Whether 14-year-old Cyrus Carmack-Belton was a shoplifter or not, he acted like one and was armed. Chasing him down and shooting him in the back wasn’t right and the shopkeeper will be prosecuted for that. Even so, it’s really easy to see why Rick Chow did it. A couple bottles of water might not seem like much but they were the last straw to make the retailer snap.
One shoplifter too many
Since the cops won’t do anything about the out of control chronic shoplifter crisis, Rick Chow was ready to do it himself and kill them like cockroaches. The Memorial Day weekend wasn’t a good one in Columbia, South Carolina.
On Sunday, the owner of the local Shell gas and convenience store was arrested and charged with murder in the death of Cyrus Carmack-Belton, age 14, “who did not shoplift anything,” everyone insists. He put the bottles back. The owner didn’t care. He’d had enough of the local hoodlums.
Richland County Sheriff Leon Lott spent the holiday speaking to reporters and related that the facts of the case “are very disturbing.” Maybe they will be disturbing enough for the city council to hire a cop or two. Nobody disputes that the owner of the store “chased after Cyrus Carmack-Belton around 8 p.m. on Sunday and shot the teen in the back.” He totally wasn’t a shoplifter, everyone insists. It doesn’t matter now.
An Asian store owner in Columbia SC named Rick Chow, falsely accused a 14 year old CHILD Cyrus Carmack-Belton (the sheriff keeps referring to the victim as a “young MAN”) of shoplifting. And the store owner and his son chased the Black boy down and shot him in the back, killing… pic.twitter.com/UMqnPr4vR1
— Tariq Nasheed ?? (@tariqnasheed) May 30, 2023
The sheriff went out of his way to explain that “there was no evidence that the victim shoplifted water bottles, no evidence of a physical confrontation, and no evidence that the armed 14-year-old had pointed his firearm at the suspect.” Obviously a sweet and innocent upstanding young citizen. “The owners of the convenience store suspected him of shoplifting,” Lott said. “He did not shoplift anything. We have no evidence that he stole anything whatsoever.” This time.
There was a “verbal confrontation inside the convenience store,” though, the Sheriff grudgingly admits, after which Carmack-Belton “took off running.” That’s when “the son of the owner of the convenience store gave chase. The father who owns the convenience store joined in the chase. He was armed with a pistol.”
By the time they caught up the fugitive suspected shoplifter and shot him dead, they were already off their own property. They cornered him “at the nearby Springtree Apartments.”
Teen had a gun
Police note that “at some point, the [suspect’s] son said that he had a gun — that the victim had a gun — and we did recover a gun that was close to his body.” As in out and available for use, not holstered or even in a pocket or tucked in his waistband.
“At that point the father shot the young man in the back. He was not laying on the ground. He did not have his hands up.” And he wasn’t a shoplifter. He’ll be canonized as a saint in the very near future.
Even if he did steal or try to steal some water bottles, shooting him in the back after hunting him down isn’t a justified use of Second Amendment related rights. It was a crime and it was murder. The man who pulled the trigger is actually in custody, which is something police won’t do to a shoplifter. The merchant will end up taking responsibility for his crime and serving time for it. Everyone realizes the punishment of death doesn’t fit this retail theft crime. That’s not the point.
HAPPENING TODAY: This is the scene today at the Shell gas station on Parklane Drive in Columbia.
Richland Co. Deputies say the store was vandalized after the owner Rick Chow was charged with the murder of 14-year-old Cyrus Carmack-Belton. @wachfox pic.twitter.com/wuLJ2rwujL
— Sydni Edwards (@SydniSpeakstv) May 30, 2023
While a dead young man is a tragedy, the life of the shopkeeper and his entire family was ruined in the same split second. The only reason he did it is because he feels powerless against the rampant theft and other liberal social problems which used to be considered crimes. Nobody condones what Mr. Chow did but we understand how he got to that point.
Sheriff Lott makes it clear that even if he can’t enforce the law, you shouldn’t try to do it yourself either. That’s how mistakes happen. “Regardless, even if he had shoplifted four bottles of water, which is what he initially took out of the cooler and then he put them back, even if he’d done that, that’s not something you shoot anybody over, much less a 14-year-old, but you just don’t do that.” Society didn’t used to need reminders not to shoot someone for a minor social infraction, like forgetting the french fries on your drive through order.
Just let the shoplifter have what they want, the Sheriff suggests. “There’s been many instances there, where this store owner has confronted people that’s been shoplifting,” Lott said. “There’s been assaults on his family, too. He has not been charged in any of these other cases because they did not rise to the level where he should have been charged. Last night it rose to that level, and that’s why he’s charged with murder today.“