South Carolina cop charged with Chick-fil-A shooting

An off-duty police officer has been charged with murder in South Carolina for the shooting death of a man outside a Chick-fil-A restaurant in the state, officials shared.

The South Carolina Law Enforcement Division charged Anthony DeLustro, 64, with the shooting death of Michael O’Neal, 39, of Winston-Salem, North Carolina, after the two men got into an altercation on March 20, SLED spokesperson Renée Wunderlich shared with WYFF .

DeLustro, a Summerville Police Department officer, has been booked at Berkeley County Detention Center for the shooting that occurred outside a Summerville Chick-fil-A.

Warrants showed that witnesses said they saw the confrontation between DeLustro and O’Neal, which escalated to the officer telling the other man he was under arrest, WCSC reported.

It was then that O’Neal, who was unarmed, attempted to leave the area in his vehicle, but DeLustro got into the front passenger seat of his car with his department-issued handgun, the warrant shared.

O’Neal told DeLustro to get out of his vehicle and attempted to drive when a single shot was fired, fatally striking O’Neal, according to an affidavit obtained by The New York Post .

DeLustro has claimed he resorted to deadly force because O’Neal drove away. He also told investigators that he could not get his legs out from beneath the moving vehicle. He was treated at a hospital for non-life-threatening injuries.

The Summerville officer also said he never saw a weapon on O’Neal, nor was he threatened by him, WYEF reported.

Still, DeLustro claimed he “was in fear for the community’s safety and his wife’s safety.”

The warrants cited surveillance footage and witness testimony that debate his claim, saying DeLustro “recklessly put himself in danger when he entered the victim’s vehicle armed with a handgun.”

“A reasonable person could not have reasonably believed that the victim posed a threat of imminent danger of death or serious bodily injury to others because the victim was unarmed, walked away from the altercation, and attempted to leave in his vehicle,” the warrant said.

The investigation remains ongoing at this point.