COLUMBIA, S.C. — Richland County Sheriff's Department says officers responded to a call from a power company employee a little before 9 a.m. on Monday after she said a homeowner threatened to shoot her when she knocked on his door.
When officers responded, RCSD says the man shot at them. Deputies say they tried to negotiate unsuccessfully during a standoff. Ultimately, officers say they returned fire. The unnamed suspect was shot and transported to the hospital, where he was pronounced dead.
The section of Two Notch Road near Leaside Drive is re-open with traffic is flowing through. For hours on Monday morning during the standoff, however, but for hours the road was completely blocked off.
Business owners nearby were encouraged to stay inside. Some of them say they could actually her the gunfire.
"That immediately caused my heart to beat. I couldn’t even start working because I didn’t even know if it was a bomb or a terrorist attack or somebody doing a shooting or whatever," Chiquita Burton explains. "It’s been a long day."
Burton was styling hair at Beauty By the Eye salon when she says a police officer came up and told her to stay inside because a dangerous situation was unfolding right outside her business. A few minutes later, she heard gunshots.
"Me and my clients we hit the floor. We hit the floor. My leg’s still a little swoll. But I literally hit the floor because I was so scared I was shaking," Burton shares. "I’m still kind of a little shaken but I know I got to finish because my client’s been in there since 8 o'clock this morning."
Nearby, Lance Adams was teaching a 9 a.m. workout class at Warrior Warehouse when he heard shots fired.
"Class was in full swing so definitely instructed everyone to stay put because the first thing people want to do is run in the direction of what’s going on kinda like a fight on the playground," Adams says.
He barricaded the building using his past experience in law enforcement, but then went right back to work.
"We still continued the class, kinda what we do," Adams laughs.
Police cars, emergency medical services and firetrucks gathered outside, blocking off the section of Two Notch Road between Roof Street and Arcadia Lake Drive near Mr. Tint.
"There was a bunch of cops, we seen ambulances come through eventually, just a whole bunch of commotion going on down there," the business's office manager Taylor Howle shares. "I wasn’t really concerned until I was told that a suspect was barricaded in the area."
Howle says while the road was blocked and customers couldn’t get through for hours Monday morning, now everything is back to normal, which Burton says is calm and quiet.
"This is a really peaceful area because all of these are business owners so everybody is about their business," Burton says. "So we don’t have any type of commotion going on or none of that. So it really perturbed us when we saw the commotion around our businesses."
"This is not a common occurrence and I just think this is just something that happened that just happened to be around in this area," Adams adds. "So I don’t think the people in the area got to worry about that this is as localized incident just in this area."
All three business owners tell me they’re happy with how the situation was handled, saying the response time was quick and effective.
"I think they did an awesome, awesome job," Burton shares about law enforcement. "They made sure all the business owners were safe. They made sure that the citizens on two notch road were safe."
We are still waiting on more information to be released as RCSD continues its investigation. We’ll continue to bring developing details to you on News 19.