SC deputy who arrested Shai Werts in bird poop traffic stop resigns
About six months after his controversial, late-night traffic stop garnered headlines around the country, a Saluda County Sheriff's Office deputy has resigned.
Charles Allen Browder III used a field test to determine that a white substance on the hood of a car he pulled over July 31 was cocaine. Days later, further tests revealed the substance was bird poop, just as Georgia Southern University's starting quarterback, Shai Werts, told the deputy repeatedly during the stop.
Browder resigned from his post effective Jan. 20, Chief Deputy Toby Horne confirmed via email Thursday. Horned declined further comment.
The bizarre traffic stop flamed online debates about policing and reignited questions of the accuracy of the field drug tests used by law enforcement.
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An internal investigation conducted by the Saluda sheriff's office cleared Browder of wrongdoing, and he faced no discipline for his actions, according to personnel records obtained by The Greenville News in November via the state's Freedom of Information Act.
Browder had previously resigned rather than being fired from the Lexington County Sheriff's Office for conduct unbecoming an officer, according to records from the South Carolina Criminal Justice Academy.
In a letter accompanying his application to the Saluda County Sheriff's Office, Browder wrote that he made "some mistakes that I fully regret and have learned from. I was terminated from Lexington County for these mistakes and took full responsibility for them and was left without a job."
He worked at a chicken farm before being hired at Saluda County in October 2018.
Browder had also received an oral warning for insubordination in March 2019 for not following his supervisor's instructions when Browder personally responded to a call for service from a friend's girlfriend rather than having the woman call dispatch as instructed.
After being charged with cocaine possession, spending a night in jail and briefly being suspended from his football team, Werts was cleared of the charges when official results from a State Law Enforcement Division drug lab found no evidence of cocaine.
Werts' police stop was captured by bodycam and dashcam footage from the scene.
He had initially been pulled over on Chappells Highway when Browder placed him in handcuffs in his patrol vehicle and deputies searched Werts' car.
Browder decided to use a drug field test kit to test a white substance that covered part of the hood of Werts' car. He scrapped some of the white powdery substance into a plastic test-kit bag, crushed small vials of chemicals in the kit and watched the substance turn pink, a potential sign of the presence of cocaine.
On scene, Werts repeatedly told the deputy it was bird poop that he had tried to wash off his windshield the day before at a gas station.