Two veteran prosecutors stand by their decisions not to charge white state troopers caught on videotape using force to subdue black motorists in separate incidents in 2006 and 2007.

In both cases — one man was poked at by a trooper with a shotgun in Orangeburg County and another fleeing on foot in Greenwood County was struck by a trooper driving a patrol car — the officers were disciplined, but solicitors said the troopers’ actions didn’t meet the legal standard needed to file criminal charges. Solicitor David Pascoe said he believed the Orangeburg trooper’s claim that the shotgun incident was an accident, noting, “There wasn’t, like, an angry moment.”

Solicitor Jerry Peace wrote off the Greenwood trooper’s statement — “I tried to hit him” — as “pure bravado.” Overzealous prosecution of officers could jeopardize troopers’ lives if it made them more hesitant than necessary to use force, said Peace, who last year handled a death penalty case in Abbeville involving two officers who were shot to death. “If I got a choice between a defendant getting his head cracked and an officer getting killed, I’ll take the defendant getting his head cracked every time.”

Some black lawmakers, however, wonder if the solicitors are part of what they see as a system that coddles troopers who use excessive force. “It’s despicable at best that these solicitors are covering up for these guys,” said state Rep. Leon Howard, D-Richland, the Legislative Black Caucus chairman. “If you and I went out and hit somebody like that, you and I would be in jail.”