Rick Chow (Richland County Sheriff’s Office), Cryus Carmack-Belton (Facebook/Nikki Cole)
A South Carolina mom is demanding murder charges against a convenience store owner’s son who “initiated the chase” of a 14-year-old boy shot in the back after being “falsely accused” of shoplifting water.
Nikki Cole posted Saturday that 58-year-old accused murderer and Shell gas station owner Rick Chow should not be the only person facing charges in the Memorial Day weekend shooting death of Cyrus Carmack-Belton in Columbia.
As Law&Crime reported when news of the case first broke, Richland County Sheriff Leon Lott called the shooting “disturbing.” He told reporters Carmack-Belton “did not shoplift anything” and that authorities had “no evidence that he stole anything whatsoever.”
Rick Chow and his son Andy Chow allegedly believed that Carmack-Belton tried to shoplift water bottles on the night of May 28, a Sunday, and they chased the teen after a “verbal confrontation inside the convenience store,” authorities said.
“The son of the owner of the convenience store gave chase. The father who owns the convenience store joined in the chase. He was armed with a pistol,” Lott said, revealing that Carmack-Belton “was not even on the property of the store” when he was shot.
Carmack-Belton was shot by Rick Chow in the back at the nearby Springtree Apartments, authorities alleged, after Andy Chow said that Carmack-Belton had a gun.
“At some point, the [suspect’s] son said that he had a gun — that the victim had a gun — and we did recover a gun that was close to his body,” the sheriff said previously. “At that point the father shot the young man in the back. He was not laying on the ground. He did not have his hands up.”
As a result, Carmack-Belton’s mother Nikki Cole is calling for Andy Chow to face charges along with his father.
“My son Cyrus Monroe Carmack-Belton was murdered May 28, 2023. Rick Chow racially profiled and falsely accused Cyrus of stealing. Rick Chow and his son Andy Chow chased my 14 yr. old son off the gas station property and down Springtree Dr. shooting him in the back. Rick Chow was arrested but his son remains free. (Andy Chow initiated the chase of my beloved son),” Cole wrote over Father’s Day weekend, before calling on supporters to contact Solicitor of the Fifth Circuit Byron Gipson. “[D]emand that RickChow’s son ANDY CHOW is also charged in the murder of Cyrus Monroe Carmack-Belton #Justice4Cyrus #cyruscarmackbelton #arrestandychow4murder.”
As of Monday, June 19th, Rick Chow faces a murder charge and remains detained at the Alvin S. Glenn Detention Center.
After the shooting, the sheriff revealed that the gas station store Chow owns has had “lots of shoplifting incidents in the past” and that the family has also been attacked.
“There’s been many instances there, where this store owner has confronted people that’s been shoplifting,” Lott said. “There’s been assaults on his family, too. He has not been charged in any of these other cases because they did not rise to the level where he should have been charged.”
Chow reportedly fired shots at shoplifters in 2015 and 2018 incidents but he was not charged.
The sheriff said weeks ago that the shooting of Carmack-Belton was different, even though the teen had a gun.
“What clouded the issue is that the victim did have a gun. There was a confrontation. We had to make sure that those who fired the shots did not have that gun pointed at them, and they did not — in legal terms — be in fear of their life,” the sheriff said. “Rick Chow shot this young man in the back and he killed him.”
“You don’t shoot someone in the back who’s not a threat to you. That’s the same standard that we do — the same standard that cops live by. You have to be defending someone’s life or your life, and there has to be an immediate danger to you at that point,” Lott added. “And someone who is running away, and there’s no indication that he was pointing a gun at anybody when he was running away, he was shot in the back.”
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