SPARTANBURG, S.C. — A vehicle hit a campus police officer at a small, private school in South Carolina on Monday night, and he fired into the car, fatally shooting a person inside, authorities said.
The officer was investigating a possible vehicle break-in at Spartanburg Methodist College, officials said. When the officer arrived, two men ran off, but one was quickly captured, South Carolina Law Enforcement Division spokesman Thom Berry said.
The other, who was a student at a different nearby college, tried to leave in the vehicle and struck the officer, who shot at the vehicle, Berry said.
The officer wasn’t seriously injured and was treated at the scene. A campus lockdown has been lifted, and classes will go on as normal Tuesday, according to the school.
The dead man was identified as 20-year-old Delvin Tyrell Simmons, a student at Limestone College. That’s about 25 miles away in Gaffney. The student’s permanent address in Ridgeway, near Columbia, Spartanburg County Coroner Rusty Clevenger said in a news release.
Limestone officials said Simmons had been majoring in early childhood education and was involved in the Fellowship of Christian Athletes program.
The name of the officer was not immediately released. State police said in a news release that there is no dash cam or body camera video of the incident.
The officer feared for his life and defended himself by shooting into the vehicle, Lt. Kevin Bobo of the Spartanburg County Sheriff’s Office said. The number of shots fired and the direction in which they were fired has not been determined, he said.
Bobo said students were never in danger and there was never an active shooter at the school, a two-year school with about 800 students in the northern part of the state.
