Morgan County Sheriff K.C. Bohrer has said the West Virginia State Police have agreed to investigate an incident involving Sheriff’s deputies and members of the public that was captured in part by video and circulated on the video app TikTok early last week.
The video, which is roughly three minutes long, shows three deputies – Deputy Link, Cpl. Shambaugh and Deputy Burkholder – interacting with individuals outside of the Troubadour Lounge outside of Berkeley Springs.
The primary focus of the video is a male who appears to be bleeding and who indicates he wants to go to the hospital. In the background, Morgan County EMS crews are visible. The video continues to focus on Deputy Link as he and the male verbally interact with raised voices and expletives. The video shows Deputy Link taking the man to the ground and Cpl. Shambaugh performing a search on another man.
The account which posted the video claims the group went to West Virginia to go camping and ran into racist people at the bar and in the police responding to a fight that erupted at the bar.
Multiple voices are heard in the video making statements about the fight, who the individuals are being detained by police and about the incident being video recorded.
The video was widely circulated locally on social media, along with a second video with commentary from a different individual criticizing the police officers’ conduct shown in the video.
Sheriff Bohrer said all of the officers shown in the clip are still employed with the Morgan County Sheriff’s Department. He declined to make any further comment on the matter, instead referring any questions to investigators with the West Virginia State Police.
