‘Murder Beach’? Myrtle Beach mayor must ease fears after shooting | Opinion
Several days after last Saturday night’s shooting on busy North Ocean Boulevard in Myrtle Beach, there is still no clear picture of what left a teenage boy dead, 11 people injured, three officers on leave and a city that depends on tourism dollars being dragged once again as “Murder Beach.”
The April 26 shooting is the latest violent incident to generate unwanted headlines for one of South Carolina’s most popular destinations. Seventeen million visitors a year seek out the pearl of the Grand Strand, mostly during the hot summer months that are about to open like a clamshell.
It’s too much to say Myrtle Beach Mayor Brenda Bethune should be compared to Mayor Larry Vaughn, who set the standard for mayoral missteps in seaside communities 50 years ago by famously persuading the police chief to keep the beaches open after a shark attack in “Jaws.”
But she certainly should have ensured the city releases more information much sooner about a shooting with so many questions. The mayor and Police Chief Amy Prock waited until Wednesday afternoon to hold their first news conference on the incident, released very little in the way of new information at it and gave weak excuses to explain their ongoing silence.
Both said the city won’t share details until the end of an investigation by the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division. But that could take weeks — and SLED has said its probe is limited to officers’ use of force.
The mayor and the police chief should be saying more now.
‘Infamously nicknamed “Murder Beach”’
The 2025 Myrtle Beach mayor’s race will be decided by many factors. One will be how this mayor responds to another shooting that has raised fears and drawn the wrong kind of attention to this city’s 40,000 residents. Voters are already watching how candidates address the violence that periodically plagues one of the state’s most beautiful, affordable and popular coastal cities.
In separate interviews for this column on Tuesday, both Bethune, who is seeking a third four-year term in November, and Mark Kruea, a retired longtime city spokesman who is running against her, said they feel safe anywhere in Myrtle Beach. Beyond that, their comments were quite different.
Complaints about shooting and violence are nothing new in downtown Myrtle Beach.
In 2017, a shooting on Ocean Boulevard on Father’s Day injured six people and brought much attention to Myrtle Beach because a tourist happened to livestream the incident on Facebook.
In 2018, an off-duty employee of RidTydz on North Ocean Boulevard was shot inside the establishment and died. A lawsuit filed by the man’s family said that the popular tourist spot “was becoming known as a problem area for increasing incidents of violence, shootings and murders to the extent that Myrtle Beach had been infamously nicknamed ‘Murder Beach.’”
In 2020, then-Myrtle Beach City Councilman John Krajc told ABC 15 News that the violence had to end. “If we stop making ourselves the ‘discount beach,’ over time that culture can change,” he said. “We have to remember this is Myrtle Beach, not ‘Murder Beach,’ not ‘Dirty Myrtle.’”
But perception can become reality, especially over time.
‘Bad things can happen anywhere’
Now Bethune is pushing back in the press.
“Myrtle Beach Mayor responds to fears of visiting city after fatal Ocean Blvd. shooting,” one headline proclaimed. Bethune “in denial about overwhelming media reports on shooting,” said another. “Myrtle Beach officials say downtown is safe. Boardwalk employees disagree after shooting,” read a headline in The Sun News. Two employees told The Sun News police have advised them to close businesses early in the past
Bethune said she wasn’t aware of such closures, and said the city’s approach to public safety has been effective on Ocean Boulevard because of a heavy police presence and occasional, temporary traffic flow adjustments when crowds get too big.
Myrtle Beach also has hundreds of cameras trained on public spaces and a number of license plate readers at a cost of millions of dollars a year. It is one of 150 police agencies in the nation with a Real Time Crime Center.
“I don’t know that any changes are warranted,” the mayor told me. “I believe that what we’re doing is working. That was proven Saturday night. We have a strong police presence in areas that have a lot of people congregating, whether it’s Ocean Boulevard or anywhere else, and we do change the traffic patterns on the boulevard when the traffic is too heavy and it could be detrimental to public safety, and all of that has proven that it works. The fact that our officers responded in seconds and saw something happened before more people were hurt is miraculous on their part. Truly. I call them heroes because they responded quickly.”
The city’s violent and property crime rates have generally declined for a decade, mirroring a national trend that has seen crime rates plunge since the 1990s. And the increased presence is readily apparent. Officers logged 86,000 self-initiated calls in 2024, a 10% increase from 2023.
Bethune seemed to suggest that some crime was inevitable, though that’s not what residents want to hear. Asked about criticism of her response, she said residents shouldn’t badmouth the city, but she left unaddressed whether some criticism at least isn’t a demand for accountability.
There is a big difference between any memes that reference “Murder Beach” or play off words and expectations tied to “shots” and “shells” at the beach and any real concerns about visiting it.
Bethune has no patience for locals who are using this moment “to not lift up the community.”
