Family of Lucius Benjamin Gibbs, South Carolina man shot by Lee County deputies, want body cam video

Attorneys for a South Carolina man fatally shot be Lee County sheriff’s deputies in Alabama are asking that body camera footage of the deadly shooting be released to the public.

Marvin Pendarvis, a civil rights attorney and South Carolina state representative, told Count on 2 television news station Wednesday that he is representing the family and is calling for transparency.

Both Pendarvis and Lee County Sheriff Jay Jones said the sheriff met Tuesday with family members of 58-year-old Lucius Benjamin Gibbs, who was reported missing June 7 and then killed June 9 after authorities say he fired on deputies.

“We extended our sympathy to them on the loss of their loved one,’’ Jones said in a prepared statement Tuesday. “They are understandably seeking information regarding the encounter between Lee County Sheriff’s deputies and Mr. Gibbs the evening of June 9, 2023.”

“We’re not here to point fingers at anyone,” Candance Brewer of the Racial Justice Network, which is working with Pendarvis, told the television station. “We just want whatever happened to be disclosed in a timely fashion. Body cam videos, 911 calls, incident reports, etc.”

Gibbs, a husband, father and grandfather, was last seen June 6 near a Charleston mall.

Two days after Gibbs disappeared, Lee County deputies received a 911 call reporting a possible intoxicated driver traveling eastbound on U.S. 280 near the intersection of Lee Road 250 in the Bleeker community of southeast Lee County.

The call told dispatchers a white Ford pickup truck was serving across lanes and had run off the road into a ditch, sheriff’s officials said.

A deputy arrived on the scene about 10:55 p.m. and found the truck in a ditch less than a mile east of Lee Road 250 off U.S. 280.

The deputy approached the truck and saw a man appeared to be asleep in the driver’s seat. The deputy also spotted a rifle in the seat beside the man.

The deputy, sheriff’s officials said, then called for another deputy to come to the location. That deputy arrived at 11 p.m., and the deputies then noticed the truck beginning to back out of the ditch.

At that point, sheriff’s officials said, a gunshot was fired at the deputies. The two deputies returned fire and then called for medics when they realized the man had been shot.

Sheriff’s officials said deputies noticed the man had a handgun in one hand, and a semi-automatic shotgun with an extended magazine in the seat beside him.

The man, later identified as Gibbs, was pronounced dead on the scene.

The State Bureau of Investigation is leading the probe.