FAIRFIELD – Michael Bernard Roseboro, the former Winnsboro Department of Public Safety Officer who shot his estranged wife while on duty last October, was sentenced to 17 years in prison last week. Prosecutors for the Sixth Judicial Circuit accepted a guilty plea to a reduced charge of assault and battery of a high and aggravated nature on April 11. Roseboro was originally charged with attempted murder and faced a maximum sentence of 20 years.
Roseboro was on duty with the Department of Public Safety when, at around 9:15 p.m. Oct. 28, he drove his patrol car to the home of his estranged wife, Keisha Roseboro, at 148 8th Street and shot her one time with his service weapon. Roseboro fled the scene in his squad car, prompting a search that lasted four days. Roseboro was surrounded by agents from the State Law Enforcement Division at Camp Welfare on Nov. 1 and, in the middle of negotiating his surrender with Fairfield County Chief Deputy Keith Lewis, shot himself one time in the chest as officers closed in.
Roseboro had been with the Department of Public Safety for three months at the time of the shooting and had also served with the Fairfield County Sheriff’s Office from 2001 to 2010, first as a deputy and finally as an investigator. He was fired for lying to County officials about the sale of a fire department pumper truck.
Keisha Roseboro has since filed a civil lawsuit against the Department of Public Safety on behalf of herself and her two children who witnesses the shooting.
John T. Mobley, attorney for Takisha (Keisha) Roseboro, filed the complaint Feb. 26 in the Sixth Judicial Circuit’s Court of Common Pleas in Fairfield County. The suit claims that the Winnsboro Department of Public Safety was negligent in hiring and retaining Michael Roseboro, knowing that “prior to October of 2012, multiple parties have filed claims and made allegations indicating that (Michael) Roseboro had a history of using excessive force and/or engaging in other conduct that indicated he was mentally unstable and or had a tendency to engage in violent behavior,” the complaint states.
According to the complaint, The Winnsboro Department of Public Safety “knew, or should have known, that the continued employment of (Michael) Roseboro would create an unreasonable risk of harm to others.”
Roseboro, along with officer Dwayne Robinson, the Town of Winnsboro and the Department of Public Safety, were named as defendants in a 2001 lawsuit filed by Ronnie O. Armstrong. That suit, which was settled in 2003, claimed negligent use of unreasonable and excessive force, false arrest and confinement, assault, battery and outrage, as well as negligent hiring and negligent supervision and training.
