Plea for Myrtle Beach’s help in combating violence turns heated

An impassioned plea from activists seeking the city’s help in combating violence, and saving the youth from falling victim to the streets, turned heated when the mayor accused one of the activists of being a part of the problem.

Anti-violence and youth activist Bennie Swans asked the Myrtle Beach City Council Tuesday to help them in their efforts to curb violence in local neighborhoods like the Booker T. Washington community, which he said has been plagued by recent gun violence.

Kendra Keel lost two sons to the violence. She held up a t-shirt bearing their photos and names to council members at their afternoon meeting Tuesday.

“We’ve got to have the help of the neighborhoods,” said Mayor John Rhodes. “Every time something happens in the neighborhoods, shots fired, nobody saw anything, nobody heard anything. You leave it up to the police department to go out and try to investigate and find the people creating the problems and they can’t get any satisfaction or help from the neighborhoods to see what’s going on. … I mean, we’ve got somebody sitting on the front row that didn’t report an incident for three hours after it happened.”

“Who?” someone in the crowd asked.

“Tim?” the mayor said, bringing Rev. Tim McCray to his feet.

McCray said he had witnessed a drive-by shooting and was trying to usher kids away from the street to avoid being hit. He was shocked by what he saw, he said, but he wasn’t delayed three hours in reporting it.

“For you to sit here and say I didn’t report it until three hours later, that’s a lie!” McCray told Rhodes. “Let me tell you something, Mr. Mayor, enough is enough here. You sit up there and talk about these incidents happening outside of Myrtle Beach, no they don’t. Those are residents of Myrtle Beach. Those are kids that I personally work with.”

Rhodes had challenged Swans to take his pleas for help in combating the problem to additional municipalities as well after City Manager John Pedersen told the crowd the steps the city has already taken to help and that it will take a joint effort.

“I want to see you in front of the city councils in Loris, North Myrtle Beach and Conway, county council, Surfside, talking about this same thing, getting them involved just as much as anybody else, not looking straight at the city of Myrtle Beach for everything,” Rhodes told Swans.

Swans appeared before the Horry County Council at 6 p.m. He said he was set to meet with the public safety committee on Feb. 15.

“Violence is a learned behavior and one that is preventable,” Swans told the both Myrtle Beach and Horry County Council.

The Booker T. Washington community met to discuss ways to curb recent acts of violence on Jan. 30 at Sandy Grove Baptist Church.

In the meeting, Swans said, community members wanted to see a comprehensive approach to tackle the violence.

“Part of that comprehensive approach, as I said this morning, talks about boots on the ground, someone looking directly at you who understands your plight and understands your parents and is willing to work with that child that is at risk and the parents that may not have all the answers,” he said.

The “boots on the ground” could not just be the boots of police officers, the mayor said, adding community members would have to be the boots as well.

“I am one of those boots on the ground,” Elizabeth Bowen told the council, challenging Rhodes to walk with her as she makes her rounds through neighborhoods like Racepath.

Swans asked the city to consider holding public hearings to give all people, young and old, a chance to have input in fixing the problems that exist.

Although no decision was made on the hearings, Pedersen said they have made steps in the right direction. But it will take more to join the fight and a lot of time and effort to win the fight against violence.

“We talked to the county and we talked to the solicitor’s office. There are many, many levels to this and we haven’t quite frankly received kind of the reciprocal willingness to engage in this thing,” Pedersen told the council. “This is a model that is going to take a long time to get off the ground for it to get working successfully. It’s not to say we shouldn’t do that. But in the meantime I think what we’ve opted to do instead is to start some programs and begin some initiatives that didn’t take that long to get off the ground that we thought would bear fruit.”

Pedersen said they have held two workshops to get more community members involved in the effort and back in the workforce. On Swans urging, the city held “two teen work-ready programs and we’ve got another one that we’re working on this summer,” he said.

The city purchased the former Charlie’s Place property and Pedersen said “we’re looking now at efforts to try to program that property so that there are opportunities to get these kids engaged in something.”

Community meetings have also been held in other areas of the city that have seen violence, he said.

“We’ve been engaging the community about this very issue. … I don’t want people going away from this discussion thinking we’re just sitting here on our haunches waiting and not doing anything about it. Nothing could be further from the truth,” Pedersen said. “I’m with Bennie in terms of the desired outcome. I just think what we’re talking about now is a difference in terms of the exact techniques that we put in place to do that.”

Rhodes told Swans, “When you talk about boots on the ground, there’s got to be more than police officers’ boots on the ground, there’s going to have to be family boots on the ground. … It is going to take an entire community effort to get it done.”

Swans said he agreed.

“Education is the key to all of this,” said Councilman Philip Render. “This is a good beginning. Let’s engage.”

“We’re going to work this out and we’re going to get some stuff done,” said Councilman Mike Chestnut at the meeting. “And we all care about the lives of the kids. I don’t think there’s anybody up here who does not care about them. When we hear that somebody got shot or when I’m sitting in the house watching TV and I hear a gunshot, my heart is struck.”

Councilwoman Mary Jeffcoat drew applause from the crowd when she suggested the city council name the issue of tackling violence as a top priority in budget workshops.

This story was originally published February 10, 2016 at 9:48 PM with the headline "Plea for Myrtle Beach’s help in combating violence turns heated."