Kartrez Rush and his wife, Jasmine Scott, were heading home from a work event last May when a South Carolina state trooper pulled them over on a rural highway. They were towing a U-Haul loaded with chairs. What followed, according to the couple and their attorney, was a weapons-drawn traffic stop, handcuffs in front of their three children, a search of their trailer, and the discovery of nothing illegal. The couple has since filed a federal civil rights lawsuit over what happened that night.
How the Rush family stop unfolded
Rush and Scott were driving through Sumter County on Highway 527 in May 2025 when Trooper Kyle Lyman stopped their vehicle. Rush said he reached for his license and registration, the standard response to any traffic stop, and was met immediately with shouting and drawn weapons. Officers ordered both him and Scott out of the truck with their hands raised, instructing them to walk backward toward law enforcement. One of their children, still inside the vehicle, cried out at the sight of guns pointed at the family.
Their daughter, Kaitlyn Rush, recorded video during the stop. She later described watching her parents being handcuffed as one of the most frightening experiences of her life, saying she did not know whether they would survive the encounter. Rush said officers did not ask for identification or vehicle documents before placing them in restraints.
When officers searched the U-Haul, they found household items. There were no stolen goods, no dirt bikes, no four-wheeler. Rush and Scott were released on the scene.
The false tip that set the stop in motion
The stop originated from a dispatch call placed in neighboring Clarendon County by a man identified in records as Tony Cook. Cook reported an active larceny, describing a black Dodge dually truck with a white trailer that he claimed was carrying stolen off-road vehicles. That description was general enough to match a wide range of vehicles, including the one Rush and Scott were driving.
Records show Cook did not witness any theft and based his report on secondhand information. He told dispatchers he could not confirm the license plate of the vehicle he was describing. Despite those gaps, the report was relayed to law enforcement, who located and stopped the family based on the loose match to Cook’s account.
The couple’s attorney, Tyler Bailey, has pointed to the stop as a case study in what happens when officers act on unverified tips during high-risk encounters. He has said the family intends to use the legal process to identify who made the original report and establish accountability for how that information was handled before reaching law enforcement.
The federal lawsuit and what the family is seeking
Rush and Scott filed a federal lawsuit against the South Carolina Department of Public Safety and Trooper Lyman. The suit alleges false imprisonment and civil rights violations stemming from the May 2025 stop. The couple is from Blythewood, S.C., and the incident occurred while they were traveling through a neighboring county after a professional engagement.
The South Carolina Department of Public Safety said it had not been formally served with the lawsuit at the time of publication and declined to comment on pending litigation, which is standard agency practice.
The case sits within a broader national conversation about how law enforcement responds to unverified civilian tips, particularly when those stops involve Black families. The consequences of getting that calculus wrong are not abstract for the Rush family. They were documented in real time by their own daughter, on video, on the side of a South Carolina highway. That footage, and the lawsuit built around it, is now part of the public record.