On the 28th of May, 2023, in Columbia, South Carolina, a gas station owner watched what he thought was a shoplifting incident happen in the store section of his station. He believed the teenager had taken four bottles of water and, after a short confrontation, as the young man ran out of the door, the owner chased him with his lawfully permitted weapon in hand.
The man's son charged out with his father in pursuit.
Somewhere in the darkness, seconds later, a shot rang out, and the teenager was dead from a bullet in the back.
The teenager, Cyrus Carmack-Belton, was black, and the store owner, Rick Chow, is Asian American.
This is how news reports framed it at the time.
A South Carolina gas station owner accused of chasing a 14-year-old boy from his store and fatally shooting him in the back made his first court appearance Tuesday on a murder charge in the death.
Rick Chow thought the boy had shoplifted four bottles of water Sunday night from his Xpress Mart Shell station in Columbia, authorities said. But Cyrus Carmack-Belton put the bottles back in the cooler and was off the store’s property and running away when he was killed, Richland County Sheriff Leon Lott said.
...Chow, who had a concealed weapons permit, was charged after an autopsy showed the middle school student was shot in the back and deputies spoke to witnesses and reviewed surveillance and other video, Lott said.
Self-defense law in South Carolina requires the shooter doesn’t instigate the incident, believes he is in imminent danger and has no way to avoid that danger.
“You don’t shoot somebody in the back that is not a threat to you,” the sheriff said. “Same standard the cops live by.”
This is the part they briefly touched on, which the Richland County Sheriff, Leon Lott, inexplicably dismissed out of hand.
...A gun was found near the teen’s body and Chow’s son, who also was involved in the chase, told his father that Carmack-Belton was armed after the youth fell as he ran, according to the sheriff. But Lott said there was no evidence the boy ever pointed the weapon at Chow or his son.
Sheriff Lott says there was 'no evidence' the FOURTEEN-YEAR-OLD POINTED THE GUN. Not that a fourteen-year-old had a gun in his pants, mind you.
The sticking point is no one saw him 'point' it.
Oh.
In a county that is half black, that quickly became the excuse across the community and throughout the media reports fanning the flames of resentment in order to deify the dead and demonize the accused.
'Well, yes, he had a gun, but no one ever saw him point it.'
Elected officials met a South Carolina community mourning the death of a 14-year-old boy who authorities say was fatally shot in the back by a gas station owner with calls to channel their righteous anger into collective support and political action.
Over 60 people gathered Friday evening for a prayer vigil across the street from the Xpress Mart Shell station in Columbia less than one week after authorities say owner Rick Chow killed Cyrus Carmack-Belton after chasing down the Black teenager, whom he wrongly suspected of stealing four water bottles.
“I am angry,” Richland County Councilwoman Yvonne McBride said. “I’m angry about what happened. I’m angry because a young innocent baby was taken brutally from us.”
Chow, 58, was charged with murder after an autopsy showed that Carmack-Belton was shot in the back when off the store’s property running away, Richland County Sheriff Leon Lott said. While Chow thought the youth had shoplifted, investigators said store videos showed Carmack-Belton returned the four water bottles to the cooler. Chow’s son told his father that the teen was armed, according to Lott, but there is no evidence that the gun found near Carmack-Belton’s body was ever directed at them.
No mention of what the fourteen-year-old was doing with what was later acknowledged to be a semi-automatic pistol with laser sights in his drawers, and no question about why.
Even county officials seemed content to let sleeping guns lie.
...Richland County Coroner Naida Rutherford stressed to vigil attendees that Carmack-Belton did not have the gun out.“There was a young boy killed right across the street, and he didn’t deserve to die,” Rutherford said.
Chow's store was subsequently vandalized, and there were vigils held in front of it, with the teen's name spelled out in empty bottles.
There was nothing Chow could do, as he'd been taken into custody and held without bond from the day of his arrest in 2023.
In November of 2025, his attorneys petitioned a judge for immunity under the state's 'Stand Your Ground' statute and asked for a bail hearing at the same time.
The judge denied both, calling Chow a 'danger to the community.
Last Wednesday, Rick Chow's day in court finally arrived.
A South Carolina jury heard opening statements Wednesday in the trial of a store owner charged with murder in the 2023 fatal shooting of a Black 14-year-old, which a prosecutor called unprovoked and a defense lawyer insisted was an act of defense.
Chikei Rick Chow, 61, who is Asian, shot Cyrus Carmack-Belton in the back during a foot chase in Columbia, believing — wrongly, prosecutors say — that he had stolen four bottles of water from the gas station convenience store. The killing sent waves of anguish and grief through the African American community in Richland County, where nearly half the population is Black.
