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As Dorchester County's coroner, Chris Nisbet would use the N-word as a term for black people he considered thugs, he said in newly released court records.
But Nisbet, whose investigations of police shootings drew criticism from black activists, said he saw nothing wrong with white officeholders like him saying the word that many consider racist.
"I mean, that's a personal preference," he said. "You can't tell an elected official what to do. That's the great thing about South Carolina, right?"
Nisbet's 20-year tenure as the county's top death investigator ended after calling a black neighbor the N-word and pulling out a gun in August 2015. The confrontation happened within months of the racially charged shootings of a black man by a white North Charleston police officer and of nine black church worshippers by self-avowed white supremacist Dylann Roof.
Nisbet's deposition came to light this week through a civil rights lawsuit that the neighbor, Leroy Fulton, filed in federal court. During the interview, excerpts of which can be viewed through a restricted YouTube link, Nisbet explained his use of the epithet, delighted in the shootings of apparent street criminals and lamented the demise of his career.
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Fulton's Charleston attorneys, Mullins McCleod and David Aylor, called Nisbet's racial animus "disturbing" and alleged that the coroner might have shot Fulton if the police hadn't shown up that day.
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Nisbet often ruled shooting deaths by police as suicides, reasoning that anyone who confronts officers with a weapon has a death wish. In one case shortly before his encounter with Fulton, he said police have no choice but to shoot at "known thugs" who endanger them. Family members of the man killed, along with advocates, took exception.
A few weeks later, Nisbet sprung into action in his Summerville community after a repo man showed up at Fulton's home across the street.
The repo man reported that Fulton pointed a gun and threatened to kill him. Nisbet followed Fulton, who eventually stopped the truck that was being repossessed. Fulton said Nisbet used the racial slur and drew a gun.
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Fulton was never arrested as Summerville police officers couldn't find the gun he supposedly had.
Nisbet was charged with misconduct in office, forcing his eventual resignation and guilty plea to a lesser count.
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Quizzed by Fulton's lawyers, Nisbet said he often called a black friend the N-word. In turn, he added, the friend "calls me the N-word all the time," too.
During the 2015 run-in, he used the term because Fulton was a "gangster-type thug."
But Nisbet insisted that he had used it only while talking with a police official during a private telephone conversation. Whether using the term is wrong depends on whom he's talking with and where he is, he said. He equated it to flatulence in a restaurant.
"That's not acceptable, and there's probably policies out there," he said, "but people do it."
After Fulton was wounded in an unrelated shooting months later, Nisbet sent a text message to a former colleague that said, "Karma is a bitch," according to the court filings.
It would have been good if Fulton had died because he is a thug, Nisbet told Fulton's lawyer during the deposition.
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