In 1997, "Happy" John Dine was waiting at a bus stop for a bus. Inside his fanny pack, he had a toy gun.

Officer Connor Carey of the SCPD pulled up to where he was at, jumped out of his car with his weapon drawn, went into a "combat stance" while training his gun on Happy.

Happy, who had been repeatedly harassed by the police on previous occasions, said "Fuck off!"
Carey fired two shots into Dine, killing him.
The shooting occurred 5 seconds after Carey got out of his car.

Officer Martin Over, went over to Happy's mortally wounded body, turned him over, looking for the toy gun, and finally found it in the fanny pack. He then threw it on the sidewalk.

Police Chief Belcher held a press conference at 10:00PM in which he claimed that Dine had pointed a toy gun at Carey prior to being shot.

The next Day, then DA Art Danner repeated this fiction that Dine had pointed a gun at the officers. Both Belcher and Danner exonerated the officers involved.

The problem was there were 10 eyewitnesses, such as Stacey Buckalew who reported to the police that Dine had nothing in his hand when he was shot. In fact, none of the non-police eyewitnesses saw a gun in Dine's hand.

Even SCPD Conner Carey reported in the sheriffs office investigation into an officer-involved shooting, that he had shot Dine when he was "reaching" for a gun.

The Citizens Police Review Board also concluded that Dine had no gun in his hand when he was shot, but bought the "reaching" argument. They exonerated Carey for the shooting. They failed to hold Belcher or Danner accountable for giving a false report to the press.

If the SCPD can get away with murder, then what else can they get away with?