SCDNR Sergeant Fired After Ordering Dispatcher to Relay False Boating Call

A 12-year South Carolina Department of Natural Resources sergeant assigned to a region that includes Bamberg County was fired after an internal investigation concluded he instructed a department dispatcher to deliver a false boating call to another officer.

1st Sgt. Stephen Bryant, who joined SCDNR in June 2013 and accumulated more than 760 hours of law enforcement training, was terminated on March 12, 2026. Agency records classified the separation under misconduct and "conduct unbecoming," and Bryant's law-enforcement certification status at the South Carolina Criminal Justice Academy was updated to reflect the termination.

The central finding in the separation documents is that Bryant "directly told a SCDNR dispatcher to deliver a false boating call to another officer," according to a supervisor's account included in the records. The incident occurred in February 2026, though a discrepancy exists in the publicly available records: some documents cite February 2, while other reporting places the incident around 6:30 p.m. on February 7. SCDNR has not publicly clarified the exact date.

Bryant was assigned to SCDNR's Region 3, a jurisdiction stretching from Richland County south to Beaufort County and from Aiken County east to Williamsburg County. That footprint includes Bamberg County directly, along with Aiken, Allendale, Barnwell, Calhoun, Clarendon, Lexington, Newberry, Orangeburg, Richland, Saluda, and Sumter counties. The Region 3 Law Enforcement Office operates out of 2762 Wildlife Lane in West Columbia.

No criminal investigation was opened against Bryant, a fact confirmed by separation documents reviewed by multiple South Carolina news outlets.

Carolina Sportsman, citing anonymous sources inside SCDNR and members of the public, reported conduct extending well beyond the February incident documented in official records. Those sources alleged Bryant lied on case reports numerous times and ordered junior officers to do the same. Bryant received numerous agency awards during his tenure, the same publication noted. SCDNR has not addressed those broader allegations publicly, and they did not appear in the official separation paperwork.

SCDNR's public response was terse: the agency said Bryant had been separated for policy violations and that its officers are held to high standards of integrity. The agency did not release the specific evidence underlying the internal investigation, and the South Carolina Criminal Justice Academy records filled in much of what the agency's statements left out. Whether the February incident was isolated or part of a wider pattern inside Region 3 remains a question the agency has yet to answer.