Mount Pleasant standoff ends in gunfire, death

Mount Pleasant — A three-hour standoff in a quiet neighborhood Tuesday ended when a man who was holed up in his house with a gun stepped outside and was fatally shot.

The man was shot about 5:50 p.m. when he pointed the handgun at the throng of officers outside the house, Police Capt. Stan Gragg said.

Richard Cathcart III, 60, of Wappetaw Place, died about a half-hour later at Medical University Hospital, according to the Charleston County Coroner’s Office.

Mount Pleasant SWAT team officers fired the shots, Gragg said. They were outside the house with rifles.

“The subject came out of the residence, engaged the officers, the officers returned fire, and the subject was hit multiple times,” Gragg said.

When asked what “engaging the officers” meant, he said the man pointed a handgun at them and “their safety was in danger.”

Nobody else was inside the house, Gragg said.

The standoff started about 2:20 p.m. when officers received a call that a man was inside his house in the Parish Place neighborhood with a gun, Gragg said.

Nearby residents were evacuated, streets around the house blocked off and dozens of officers put into place. Loudspeakers were set up for a negotiator to try to communicate with Cathcart.

Over the course of the afternoon, Cathcart came out of his house twice, then went back inside, Gragg said.

“He was coming out basically taunting officers,” Gragg said. “At no time did he attempt to surrender.”

The last time Cathcart came out of the house, at least a dozen shots cracked the air in rapid succession. The shots were heard outside the police tape at least a block from the house. It wasn’t possible to tell whether they all came from the same gun.

Emergency medical workers rushed to a waiting ambulance parked outside the yellow police tape to take Cathcart to the hospital.

Chaplains from the Coastal Crisis Chaplaincy arrived to talk with anybody behind the police tape who needed comforting.

The State Law Enforcement Division was on the scene Tuesday night. SLED routinely investigates shootings that involve police officers.

Reach Dave Munday at 937-5553 or twitter.com/dmunday.