Last Sunday (July 23), a tragic incident occurred in South Carolina, where a 38-year-old man from the United States, Chuck Gilbert Shelton, drowned in a lake. It happened after he jumped into Lake Cunningham upon seeing the police, who were allegedly searching for someone else. Deputies at the scene attempted to rescue him but were unable to locate him.
The police clarified that Shelton was not the person they were originally looking for, and he fled for reasons unknown. The Greenville County Sheriff’s Office dive team was called in to find him, and his body was eventually recovered, according to the official statement.
The cause of death was determined to be an accidental freshwater drowning. As of now, the individual for whom the warrant was intended has not been identified.
This unfortunate incident stands out as one of the few cases where an individual, who was not the suspect, ran away from the police and tragically lost their life. In contrast, there have been past incidents where the police arrested the wrong suspect.
An illustrative case of this occurred in February 2019, involving Nijeer Parks, who was falsely accused of shoplifting and attempting to assault a police officer with a car at a Hampton Inn in Woodbridge, New Jersey. The police had mistakenly identified him using facial recognition software, despite evidence showing he was actually 30 miles away from the incident at the time. Parks endured 10 days of imprisonment and had to pay $5,000 to defend himself. In November of the same year, the case was eventually dismissed due to a lack of evidence. Subsequently, Parks filed a lawsuit against the police department, citing “false arrest, false imprisonment, and violation of his civil rights.”
