The beginning of the year was uneventful enough beyond traditional parties and church services, but it wouldn’t be too long before violence marred 2008.

During the month of May, one law enforcement officer was shot and killed. A day later, another was shot at eight times and struck four. A week later, a man stood before a judge saying he would have shot at yet another officer during another incident but his gun jammed. And then several officers confronted a would-be kidnapper. When police were fired upon at close range, they fired back, striking the man three times.

“We call it May mayhem. Rarely do such big stories of a similar nature converge in such a short space of time. May 2008 was dominated by Web and print coverage of three big stories all tied to violence aimed at law officers,” said Lee Harter, editor of The Times and Democrat.

The violence began in the early morning hours of May 3, when Orangeburg County Sheriff’s Cpl. William Howell, 46, was killed while responding to a domestic violence call on Boyer Road in the Holly Hill area.

While Howell was providing an escort for a Holly Hill woman, a man fired a single shot at the 16-year law enforcement veteran, who was later declared dead at the scene. The suspect was then struck by an automobile and died.

Law enforcement officers from around the state and country participated in the services to honor the fallen officer on May 10.

“It was a sequence of events that I’ve never experienced and never want to experience again,” Orangeburg County Sheriff Larry Williams said. “You adopt each one of these individuals as one of your own. You’re concerned about their betterment and welfare, and to have one struck down in ... just trying to help someone. It was very traumatic for all of us.”

Williams said the department chose Howell as the Officer of the Year. He said the lingering pain surrounding Howell and another employee’s sudden death in the same year, however, has been tempered by time and faith.

“It’s tough, but it takes a lot of prayer. Although it hurts, we can’t question what God has done. We ought to take those moments to love those who we have remaining and move forward. We’ve moving forward, but we’re still going through some issues.”

The violence continued just a day later when South Carolina Highway Patrol Cpl. Quincy M. Brown was handling what he thought was going to be a routine traffic stop on a four-door sedan with North Carolina plates on May 4. The car yielded at the El Cheapo convenience store at U.S. 301 and 176, but a .45 handgun was soon fired from the right passenger window. Brown was hit in the vest. Then again. The gunfire didn’t cease. He was struck in the radio and finally in the lower left arm.

At a bond hearing, 21-year-old Anthony Donnell Glover said in part, “I didn’t try to kill him ... when I seen him, the gun went off and I started shooting.” Glover, along with his two uncles, Michael Glover, 37, and Anthony T. Glover, 34, were charged with assault and battery with intent to kill.

Less than two weeks after Deputy Howell was killed, bond was denied for a man who admitted in court he didn’t fire a rifle at a deputy because the weapon jammed. Rudolph Vincent Shuler of Felderville Road in Santee was charged with pointing and presenting a firearm and criminal domestic violence.

Then, on May 21, North Carolina surgeon Werner Scott Haddon, 48, was shot by Orangeburg Department of Public Safety officers in what police say was an attempt to abduct his estranged 11-year-old son from a South Brookside residence.

Haddon was shot four times by DPS officers after firing a .40-caliber gun in the direction of officers during the incident. DPS officers responded to a panic alarm sounded by the boy’s caregiver and grandmother Virginia Kearse at approximately 6:30 a.m.

They were met at the driveway of the residence by Haddon, who had the boy in his grasp, ODPS Chief Wendell Davis said.

The man discharged his weapon in the direction of DPS officers Sgt. Chris Murdaugh and Errol Brooks. The officers, who were not injured in the incident, in an attempt to keep him from escaping, forced Haddon and the boy back toward the residence. After being Tasered, Haddon lost his grip on his son before shooting yet again at the officers.

While the son and Kearse were unhurt during the incident, Haddon was transported and released from a hospital, where he was treated for at least three gunshot wounds.

At a May 28 hearing, bond was denied for Haddon, who could be facing a potential life-in-prison sentence on a first-degree burglary charge. He was also charged with two counts of kidnapping and assault with intent to kill.

The death of Cpl. Howell and the chain of events that followed have been picked by The Times and Democrat as the top local story of the year.

T&D Staff Writer Dionne Gleaton can be reached at dgleaton@times anddemocrat.com and 803-533-5534. Comment on this and other stories at www.TheTandD.com.

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