“I think it’s pretty disgusting that especially people that live here chose to not lift up the community where they live and work,” she said. “And we are supposed to be one community united together. It takes all of us working together to make this place the best it can possibly be.”
She had specific criticism for “hotels who choose not to clean themselves up, and offer rooms at $40-$45 a night” and businesses along Ocean Boulevard that cater to the wrong crowd by selling “graphic” T-shirts, drug paraphernalia and “things that are not welcoming to families.”
In discussing last Saturday’s shooting without sharing more details on it, Bethune has also placed blame on outsiders. Such rhetoric can’t be taken seriously without knowing what happened.
“No matter what we do, bad things can happen anywhere,” she told me. “That’s not an excuse. That’s the truth. It doesn’t matter how large or small a city is or how many visitors they have. We just stress to those who come here to respect our community, respect our citizens and respect our laws. We want this to be a place where people come to have a good time. We want families to come and feel safe and enjoy themselves while they are here. Those who want to come here and not respect our laws, they’re not welcome.”
Bethune said she was on Ocean Boulevard about an hour before last Saturday’s shooting and has been grieving since it happened for the families of 18-year-old Jerrius Davis, who is said to have fired a gun and subsequently been killed by police, and others who were hospitalized. Davis is from Bennettsville, nearly two hours away.
“It’s a huge responsibility,” she said. “It’s a huge weight. Our business community depends on our visitors who come here. And for something to happen right before our summer season could be very detrimental to our businesses, many of which are already experiencing a decline. So it is scary for me. It is a huge weight, and something I take very seriously and it’s daunting because you can’t fix every problem. I can’t fix every problem.”
She can, however, choose to release more information so the public understands what happened. The public needs to know what transpired last Saturday night, the extent and origin of the injuries, who shot whom, the names and personnel histories of the officers involved. There are too many questions, and with each passing day, some level of trust in the department and city erodes.
‘Make whatever changes are required’
Mark Kruea was a city spokesman for 25 years. In our phone interview, he spoke of patience and cooperation and sounded like a serious challenger to a mayor seeking a third term.
“Without more information about what happened Saturday night, it would be hard to say what might improve and prevent similar situations from happening in the future,” he said. “I think it’s a little early to have a thorough reaction and response. The public doesn’t know all the details. SLED is investigating. It’s not even clear to me if the 11 injuries were all from gunshots.”
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His call to action was collective, his criticism, general.
“Obviously, we aren’t doing something well if this sort of activity continues,” he said. “We need to work with the business community, our hospitality partners, with our visitors, to address the continued violence that’s occurring on Ocean Boulevard.”
Asked what sort of changes he would suggest, Kruea offered specifics.
“Teenagers bringing guns to Ocean Boulevard with the intention of using them is not the vision of Myrtle Beach that we want,” he said. “The police department is still about 50 officers short. Those positions are funded but they have not been able to fill them for several years. The business community is not a fan of the traffic diversion. It creates a traffic mess on Kings Highway, which is solving one problem by creating another problem. I’m not sure that’s a solution. If it’s a lack of resources, we need to get the resources. If it’s a messaging problem with visitors and would-be visitors, we need to send those messages….
“The response to this isn’t things are great and rosy. The response to this is we need to make whatever changes are required to eliminate this as a regular occurrence.”
He added that a shooting like last Saturday’s creates a “significant public relations problem” because of the national news attention it brings while exposing other problems downtown.
His list of issues was long: cleanliness, pedestrian management, traffic management, the perception of the business community, the perception of visitors, the overall visitor experience and “the reputation that we receive or develop because of the actions that occur down there.”
The goal, he said, should be to provide a clean, safe, enjoyable experience for everyone.
“I think the community needs to send a message that we are solving whatever issues may lead to this sort of behavior,” he said. “Even if it’s not our problem to solve, we’re going to find a solution to it. We are conscious that your experience in Myrtle Beach needs to be a happy, safe one and we’ll make this a priority today, tomorrow and forever.”
Neither Bethune nor Kruea sound like Mayor Vaughn in the fictional town in “Jaws.”
That mayor told the police chief, “I’m only trying to say that Amity is a summer town. We need summer dollars. Now, if the people can’t swim here, they’ll be glad to swim at the beaches of Cape Cod, the Hamptons, Long Island….”
That chief replied, “That doesn’t mean we have to serve them up as smorgasbord!”
Ultimately, the people and visitors of Myrtle Beach will decide how safe they feel on the boulevard, especially at night; closed businesses and smaller crowds would indicate they don’t. City officials, starting with this mayor and this police chief, can keep those crowds safe and keep them coming by sharing what they know about last Saturday’s shooting without further delay.
There is nothing preventing that, and every reason to tell the public what happened and what will be done to prevent it from happening again.
This story was originally published April 30, 2025 at 3:11 PM with the headline "‘Murder Beach’? Myrtle Beach mayor must ease fears after shooting | Opinion."