After nearly a month of discussions with the Sixth Circuit Solicitor’s Office, the Fairfield County Sheriff’s Office this week said they had obtained a warrant and were pursuing charges against a Ridgeway man who shot a man from Cassatt, S.C. on Halloween.
According to reports from the Sheriff’s Office, the incident began as a domestic dispute on the morning of Oct. 31 at a home in the 6400 block of Smallwood Road. The victim in the dispute, a 19-year-old female from a nearby home also in the 6400 block of Smallwood Road, suffered bruises and swelling to unspecified parts of her body. Angered by the beating, the victim phoned two friends, including 28-year-old Kelvin Von Grant of Highway 1 N. in Cassatt, who arrived at the home at approximately 10:30 a.m. They backed their car, a Toyota Corolla, all the way up to the front door, got out of the car and began making threats against Bryston Christopher Harris, 26, the subject in the alleged domestic dispute. Witnesses at the scene reported the men said “they had 25 shots ready,” and they were going to “burn the house down.”
While Harris remained inside the home, the men from the Corolla tried to force their way inside. But Harris’s mother, 47-year-old Jeanette Simon, blocked their way. When the men began pushing her around, Harris reportedly picked up a double-barrel shotgun and fired a blast through the window of the front door. Grant and his unidentified accomplice scattered, jumped back into the Toyota and fled, Grant suffering from a gunshot wound to the shoulder. Grant and his driver were picked up a short time later in Kershaw County. Harris was charged with first-degree criminal domestic violence at the time. In the three and a half weeks since the shooting, investigators were able to compile enough evidence to tack on a charge of first-degree assault and battery. Harris’s arrest was still pending at press time.
