Ware Shoals Assistant Police Chief Michael Polson has been removed from duty after about a year with the department, sources familiar with the matter told FITSNews. The reported move lands on a small Upstate force that spent 2025 nearly emptying out and then hiring its way back.
FITSNews reported Thursday that those sources tied the action, at least in part, to a charge against a 17-year-old girl who was brought into the town's municipal court. Neither Polson nor Police Chief Tommy Clamp responded to the outlet's request for comment. The account describes a removal from duty and does not say whether that meant a firing, a suspension or leave.
A Charge That Did Not Stay In Municipal Court
Sources told FITSNews the girl had just turned 17 when she appeared before a municipal judge over her alleged role in a brawl at the Ware Shoals Burger King. They said officer Bruce Gunter brought the charge, that Polson approved the incident report and personally presented evidence, and that Chief Tommy Clamp joined the effort to put the case in municipal court.
The charge did not get a hearing on the merits. FITSNews reported that it was dismissed once the court learned her age. Sources described Polson as knowingly taking a juvenile into municipal court on a charge they said state law required officers to route to Family Court.
The reporting does not name the girl or the charge, and it does not include a court record. What it does describe is a leadership group treating a 17-year-old's case as town-court business until the judge's courtroom supplied the fact that ended it.
The Burger King Citations
The fight itself was already on the public police blotter. The Ware Shoals Police Department told FOX Carolina that an argument over food at a Burger King turned into a brawl and produced citations for three employees on Oct. 7. Each of the three women was cited for breach of peace.
That Oct. 7 account and the later account of a 17-year-old in municipal court are not the same set of facts. FOX Carolina reported employee citations. FITSNews, citing sources, placed the juvenile's court appearance in the same widely publicized brawl and described a charge that collapsed on her age. The public record so far does not say she was one of the three cited employees.
A Department Built Back In A Year
Polson arrived during a rebuild that was still obvious on paper. In November 2025, Ware Shoals Town Council unanimously approved hiring him as an officer, with a start expected Dec. 1, a move the Index-Journal said was expected to bring the force to three officers. FITSNews, citing sources, said Clamp had joined about a month before Polson and that Gunter had been with the department for less than two months before Thursday's report.
By late March, the same paper was describing a department led by Clamp, with Polson as assistant chief and Kenneth Sibley as a sergeant. Council member Kim Jensen said the force had grown to five officers, with another possible hire expected soon, according to the Index-Journal.
The hole they were filling had been almost the whole department. Over several months in 2025, nearly every Ware Shoals officer resigned, including former Chief Bryan Louis, who stepped down in September. By late that month the agency was down to one officer and was relying on outside agencies for coverage. Resignation letters from multiple officers raised a hostile work environment and alleged political interference in police operations.
FITSNews also reported that Polson had previously worked at the Laurens, Greenwood and McCormick county sheriff's offices. A year after council signed off on his hire, sources now say the assistant chief who helped restaff that roster is off duty.
Family Court, And What The Law Actually Settles
South Carolina's Family Court is the usual place for this kind of case. The Eleventh Judicial Circuit Solicitor's office says Family Court generally has exclusive jurisdiction over minors under 18 who are accused of violating state law or a municipal ordinance. The office notes exceptions. Those exceptions are not spelled out in enough detail here to say whether any of them could have covered this charge.
Title 63, Chapter 19 of the South Carolina Code is the juvenile-justice chapter behind that court system. The public accounts do not identify the statute charged or say that anyone walked through an exception before the girl was brought to municipal court. FITSNews' sources said the law required Family Court. The reported dismissal turned on age, not on a published ruling that maps the charge onto that statute.
For a department that a year ago was borrowing coverage from other agencies, the practical question is narrower than a statewide debate about juvenile jurisdiction. A 17-year-old was in the wrong courtroom, sources say the assistant chief helped put her there, and the people who could explain the personnel action have not answered.
