Copyright Charleston Post and Courier
COLUMBIA — Using two attorneys as stand-ins, Andy Chow demonstrated in court how a 14-year-old boy pointed a gun at him not far from his family’s Parklane Road gas station on the evening of May 28, 2023. Chow and his dad had been chasing the teen, Cyrus Carmack-Belton, outside their convenience store, believing the kid had shoplifted a bottle of water. Cyrus began running, tripped on a curb and, as he was getting up, Chow saw him brandishing a silver-barreled pistol. “He has a gun,” Andy Chow, then 20, recalls warning his dad, Rick Chow, who was behind him. Rick Chow told Cyrus to “drop it.” When the teen did not immediately comply, Andy Chow said his dad unholstered his concealed-carry handgun and fired a shot. It fatally struck Cyrus in the back. Emergency responders found him lying on the road. Andy Chow publicly described these events for the first time Nov. 3, the opening day of an evidentiary hearing where his dad is asking a state judge to throw out his murder charge. Rick Chow, 60, is claiming his actions that night were justified under the state’s “stand your ground” law. The law allows a person to use deadly force if he reasonably believes it’s necessary to prevent death or great bodily injury to himself or another person, or to prevent a violent crime. The immunity hearing drew around 50 spectators to the Richland County Courthouse, including relatives and friends of both the defendant and victim. The murder case has received a lot of attention, with some local Black leaders saying the teen’s killing reflected ongoing prejudice against Black people. From the stand Monday, Andy Chow told Circuit Judge R. Scott Sprouse that he believed his life was in danger when Cyrus pointed the pistol at him. And his dad saved his life. But local prosecutors, led by 5th Circuit Solicitor Byron Gipson, questioned Andy Chow’s account of his dad’s motive for shooting the kid. Gipson brought up Andy Chow’s 911 call, when he reported the incident. When the dispatcher asked why his dad shot the kid, Gipson pointed out that Andy Chow’s immediate response was: “We believe he was stealing something.” Rick Chow, who was led to and from the courtroom in shackles, listened from the defense table. He continues to be detained at the Richland County jail with no bail. Prosecutors hammered the point that Cyrus had taken nothing from the Shell Xpress Mart that night. When defense attorney Luke Shealey asked Andy Chow and his mom, Alice Chow, whether race played a part in their interactions with Cyrus, they said no. Suspicion of shoplifting bottled water Mother and son said they began closely watching the teen that evening because his actions appeared suspicious: Cyrus had his hands in his hoodie pocket, he seemed to be walking around the store aimlessly and kept looking at the store personnel. The teen had taken out four bottles of water from a cooler, but the store owners didn’t see that he put them all back. “So when you watched him, he stole nothing?” Gipson asked Andy Chow. “When your mother watched him, he stole nothing? When you reviewed the video, he stole nothing?” “After the fact, we learned he did not take anything,” Andy Chow said. The hearing, which is expected to run until Nov. 5, also presented multiple surveillance videos from the store. One showed that as Cyrus was leaving, Alice and Andy Chow asked if he had any water in his pocket. Cyrus said no, without removing his hands from his hoodie pocket. When he left the store, Andy and Rick Chow darted after him. The reason the men chased him, both Alice and Andy Chow testified, was to see which direction the teen went. They described this as store policy, since direction a suspect flees is among the information that gas station personnel need to provide police in the hopes of catching suspected shoplifters. Prosecutors challenged the Chows’ accounts, saying Andy and Rick Chow could have seen where Cyrus went without getting close to him. African-American leaders condemned shooting Days after the shooting, several local African-American leaders condemned the teen’s death as evidence of ongoing racial bias. When he died, Cyrus had just finished eighth grade at Summit Parkway Middle School, where he was part of a science, technology, engineering and mathematics program. State Rep. Todd Rutherford, the House minority leader, had said Cyrus’ killing was not an accident. "It’s something that the Black community has experienced for generations: being racially profiled, then shot down in the street like a dog,” he said on social media in May 2023. In a statement, U.S. Rep. Jim Clyburn, D-S.C., had said the suspected crime of shoplifting a bottle of water should not have cost Cyrus his life. “The criminalization of Black men and boys and the historic trend of painting them as aggressors have time and again led to deadly and heartbreaking circumstances,” Clyburn said. The authorities earlier said the Chows’ gas station, located in northern Richland County, had experienced a pattern of shoplifting based on hundreds of calls to the sheriff's department in the five years leading up to Cyrus’ shooting. In two incidents, Rick Chow shot at suspected shoplifters. He was not charged with a crime in either of those instances because investigators determined he was acting in self-defense.