While prosecutors acknowledge Carmack-Belton had a semiautomatic pistol, they say it fell on the ground during the chase and he never threatened anyone with it. But defense lawyers said the teen pointed the pistol at Chow’s son, Andy, and Chow fired one shot in his son’s defense. Chow had a concealed weapons permit.
“Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, what is the value of a human life?” prosecutor Byron E. Gipson asked. “To grieving parents who lost a 14-year-old to senseless acts of violence, a human life is priceless.”
Gipson added: “But on May 28, 2023, Chikei Rick Chow, the defendant in this case, determined that Cyrus Carmack-Belton’s life was worth less than four bottles of water.”
NOBODY SAW HIM POINT IT
The prosecutor poured on the progressive outrage as protestors had done in the immediate aftermath of the tragedy.
...Protesters came to Chow’s store the day after the shooting demanding justice and saying Chow mistreated Black customers...
Chow, the prosecutor said, 'falsely accused' the teenager of stealing, chased him down the street 'while armed with a pistol,' and shot him in the back.' 'Heinous.' 'Senseless.'
The defense lawyer plainly expressed what had been like a huge, omnipresent cloud looming over every word spoken by prosecutors, written in the media, and wailed by anguished family and friends in the black community.
WHY DID THAT FOURTEEN-YEAR-OLD HAVE A WEAPON
...Defense lawyer Jack Swerling began his opening statements questioning why the teen was carrying a pistol equipped with a laser sight around the streets of Columbia.
“If he didn’t have that weapon, he never would have had a weapon to draw on Andy Chow,” Swerling said. “He never would have had a weapon to put Andy Chow in danger. And he never would have had a weapon that would cause Mr. Chow to believe his son was going to be shot and have to make a split-second decision — a split-second decision — as to whether or not to go ahead and fire that gun and protect his son.”
And there was a tiny grace note.
...Afterward, Chow performed CPR on Carmack-Belton, which Swerling said helps prove Chow acted without malice — a required element of a murder charge in South Carolina.
The jury returned its verdict this morning.
They must have agreed that something got pointed and that fourteen-year-olds shouldn't run with guns.
Explosive shock twist in Columbia, SC.
— National Conservative (@NatCon2022) June 2, 2026
The Asian gas station owner, accused of chasing a 14 year-old Black shoplifter down the street, and fatally shooting him in the back, has been AQUITTED of murder.
Chow had been denied bond and spent three years in jail already. pic.twitter.com/UrUfkWNFFj
BUT NO ONE SAW HIM POINT IT
Wow “The state does not dispute that the teen had a 9 mm pistol with a laser on him that night, but argues he had no intention of using it.” https://t.co/zjRhELFKrP
— Stephen Ballion (@mountainofspoon) June 2, 2026
This entire case should make everyone in that community ill.
And it's one more note in the folder of kids - literally, kids - carrying weapons and expensive ones at that.
Who bears the responsibility for that, especially when those children wind up dead themselves, or worse - taking other people with them.
The majority of the black community is in complete avoidance and deflection mode - there. I said it.
It's not like the rest of us don't have our own deadly juvenile delinquents, because we all know we do, and it would be a lie to pretend otherwise. But what they're not doing is offing themselves at the cyclic rate that black kids are. Whole generations in some areas are succumbing to the violence around them.
Terrible and terrifying: teens with guns, Chicago pic.twitter.com/VaQODojWmz
— CAIN (@66cain92) January 11, 2024
I mean, I don't have to make any of it up. They make their own videos.
Chicago, Illinois
— Shane (@shane7777ssss) November 4, 2023
A large group of young black teens show off their illegal guns with switches and lasers.
If a large group of White teens did this, it would be national news about how White Supremacy is the greatest threat to the homeland. pic.twitter.com/RgkeKQ5kpv
It's not Chicago, New York, or Los Angeles. It's Columbia, SC, and pick a city in Florida, or Oklahoma, wherever. It's everywhere.
Parents are apparently none the wiser. These kids are carrying amazing firepower at any time of the day, to any event, no matter how small or benign, and if something goes wrong or, God forbid, harsh language, or disrespect? Bullets fly that hardly even make a blip in the news anymore; it happens so often. The very first thing they do is pull a piece out, and they have no self-control.
Then it's boohoo, got to stop the violence, but no one ever checks the kids' sock drawers for their Glock or AK stash. Or hugs them before the fourteen-year-old goes out the door at 11 p.m. (!) and feels the slung piece across his shoulders under his zip-up hoodie.
Honestly.
I have no answers. I'm just so sick of it.
And my heart breaks for any parent who loses a child, but it also breaks for someone who spends three years rotting in a jail cell who might well have been protecting his own child from theirs.
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