Berkeley County’s sheriff says a deputy shot while responding to a domestic disturbance call early Friday morning is in stable condition.
Sheriff Duane Lewis told reporters that Deputy Cody Gooch was one of three officers who responded to a home near St. Stephen to a domestic violence call. Lewis said the suspect 31-year-old Calvin Middleton left before they arrived, but the deputies were able to track down his vehicle and made a traffic stop.
But Lewis said Middleton got out of his car during the stop and began shooting at the deputies. “The deputies returned fire,” he said during an impromptu briefing at Trident Medical Center. “During that gunfight, one of my deputies was shot… and the suspect was also shot.”
Middleton is in the hospital and is also listed in “stable” condition. The State Law Enforcement Division is investigating, as it does for most officer-involved shootings in South Carolina.
Lewis said he visited Gooch at the hospital and the deputy is in “fine spirits.”
“He actually is taking the corporal’s test next week,” the sheriff told reporters. “And he asked me while he’s laying (sic) there in the hospital bed, ‘Sheriff can I still try out for the corporal’s test?’ So those are the type of things he’s thinking about.”