SC attorney charged after allegedly waving grenade at anti-abortion protesters

A Conway attorney was arrested for threatening to use a hoax device after allegedly waving a hollowed-out hand grenade in front of anti-abortion protestors at Saint Anne’s Episcopal Church.

Conway police detained 79-year-old Richard Meredith Lovelace Jr. at 2104 N. Main St. in Conway around 10 a.m. on Sunday, Nov. 2, 2025. Lovelace was charged with four counts of making a threat with a hoax device and released from J. Reuben Long Detention Center Monday afternoon on a $15,000 bail.

Protestors with anti-abortion group Survivors of the Abortion Holocaust demonstrated outside Saint Anne’s, which describes itself as “an inclusive and affirming Episcopal church.” Organizers say about eight participants were peacefully protesting when Lovelace approached.

A message left with the church and district office was not immediately returned.

According to accounts from the Conway Police Department incident report, Lovelace exited the church and approached the protesters with his hands in his pockets before pulling out the grenade.

“I thought Mr. Lovelace was coming up to me to have a conversation, and when he came up, he pulled out of his pocket this hand grenade, and he said, ‘I have a gift for you protesters,’” said Survivors of the Abortion Holocaust South Carolina team lead Jessica Newell. “And I was just so confused, and everybody was scared, and so we just called the police immediately to get that investigated.”

A video shared to the Survivors of the Abortion Holocaust Instagram page appears to show Lovelace holding an item that looks like a grenade before putting it in his pocket. When asked by a protester why he has a grenade, Lovelace can be heard saying, “for y’all.”

“The arrestee had the grenade held up in the air and was seen [waving] it around,” the incident report says. “The arrestee immediately attempted to get rid of the grenade after presenting it to the protestors by going back inside of the church prior to the officers’ arrival and handing it to another person.”

By the time Conway police arrived, Horry County Police were already at the scene and had retrieved the hollowed-out grenade.

Newell said Lovelace, an attorney, was attending the church Sunday morning. According to his law office website, Lovelace has been in private practice since 1974 and works on asset protection, banking law, business law, civil litigation, elder law, estate planning and probate administration, real estate and title insurance.

Sunday’s demonstration was Survivors of the Abortion Holocaust’s first protest at Saint Anne’s, Newell said, but the group hopes to return.

“After what happened, it did kind of freak everybody out, so we are continuing to reconvene with the team and seeing what the best next course of action would be, but we are asking the church to cut ties with Women and Gender Studies, and we told them that that’s what it will take for us to stop protesting,” said Newell.

This story was originally published November 3, 2025 at 5:06 PM.