On February 25, 2020, Corporal Andrew John Gillette, a 36-year-old Sumter County deputy, was shot and killed while serving a detention order and an eviction notice at a residence on Thomas Sumter Highway in Dalzell, South Carolina. Gillette and two other deputies were carrying out the civil process when a 56-year-old man inside the home opened fire, striking Gillette in the chest. Although he was wearing a protective vest, the wound proved fatal; he was taken to a local hospital and later died. The other deputies were uninjured, and the man who fired at the deputies was shot and killed at the scene.

Gillette had served 12 years in the United States Air Force, was stationed at Shaw Air Force Base before medically retiring, and had been with the Sumter County Sheriff’s Office for seven years in the Civil Process Division. He is survived by his wife and their 11-year-old son, his parents, and two brothers. This was the first line-of-duty death of a Sumter County deputy since 1996.

If anyone knew Corporal Gillette or has information about that February 25, 2020 incident, please share what you remember.