Murder of 5-year-old prompted SC sheriff to create violent crime task force. Here’s what happened

Her name was Brite Shalom Acoy. She was 5. She loved to watch cartoons and lived up to her name, always happy, friends said.

She died in April after someone fired gunshots into the apartment she lived in with her aunt. Her twin brother and an 18-year-old were wounded.

“This heartbreaking event underscored the urgency for immediate and decisive action,” Greenville County Sheriff Lieutenant Ryan Flood said in a news release.

The response was for Greenville County Sheriff Hobart Lewis to create the Violent Crime Task Force, which brought together officers from every division in the Sheriff’s Office.

They targeted violent offenders and seized illegal firearms.

Lewis announced Thursday that since May 16, when the task force was formed, shootings have decreased 55% — 30 before and 13 since. Of the 30 shootings, 12 people died.

“It is my hope that through initiatives like this, our community will feel safer and confident knowing that the men and women who wear the badge are doing everything in our power to protect them,” Lewis said in a news release.

Other statistics released by the Sheriff’s Office were $15,552 taken from drug traffickers, 30 firearms, including five stolen, seized, and large amounts of cocaine/crack, fentanyl, methamphetamine, marijuana, pills and ecstasy, confiscated.

Shawnteza La Shay Sherman, 31, was charged with murder, two counts of attempted murder, and criminal conspiracy, in the death of Brite Acoy.

At the time of the shooting, Sherman was facing weapons and drug charges. She is being held in the Greenville County Detention Center under no bond, jail records show.

Unrelated to the shootings, the Sheriff’s Office arrested Stanice Joy Acoy, Brite’s aunt, who was caring for Brite and five other children at the Belle Meade Apartments in Greenville County, where the shooting took place.

The Sheriff’s Office said the children were in “deplorable conditions” — one bed for all of them and a loaded firearm within reach. Deputies also found 50 grams of crack cocaine, 90 grams of marijuana and drug paraphernalia.

She was charged with unlawful conduct toward a child, unlawful possession of a firearm, trafficking cocaine, possession with intent to distribute marijuana and possession of a weapon during a violent crime.

Acoy was denied bond and is being held in the Greenville County Detention Center, records show.