COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — Two deputies shot and injured in a training exercise in South Carolina were wounded by ammunition taken from a plastic bag in a desk drawer and not properly tested to see if they were blanks, a sheriff said Wednesday.
Gov. Henry McMaster announced Wednesday that he would be issuing an executive order to limit SNAP purchases in the next few days.
The officers were injured by what turned out to be breaching rounds used by police to break down doors and windows that were fired by an officer acting as a gunman in the July 29 training scenario, Greenville County Sheriff Hobart Lewis said. Both deputies are recovering.
Instead of getting rounds for the training out of the heavily controlled sheriff’s armory, deputies took rounds they believed were blanks from a plastic bag in a desk drawer, Lewis said.
The officers followed regulations and test-fired the rounds to see if they were blanks, but fired into a berm from too far away and didn’t realize they were breaching rounds, which contain gunpowder and have enough power to knock down doors at close range, the sheriff said…