South Carolina police have fired on 209 suspects over the past five years, but only a few have been charged and none have ever been convicted, according to The State, a South Carolina newspaper.
Based on a review of public records, the North Charleston Police Department has been sued 46 times since 2000 in federal court alone. Many of the suits have been unsuccessful. Some were written by hand from jail and immediately thrown out. Others ran into trouble over evidentiary and procedural obstacles. Taken together, however, the legal documents present a stunning account of police brutality in North Charleston, where the population is 47 percent black but the police force is about 80 percent white, according to the Times.