‘Inexcusable’: Georgia man to spend nearly 45 years in prison after shooting SC trooper in the face

U.S. District Judge Mary Geiger Lewis sentenced him to 15 more years for illegally having a gun as a felon. However, eight years and four months of that will be served concurrently with his state sentence. So, her decision adds six years and eight months to his prison time.

Once he’s released, Gathers will spend three years under supervision to ensure he doesn’t reoffend.

Lewis gave Gathers a higher sentence than typically recommended under the legal guidelines because the crime was “terrible,” she said.

“Unbelievable,” she continued during the hearing. “Shocking. Inexcusable. Unfathomable, really.”

What happened

The charges stem from April 2023, when Lance Cpl. B.A. Frazier, a state Highway Patrol trooper, pulled Gathers over about 3:30 a.m. for speeding through rural Bamberg County at 90 mph, or 35 mph over the posted speed limit. Gathers was driving on U.S. Highway 78 just outside the town of Denmark, according to court documents.

At the time, he lived in Augusta, Georgia, roughly 75 minutes away at legal speeds.

While running Gathers’ driver’s license, Frazier noticed the photograph didn’t seem to match Gathers’ appearance. As he returned to the driver’s side of the car to check whether Gathers was the person in the picture, Gathers took out a stolen handgun and shot Frazier point-blank in the right cheek, according to court filings.

Gathers led police on a high-speed chase, covering about 18 miles over 11 minutes before crashing his car in a person’s front yard. The car, which had a passenger inside, flipped several times before coming to a stop.

Why Gathers shot Frazier during what was otherwise a routine traffic stop remains unclear, said prosecutor Lamar Fyall. Gathers probably would have spent the night in jail for driving with a fraudulent license before being released pending charges, Fyall said.

“That’s a crazy reason to shoot a law enforcement officer,” Fyall said.

Law enforcement officers understand a certain amount of risk comes with their jobs, Lewis said. But they should be able to know they’re safe during a routine traffic stop, she said.

“All these people go out there every day to do that, and they need to know they’ll be safe,” Lewis said.

Frazier survived and is back on the job as a state trooper. About a dozen of his colleagues, as well as the commander of the state Highway Patrol, came to support him during the hearing Thursday.

“I do have my days,” Frazier, who didn’t speak in court, told reporters after the hearing. “But, hey, as long as I can get back to work, man, I’m going to be OK.”

Recognizing the need for experienced officers, this year’s state budget includes $1.7 million to fund pay increases for state troopers who stay with the Department of Public Safety for more than a year.

At 18 months, an officer can become a trooper first class, which has a minimum salary of nearly $62,500, and at three years, they can make close to $64,000 at a minimum, according to the agency. The money will also give phone operators, who take and direct emergency calls, a 5% raise, according to budget documents.

‘Demons he needed to conquer’

Gathers was high at the time of the shooting and says he doesn’t remember what happened, said attorney Jeremy Thompson, his public defender.

“These are demons he needed to conquer before he got in the car that night, and he didn’t,” he said.

Gathers is generally a pleasant person, Thompson said. Every time they’ve spoken, Gathers has been “polite and kind and intelligent and interesting,” which makes his crime all the more inexplicable, Thompson said.

“I stand here baffled at why we are here,” Thompson said during the hearing.

Gathers declined his chance to address the judge in court Thursday. In a letter to the court, Gathers’ sister, Darlene Williams, asked Lewis not to add any additional time to his sentence.

Gathers has two daughters, one who is 23 and one who is 3, as well as an 8-year-old granddaughter, Williams wrote.

“My brother is a foundational pillar for our family across three generations,” Williams wrote.

Criminal history

Gathers’ previous criminal record swayed Lewis toward a harsher sentence, she said.

While this is his first conviction in South Carolina, Gathers’ history of run-ins with the law dates back to 2002, including both federal and state charges of assault, possession of drugs and illegally owning weapons.

He wasn’t allowed to own a gun because of previous federal convictions in New York of rape, criminal impersonation and illegal weapon possession, according to court filings.

Gathers’ most recent stint in prison was in New York, also for criminally possessing a weapon. It ended in 2020, three years before the shooting, according to court documents. Gathers has also lost privileges while in prison for being caught with drugs, a cellphone and a weapon last year, according to his inmate record.

Lewis said those charges suggested Gathers clearly hasn’t learned his lesson while in prison.

“Violence, violence, violence,” she said to him. “I don’t know what kind of sentence does deter you. It doesn’t seem like anything would deter you.”

In her 14 years as a federal judge, Lewis has presided over many violent and terrible crimes she struggled to understand, she said. Even so, Gathers’ case stood out for its seeming randomness, she told him.

“I see a lot of bad things in this courtroom, but this is impressive,” Lewis said. “It really is.”

Lewis asked Gathers to imagine the worst case scenarios of his actions. He could have easily killed Frazier when shooting him, she said. He could have hit another driver while speeding away from the crime. He could have caused another officer to crash during the high-speed chase he led, or killed the other person in the car with him, who wasn’t identified in court documents.

Only luck allowed everyone to get out of that situation alive, Lewis said.

Because of that, Gathers’ prison sentence was meant to keep law enforcement officers and the general public safe from Gathers’ erratic behavior, she said.

“I’m not saying you’re a bad person,” Lewis told him. “That’s between you and the good Lord. I’m just trying to keep everybody safe.”