The softball-size tumor removed from Richard Inman’s brain didn’t kill him. But at times, in his darkest days, he wished it did.
Because if he died on the operating table, the former police chief would have left in his wake a respected career. A marriage still intact. A family that adored him.
Instead, the surgery became his “curse.”
His thinking became clouded. He moved slowly, was easily confused and shouted out, nonsensical and jarring. He was forced to resign from his post after he shared a racist cartoon on his Facebook page.
Inman felt he was in a constant battle with himself, one that nobody could see or understand. It was like his own brain was attacking him, he would explain.
On a June morning in 2017, seven years after the operation that changed everything, Inman casually strolled into a Simpsonville bank.
He did not wear a mask.
He did not obscure who he was.
The man with two-decades of law enforcement experience looked at the teller on the opposite side of the counter. He slid her a note.
“This is a robbery. I have a gun. No dye-packs! $2,000 cash. No alarms. Don’t cry out, stay calm.”
She handed him cash, and he stuffed it into an envelope.
“Have a nice day,” Inman told the manager.
