VIDEO: Killing of Black Teen Ends In Acquittal

A gavel next to a card that reads 'Acquittal' — BOMBSHELL ACQUITTAL

A 130-yard chase over bottled water ended with a 14-year-old dead and a South Carolina jury saying the shooter was not a murderer.

Story Snapshot

A 61-year-old store owner shot teen Cyrus Carmack-Belton in the back after a chase and was acquitted of murder by a South Carolina jury.
Prosecutors said the boy stole nothing, was fleeing, and was shot after dropping a hidden gun he never used.
The defense argued the store owner fired one shot to protect his son from an armed teen.
The verdict exposes a growing clash between property crime, self-defense claims, and public outrage.

The confrontation that began with water and ended in gunfire

Security cameras in a Columbia, South Carolina convenience store captured the beginning of a story that would end in a homicide trial. According to prosecutors, 14-year-old Cyrus Carmack-Belton walked through the store in a red hoodie and backpack, picked up bottled water, then put it back before leaving the items behind.^[1]^[3]

The state said the video showed he took nothing from the store that night, even as the owner’s family loudly accused him of stealing and demanded he empty his pockets.^[3]

As Cyrus tried to walk out, the argument escalated. The owner’s adult son confronted him, and the teen left with his backpack, prosecutors said, still denying he had stolen anything.^[3]

The boy headed away from the business, but the owner, 61-year-old Chikei “Rick” Chow, and his son did not stay inside. They followed him out the door and then ran after him down the road. Prosecutors later told jurors that what happened next turned a baseless accusation into a fatal pursuit.^[1]^[3]

The 130-yard chase and the shot in the back

On the street outside, the encounter became a chase. Prosecutors told the jury that Chow and his son pursued the teenager more than 130 yards off the property, shouting and closing in while Chow carried a handgun.^[1]^[2]^[3]

As Cyrus fled, he lost items along the way: his shoe, his phones, and eventually his backpack, suggesting a panicked attempt to get away from two adults chasing him at night.^[1]^[3] The state called this sequence the story of a frightened kid trying to create distance, not a robber escalating a fight.^[3]

Prosecutors acknowledged that Cyrus carried a pistol that night, tucked in the front pocket of his hoodie, but emphasized that neither Chow nor his family knew that while they accused him of stealing inside the store.^[3] The state’s theory was that the gun fell out only after Cyrus tripped over a curb, fell, and dropped his backpack in the roadway.^[1]^[3]

Within moments of that fall, Chow fired a .45 caliber round that struck the teen in the back and killed him, according to the prosecution’s narrative and medical evidence referenced in court.^[1]^[3]

The defense-of-others claim that persuaded the jury

Chow never denied pulling the trigger. The entire defense hinged on why he fired. Defense attorneys argued he did not execute a fleeing shoplifter; they said he shot once to protect his son after the teenager allegedly pointed the pistol at the young man during the chase.^[2]

Under South Carolina law, if jurors believed Chow reasonably thought his son faced imminent death or great bodily harm, they could reject murder and accept a defense-of-others justification.

That claim turned the hidden pistol from a damaging fact for the teen into a lifeline for the defendant. Prosecutors stressed that Cyrus never threatened or cursed at anyone inside the store and that video showed no brandishing of a weapon there.^[3] They argued the threat had ended once the boy fled and that Chow created the danger by chasing him off the property.^[1]^[3]

But the defense only needed one reasonable story: armed teen, pointed gun, father defending his son in a split second. The jury ultimately found that story created at least reasonable doubt and acquitted Chow of murder.^[2]

Race, property, and the question of responsibility

The case struck nerves nationwide because the dead child was Black, the shooter was an Asian immigrant store owner, and the spark was a suspected theft that prosecutors said never happened.^[1]^[2]

For many observers, it looked like a replay of cases where racial suspicion plus minor alleged wrongdoing ended with a young Black male killed and no murder conviction. For others, the crucial fact was simpler: the teen was unlawfully armed, and the store owner had the right to defend his family when faced with a gun.

Store Owner Who Chased A 14-Year-Old Over 130 Yards And S,hot Him In The Back Over Alleged Water Bottle Theft Has Been Found Not Guilty Of M,urder

A South Carolina jury has found former convenience store owner Rick Chow not guilty of m,urder in the 2023 s,hooting d,eath of… pic.twitter.com/0FtSfZMbQE

— DAILY VIBES (@Dailyvibes111) June 2, 2026

Common-sense instincts usually split the difference: support firm consequences for crime, but draw a hard line against deadly force once a threat has clearly ended. That line is exactly where this trial lived.

The prosecution tried to prove the threat ended when Cyrus ran away and was shot in the back after falling and dropping a gun he never aimed.^[1]^[3] The defense hammered the moment when, they claimed, the barrel pointed at Chow’s son; if jurors believed that, the law tilted toward acquittal.^[2]

What this verdict signals for future self-defense cases

This was not a referendum on whether shoplifting should be tolerated; it was a test of how far a citizen can go, gun in hand, once someone runs. Jurors heard about a child chased over suspicion of stolen water, shot after a long pursuit, and still concluded the state had not proven murder beyond a reasonable doubt.^[1]^[2]

That outcome signals how powerful self-defense and defense-of-others narratives remain, especially when a gun in the victim’s possession can be linked to even a brief, disputed threat moment.^[2]