Assistant Chief of Police David L. “Buckshot” McIver was a 47-year-old male lawman serving the small town of Swansea, South Carolina, when his final call unfolded on June 7, 1979. A career officer and second-in-command of the Swansea Police Department, he was known locally by his nickname “Buckshot” and was deeply rooted in the community he served, eventually being laid to rest in the Ebenezer United Methodist Church cemetery just outside town.
That early summer day ended not with a formal call over the radio, but with a sudden crisis that unfolded right in front of him. McIver was at a service station when he saw a car roar past at high speed, moments later losing control and crashing into a roadside ditch. Unbeknownst to him, the four people inside that vehicle—three men in their early twenties and a woman in her early thirties—had already committed a robbery before their flight brought them down that Lexington County road.
True to his duty, McIver went to the scene of the one-vehicle accident, approaching the wrecked car to check on its occupants and take control of the situation. Instead of finding frightened crash victims, he walked into the midst of desperate suspects who refused to surrender. As he closed the distance, the group turned on him. The four attacked, beating the assistant chief in a sudden burst of violence before overpowering him and seizing his service handgun. In the struggle that followed, McIver was shot with his own weapon, the gunfire that echoed over that rural roadside becoming the act that would end his life.
The aftermath drew in officers from surrounding agencies and shook Swansea to its core. The suspects, already wanted in connection with the earlier robbery, now stood accused of killing a police officer in the line of duty. Accounts of the case note that four suspects were taken into custody in connection with McIver’s death, and later summaries of the incident record that at least one suspect was sentenced to life in prison, reflecting the gravity with which the courts treated the ambush killing of a town’s assistant chief of police.
In the years since, David “Buckshot” McIver’s name has been preserved on memorial rolls dedicated to officers killed in the line of duty, marking June 7, 1979, as his end of watch. His story is remembered not just as a statistic of gun violence, but as that of a small-town officer who stepped forward to help at what appeared to be a simple crash, only to confront armed fugitives with nothing but his training, his badge, and his sense of responsibility to the people of Swansea.
