6 shooting victims in 6 years. What more can be done to make Five Points safer?

The timing was tragically ironic.

Just days after The State investigated Five Points' identity crisis — a series that looked at how major violent crimes in the nightlife district had decreased in recent years even as the number of patrons grows — three people lay bleeding in the streets, all innocent bystanders hit by gunshots that punctuated the St. Patrick's Day holiday.

It was not a completely unfamiliar scene. In October 2013, a University of South Carolina freshman was waiting to catch a taxi with friends in the heart of Five Points when a stray bullet from a shootout hit her spine, paralyzing her from the waist down.

What was different about the March 18 incident, though, is that it happened despite changes made after the 2013 shooting that paralyzed Martha Childress and ramped up discussions about safety in Five Points. After that, USC resumed its student shuttle service between campus and Five Points, police officers were added, more surveillance cameras were set up — the district now has more than 100 — and a bar determined to be a hub for gang activity closed.

So, how did it happen again? And can the next one be prevented?

What police are doing

One of the men injured in the St. Patrick's Day weekend shooting has been released from the hospital and another is in rehab. The third remains hospitalized.

Columbia police have said the suspect, a 22-year-old felon named Arthur Jones Jr., was involved in an argument with another man before he fired multiple shots into a large crowd , striking the three innocent bystanders.

Additional details, including what prompted the argument and whether Jones had been in a Five Points bar before the shooting, have not yet been released.

Chief Skip Holbrook noted that Jones, under federal law, could not lawfully possess a firearm because of a conviction for strong arm robbery, for which he was sentenced under the state's Youthful Offender Act.

"Keeping firearms out of the hands of criminals has been at the forefront of discussions at the Columbia Police Department and with partner law enforcement agencies," he told The State. "Another concern of ours that we've highlighted in the past centers around youthful offenders settling disputes and disagreements with violent gunfire."

Police said after Jones' arrest that they contacted federal authorities, and that further charges were possible. However, as of Wednesday, no federal charges have been filed against Jones.

Holbrook, who was hired six months after the Childress shooting, committed additional resources to Five Points after that incident. A 2015 study by USC researchers who examined safety in Five Points noted that he was planning to create a division dedicated to policing the entertainment districts, which includes the Vista.

Details about that new division have yet to be revealed, but Columbia police spokeswoman Jennifer Timmons told The State that the plans are in progress.

How Five Points compares to other college bar districts

Within hours of the March 18 shooting, "told you so" comments from readers began appearing under stories on The State's Facebook page.

"Go figure."

"Five points = trouble"

"So sad that the area has gone downhill."

"Way too much violence in Five Points with all of the fights, and shootings."

It was the fourth shooting since 2012 in which someone was injured or killed in Five Points.

• In March 2016, a 22-year-old man was found dead from a gunshot wound to the abdomen in a car parked outside the Food Lion on Harden Street.
  
  
• In March 2014, just down Harden Street from where the 2016 shooting happened, a man was shot in the leg in what police said was not a random act.
  
  
• The shooting that paralyzed Childress happened in October 2013.
  
  

The State looked at other college towns and universities similar in size to Columbia and USC to compare the numbers of shootings in their bar districts.

▪ In Knoxville, Tenn., home to the University of Tennessee and more than 28,000 students, The Strip is the popular entertainment district for college students.

Since 2012, there have been six shootings in The Strip that injured or killed someone, including one in which three people were injured, according to numbers provided by the Knoxville Police Department. One of those shootings was fatal.

▪ Students at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, which has more than 28,000 students, including nearly 19,000 undergraduates, typically hit the bars on Franklin Street.

There have been six shootings on Franklin Street since 2012, none of which were fatal, according to numbers provided by the Chapel Hill Police Department. One of the shootings was accidental.

▪ The University of Georgia has an enrollment of more than 37,000 students, including nearly 29,000 undergraduates. The university's campus runs alongside the bar district in downtown Athens.

