authority to arrest Langley outside of Williamsburg County.
Dollard was fired from her job with the State Transportation Police in 2014.
Court records obtained by The Associated Press show she waited six hours to report she fired her gun at dogs while jogging and repeatedly failed to call in traffic stops to dispatchers. The agency said Dollard had a “well-documented run of extraordinarily poor decision-making."
