CHARLESTON, S.C. (WCIV) — Less than two weeks before North Charleston Police Chief Ron Camacho’s abrupt departure from the department, Ninth Circuit Solicitor Scarlett Wilson sent him a four-page letter outlining the “pervasive issues” she has observed with his agency that she alleges have directly interfered with her office’s ability to successfully pursue convictions like they are able to with cases handed off from other local agencies.
Dated July 29 and addressed directly to Chief Camacho, Wilson wrote that the letter, obtained by News 4 through a public records request, was to raise concerns about North Charleston Police Department investigations not from sporadic complaints, “but upon a series of ongoing concerns that lead me to believe there are pervasive issues within your agency.” Specifically, Wilson claims in the letter that issues of follow-up and discovery, some of which originated before Camacho’s tenure but still occurred during it, have created a situation that has left prosecutors with cases that are often not able to be successfully prosecuted due to the poor quality of NCPD’s casework.
Earlier in the year, Wilson, along with her senior litigator and North Charleston team leader, met with Chief Camacho and Assistant Chief Scott Perry to bring up the problems outlined in the letter, but she wrote that her office had not seen improvement by the end of July…