A Columbia teen who was the driver for three people charged with opening fire on a Richland County Sheriff’s Deputy’s home has been denied bond.

Rayshaun Lair has been charged with eight counts of attempted murder and one count of possessing a weapon during a violent crime.

But Lair has not been accused of wielding any of the guns that unleashed a barrage of bullets on Aug. 20 on the home of Cpl. Terrance Crawford, a school resource officer with the Richland County Sheriff’s Department.

At the time of the shooting, eight people were inside the home on Crusader Court in Elgin, where authorities say Crawford was hosting a small gathering. In addition to Crawford and his fiancée, Yakita Hair, there were two guests, three underage children, and Crawford’s stepson, Antwan Ross. Ross was the intended target of the shooting, said assistant solicitor Stephanie Taylor.

Crawford and Hair were both shot in the leg. Hair’s 11-year-old child had been sitting at the kitchen table where the shots came through just minutes before the shooting began, Crawford told the court.

“There is not a shred of proof, not a statement that said my client knew what was going to happen before it happened,” said Lair’s attorney, state Rep. Todd Rutherford, D-Richland, who argued that his client simply gave a ride to his friends.

Dressed in a navy blue Alvin S. Glenn Detention Center jumpsuit, Lair stared at the floor for much of the 30- minute hearing in the Richland County Court. Rutherford, a prominent Columbia-area defense attorney, said that a bond as high at $100,000 with the added requirement of GPS monitoring, home confinement and no contact with the victims would have been appropriate.

But in emotional testimony, Crawford and Hair pleaded with Judge Robert Hood to deny Lair bond, saying that they are still traumatized by the shooting.

“I’m afraid to leave my boys home alone at night,” Crawford said, adding that sometimes he is still afraid that someone is outside of the house. “I was shot in the calf and am still dealing with that. (Hair) was shot in her left calf. Hers went further than mine and got infected. To see her in pain hurts me more than you can understand.”

The shooters knew the house was occupied because several cars were parked outside, including a marked Richland Sheriff’s Department vehicle, Taylor told the court.

“These young people did not care who was in that house,” said Richland County Sheriff Leon Lott.

Sheriff’s deputy was not the intended target

On the night of Aug. 20, Crawford said he was sitting on the back steps of his house with his friends when he noticed three figures walking around the cul de sac, peering at houses. He hadn’t seen them pull up in a car and, growing nervous, the off-duty sheriff’s deputy said he and his friends went inside.

A Ring camera at the scene captured nine to ten overlapping gunshots, allegedly fired by Lair’s co-defendants —Shawn Ledinerio Wise, 18; Damarrious M. Rodgers, 17; and Emmaurie L. Shorten, 17. Seconds later, Ross returned fire, shooting up to 10 times.

Approximately 20 shell casings were recovered from the scene, Taylor said.

Ross, who Taylor said had been recently released from prison, goaded Lair’s co-defendants into showing up at Crawford’s home that night.At the time of the shooting, Ross was out on bond following an Aug. 13 arrest for one charge of 2nd degree domestic violence.

Across a string of text messages, which investigators recovered from Ross’s phone after he allegedly tried to delete them following the shooting, Ross and Rodgers exchanged messages like “I’m outside, where are you?” and “drop the location,” referring to the practice of sending one’s exact whereabouts through apps like Google Maps.

Ross has since been charged with obstruction of justice for deleting the messages, Lott said. However, the sheriff indicated that because he was being shot at in his own home, he was not charged for returning fire.

Crawford said Ross was no longer living there.

The source of the conflict was “gang-related craziness; insignificant stuff,” Lott said at a press conference following the hearing.

But this feud had nothing to do with Lair, said Rutherford.

Lair, who turned 18 in jail, was not a gang member and did not have a record, said Rutherford. He described Lair as a good student who got Bs and As, who comes from a supportive, hardworking family. Lair, Rutherford said, had worked for a year at McDonald’s to save up the money to buy the car that he used to drive three friends to the scene of shooting.

“They (the state) say that Mr. Ross called several people in the car. He did not call my client: Didn’t know him; didn’t have beef with him; wasn’t fighting with him; wasn’t arguing with him…. This was a situation where a 17-year-old happened to have a car.”

But Taylor argued that Lair’s responsibility should not be minimized. In statements to law enforcement after his arrest, Lair allegedly said that he knew Ross was threatening his friends and he “weighed the pros and cons” of driving his friends across town to find him.

“Him being the driver facilitates this act. He knew what type of people they were,” Taylor said.

October 28, 2023 | State, The: Web Edition Articles (Columbia, SC)
Author/Byline: Ted Clifford, The State | Section: crime