Opening statements began Wednesday in the murder trial of South Carolina store owner Chikei Rick Chow, who is charged in the 2023 fatal shooting of 14-year-old Cyrus Carmack-Belton. Prosecutors told the jury that Chow shot the boy in the back during a foot chase in Columbia after wrongly believing he had stolen four bottles of water from a gas station convenience store.
That account was met immediately with a starkly different one from the defense. Lawyers for Chow said Carmack-Belton pointed a semiautomatic pistol at Chow’s son, Andy, and that Chow fired one shot to defend him. Chow, who had a concealed weapons permit, also performed CPR on Carmack-Belton after the shooting.
Prosecutor Byron E. Gipson framed the case in moral terms as he addressed jurors. “Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, what is the value of a human life?” he said. He 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.”
Defense lawyer Jack Swerling answered with a claim of split-second necessity. “If he didn’t have that weapon, he never would have had a weapon to draw on Andy Chow,” Swerling said. He also told jurors, “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.”
The trial is the latest step in a case that immediately set off outrage in Columbia and beyond. Protesters came to Chow’s store the day after the shooting demanding justice, and the killing sent waves of anguish and grief through the African American community in Richland County, where nearly half the population is Black. Police records also showed Chow had shot at shoplifters twice in the past eight years without facing charges, a fact likely to weigh heavily as jurors sort out whether this shooting was a criminal act or a lawful defense.
What the jury must decide is whether prosecutors can prove Chow went too far when he chased a teenager over suspected theft, or whether the defense’s version of a threatened father stands up under scrutiny. The answer will turn on whether jurors believe Carmack-Belton had already posed a lethal threat when Chow fired one shot from 130-plus yards away.
