Fripp Island SC security officer will not be prosecuted in fatal shooting
Beaufort County SC April 7 2021
State law enforcement investigators’ report of a fatal shooting last year by a Fripp Island security guard has resulted in no criminal charges, prosecutors said.
Thomas Steffner Jr., 52, of Fripp Island was killed in the shooting on Oct. 20, 2020. The 14th Circuit Solicitor’s Office declined to bring criminal charges against the security guard who fired the shots, according to a document.
The report by the S.C. Law Enforcement Division, which investigates officer-involved shootings (including licensed security officers), was written to establish the facts of the shooting. The Solicitor’s Office then decides whether to bring the case before a grand jury.
At 10:20 p.m. a couple on vacation on Fripp Island was riding in a golf cart, on their way to star gaze, when they called 911 to report what they’d heard from a home on Tarpon Boulevard. The caller said a man was yelling at a woman, and it sounded like someone being hit.
The Beaufort County Sheriff’s Office received the call. Deputies were en route, but they asked whether any Fripp Island security officers were available to respond in the meantime.
Fripp Island Security Officer Michael Finnen was dispatched.
Finnen is a part-time security guard and full-time firefighter with the Lady’s Island/St. Helena Fire District. He previously served in the U.S. Marine Corps and is a reservist for the National Guard as a military police officer, according to the SLED report.
At 10:45 p.m., he was dispatched to the Tarpon Boulevard home and picked up another security officer, Dyana Watts, along the way.
They both had body cameras, though Finnen was unable to activate his.
He told SLED that he approached the backyard of the home, where music was playing, and found a man and a woman bickering on their second-floor outdoor patio.
They “sounded highly intoxicated and were slurring their words,” Finnen said.
He announced himself, and asked the man in a shirt and sweatpants, later identified as Thomas Steffner, to turn down the music so they could talk.
Steffner, the report said, turned the volume up and walked inside.
When he came back, Steffner “had his hand tucked under his shirt and wrapped around what Finnen thought was a gun,” the report said.
Finnen told SLED that he gave Steffner several oral warnings. Steffner walked within 15 feet of him and drew a gun from under his shirt, he said.
The other security guard, Watts, her body camera activated, walked up the stairs to the patio.
The camera wasn’t pointed at them, but Finnen can be heard on the recording, the report said.
“What do you got in your hand, drop it, I’ll f—-n’ kill you,” the guard said, on the body camera.
Then the camera captured the sound of five shots fired by Finnen, and Steffner collapsed.
The noise scared two dogs in the home; they rushed down from the patio and caused Watts to tumble down the stairs. Her body camera was deactivated as a result, she said.
When she got back up, she saw Finnen administering medical aid to Steffner. He was deceased.
A gun was recovered from Steffner’s hand and later turned in to SLED.
In Watts’ interview with SLED agents, she said she tried to comfort Finnen after the shooting. She told him he had to shoot; otherwise, he would have been shot.
“I know,” said Finnen to Watts, “But I didn’t want to kill him.”
Through a lawyer, Thomas Steffner’s wife declined to speak with the Island Packet and Beaufort Gazette newspapers.
Last year, she told SLED agents in a written statement that at no point in the night did she see Steffner with a gun, nor were they having an argument.
An autopsy report completed at the Medical University of South Carolina in Charleston said his cause of death was two gunshot wounds.
Steffner was a vice president of sales for Anderson Manufacturing, a Kentucky-based rifle manufacturer, according to Linkedin.
Beaufort County is home to many private communities with their own security forces, Fripp Island included.
SLED must certify security guards and companies to operate in South Carolina.
Those interested in becoming a security guard in the state are required to have at least eight hours of training to get a basic license. To be armed, another eight hours are required for firearms training.
In contrast, police officers and Sheriff’s deputies have to train for hundreds of hours at the S.C. Criminal Justice Academy.
It’s not uncommon for the Sheriff’s Office to ask security companies to respond first, said Fripp Island Chief of Security Glenn Tabasko in the SLED report.
They operate on a “customary system” in which security officers make initial contact and Sheriff’s deputies respond to the actual call.
Finnen’s law enforcement training included Military Police School and training through Fripp Island Security.
Geoff Alpert, a professor of criminology at the University of South Carolina, said prosecutors must weigh whether deadly force is justified.
“If a person pulls a gun on a security guard, putting the security guard and everyone else in fear of serious harm or death,” said Alpert, “you’re allowed in law to use deadly force to protect yourself.”
Incidents involving domestic violence or disputes are fraught with danger for police.
“It’s very complex, emotions that are all over the place. … It takes a lot of patience,” Alpert said. “In a situation where someone pulls a gun on you, then you have no time. It’s a split-second situation.”
