Cyrus Carmack-Belton’s mother left the courthouse in Columbia, South Carolina, with her eyes filled with tears. Inside, the jury had just declared innocent the man who killed her 14-year-old son with a shot to the back.
The case had shaken the entire country since 2023. Rick Chow, then the owner of a convenience store, chased Cyrus more than 130 yards outside the store before pulling the trigger. The initial reason: the accusation that he had stolen four bottles of water. The security cameras, however, showed something different — the teenager had taken the bottles and returned them before leaving. Even so, the chase ended in a shooting. Cyrus was fleeing when the bullet struck him.
During the trial, no witness outside the Chow family testified to having seen a weapon in the teenager’s hands. Prosecutors repeated it until the end: there was no evidence of a threat. But the verdict came anyway. Three years of protests in Columbia, three years of a mother demanding justice, and on a Monday the jury said no. She left without her son and without the answer she was seeking.