There has been one shooting — a homicide in August 2016 — in that area since 2012, according to Epifanio Rodriguez, spokesman for the Athens-Clarke County Police Department.

Campus police in college bar areas

In Knoxville, campus police officers regularly patrol The Strip with city officers, according to Darrell DeBusk, spokesman for the Knoxville Police Department.

Because many of the shooting incidents in recent years happened during peak traffic times in the fall football season, DeBusk said the department implemented a "mobile field force."

"We put highly-trained officers out on foot on The Strip and they patrol that area during the late evening hours on Friday and early morning hours Saturday" and Saturday night, DeBusk said.

In Athens, city officers patrol the downtown area on foot, bicycle or in their patrol cars. Campus police sometimes share patrols with them, but city police handle most of the downtown patrols.

"They will answer calls a certain distance away from UGA property on the Athens-Clarke County side, and we will do the same (for them)," Rodriguez said.

Joe McCulloch, an attorney who represented Martha Childress' family after she was shot in Five Points, was critical of USC for not putting officers on patrol in the area even as the student body has continued to swell.

"They have as much responsibility as anybody in this town to provide a secure environment," McCulloch said. "Five Points is four blocks from the president's house. So it's not a satisfactory explanation for the university to say, 'We're not going to protect our students when they cross the railroad tracks.' We challenged them on that five years ago, and we challenge it again today."

But USC has had officers in the district on Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights since the shuttle service resumed, according to Wes Hickman, chief communications officer for the university.

"They are there primarily to ensure USC students are able to leave Five Points and make it back to campus safely," he said. "However, those officers and patrol units have always assisted CPD when requested. We have had and continue to have a great working relationship with CPD. That said, the primary role and responsibility of USCPD is to protect and patrol our campus and facilities which are spread throughout Columbia and Richland County."

In addition to resuming the shuttle, the university also has reinvigorated its alcohol and drug education program and increased penalties for alcohol violations, said Hickman, who noted that none of the individuals involved in the St. Patrick's Day weekend shooting is associated with USC.

Adding police not always the answer

There is always a solution to a problem, according to Holbrook. However, that solution isn't just the responsibility of law enforcement, the chief said.

"There are several surveillance cameras throughout Five Points," he said. "Uniformed Columbia police officers patrol the area on a daily basis and, unfortunately, criminals are focused on committing their crime. The fact that we made an arrest within hours of the incident should be a deterrent to others who want to commit crimes there or elsewhere. Violent behavior will not be tolerated."

The 2015 study by USC researchers found that just adding police officers is not always an effective crime deterrent.

"While I appreciate where those calls come from, that's only a very small part of the solution," said Seth Stoughton, a professor at the University of South Carolina School of Law and a former police officer. "It is not always the case that adding more officers will solve the problems we might want it to. That's only the beginning of the discussion."

The challenge in adding more officers to an area after an incident is determining where they will come from — and who will pay for them, Stoughton said.

Law enforcement agencies also have to be cautious when adjusting their tactics or procedures after an incident, he said, since hasty reactionary changes can lead to implementation of tactics like the controversial "stop-and-frisk" policy, which allows New York City police officers to stop potential suspects in the streets and frisk them for weapons.

"If we take a reactionary and aggressive approach — something like stop-and-frisk — we may be addressing the problem in the short term but creating a new set of problems in the long term," he said.

Not just a Five Points 'problem'

The problem is not the number of officers in Five Points, said Columbia Mayor Steve Benjamin.

"When this incident happened (on March 18), police officers were 20 yards away," he said. "So there's a police presence. There also happened to be a criminal with a gun. Unless the state wants to get very serious about the ways we pass and enforce gun laws, we're always going to be limited."

He is concerned the recent discussions about Five Points have "vilified" it and "cast it in an unfair light."

McCulloch was in Five Points for the St. Patrick's Day celebration hours before the shooting and called the incident "a Halley's Comet phenomenon."

After Childress was shot, they held a news conference in Five Points to highlight the gaps in security in the district and the ubiquity of guns, which McCulloch called "a societal problem that affects not only Five Points but the Vista and every other place in this city and county where shootings occur."

"We live in a time that we wouldn't have imagined years ago, of schools being shot up almost every week, rock concerts becoming death traps," he said. "And I don't think you can blame that on the five blocks in Five Points. When a school gets shot up, it's not the school's fault."

Stoughton compared preventing shootings to preventing car crashes.

"We look out for other drivers, we check the speed limit, we look in our mirrors, we look at the lane next to us when we change lanes, we keep a safe distance between the car in front of us and our own car," he said. "There are a whole bunch of different things we do every day to prevent the most plausible problems from manifesting. And, every once in a while, a tree is still going to fall on a car."

While police agencies in larger metropolitan areas have sophisticated techniques to predict where crimes are likely to happen, S.C. does not have the high levels of crime to make those techniques effective, according to Stoughton, who added, "that's a good thing."

Still, we can't try to anticipate every crime that every criminal is going to commit, Benjamin said.

"We're always going to be on the losing side of the proposition," he said. "There are some things we can do, but we can't begin to take ownership of the acts of criminals. The reality is that all across the country there are people who are victims of acts of violence every single day."

City Councilman Daniel Rickenmann said any approach has to be multifaceted.

"No. 1, we need people to realize that Five Points is safe to go out to, and these are isolated incidents that nobody can control," he said. "But secondly, we need to do something that maybe we can control to limit that (negative behavior). Maybe we need to create a different way of emptying out bars so you don't have as many people out at the same time."

Noting the increases in security cameras, security lighting and police officers in recent years, Hickman asked, "What's left?"

"City ordinances and state laws can be followed and enforced," he said. "Bars and clubs can stop serving to minors and over-serving anyone. The city could reduce the density of bars in Five Points through zoning and close bars at 2 a.m. like most urban areas."

Another shot fired in the 2 a.m. closing time debate

The gunshots on March 18 rang out around the 2 a.m. Sunday closing time, in Five Points, as thousands of patrons spilled from the bars and onto the sidewalks.

The shooting has now entered the ongoing debate about requiring all bars in the city to close at 2 a.m. every night. Now, they must close at 2 a.m. only on Saturday night/Sunday morning. The issue was brought up by residents who live near Five Points and complained that late-night bars disrupt their quality of life by fostering bad behavior that spills over into their neighborhoods. Many of them believe that earlier closing times will help quell some of that behavior. Opponents say attacking the closing time misses the mark and actually might worsen some problems.

Rickenmann, who chairs the City Council's public safety committee, has been adamant against closing all bars at 2 a.m. Still, he says, "maybe we need to create a different way of emptying out bars so you don't have as many people out at the same time."

Scott Linaberry leases three buildings on Harden Street and subleases space in them to bar owners. Among the bars that rent space from Linaberry are Latitude 21, Rooftop and Pinch. He agreed that Saturday night is the worst for violence because all bars close at the same time. He advocates a "tiered" system of late night permits that would codify a staggered closing time.

"That way there is no mass exodus," Linaberry said. "You absolutely want to stagger it."

Former USC quarterback Steve Taneyhill bought long-time Five Points staple Group Therapy last year. He said giving bar owners the right to close when they want would eliminate the groups that assemble on the street when all of the bars empty out at the same time.

"Saturday is when we have the most confusion on the street," he said. "I just worry about everyone leaving all at once every night."

Neither the victims nor the accused shooter in the March 18 incident is a USC student. Still, Taneyhill said USC students get "a bad rap" for any violent incidents in Five Points.

"There's people out there that don't think straight," he said. "We have school shootings now. We never had school shootings when I was in school. You're gonna have some problems, and there are going to be problems when you add more people to it."

This story was originally published April 13, 2018 at 1:17 PM with the headline "6 shooting victims in 6 years. What more can be done to make Five Points safer?."