Feds, SC cops scooping up 'bad guys with guns'

When Richland County sheriff’s deputies raided Rondell Waiters’ apartment near Riverbanks Zoo in April, they found heroin, meth, cocaine and two guns — a 9 mm pistol and a .38-caliber revolver.

Deputies immediately contacted agent O.C. Evans III of the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. Evans rushed to the scene and checked Waiters' criminal history, finding he had three state felony convictions, making it illegal for him to have a gun.

Within hours, Waiters was in federal court on gun charges, facing up to 15 years in prison.

Waiters isn't alone.

From January 2017 to mid-May, 537 ex-felons found with guns have been hauled into federal court in South Carolina under a program called “Operation Real Time,” according to the U.S. attorney’s office.

In 2017 alone, federal agents made 400 Real Time arrests in South Carolina. That was up from 247 S.C arrests in 2016.

“It’s a great program,” says Richland County Sheriff Leon Lott. “It helps us get the really bad guys with guns off the streets and away from our communities.”

It is illegal for a felon to have a gun under S.C. law. But a state conviction might carry just a few years in prison or even probation. "Penalties on gun violations are far more severe in federal court," said veteran Columbia defense lawyer Jack Swerling.

Taking ex-convicts like Waiters out of the state court system and putting them in federal court is an example of state and federal law enforcement cooperation.

The program works this way: local law agencies, such as Lott's department and the Columbia Police Department, notify federal law enforcement when they arrest a felon who has a gun. A federal agent, usually from ATF, will go to the scene, do more checks and, if the case is serious enough, press federal charges.

“If it’s 3 o’clock in the morning, and we find someone who qualifies for the federal program, ATF responds immediately and takes them into federal custody,” Lott said. “Everybody knows now to call ATF when you catch a really bad guy with a gun.”

Columbia Police Chief Skip Holbrook says the program makes city neighborhoods safer.

When federal authorities take a dangerous person into custody, “they don’t get out," said Holbrook. That is because it is harder to get bond in federal court than a state court.

"That’s an immediate community impact.”

The program "drills down" and nails those "who we feel like are responsible for crime in our communities," Holbrook said.

The federal gun cases also are relatively easy to prove.

There is almost no way a felon with a gun can argue that he is innocent. A simple criminal records check will show he is a felon, and officers have seized a gun.

Lance Crick, first assistant U.S. attorney for South Carolina, said the targeting of gun-possessing felons is taking place in the Midlands, the Myrtle Beach-Horry County area, North Charleston, along the Interstate-85 corridor, the Upstate, and Florence and the surrounding Pee Dee region.

Prosecutors in the U.S. attorneys office handle the cases in court.

The key dynamic is the partnerships between federal and local law agencies, Crick said.

The increased emphasis on gun offenders — a priority of Attorney General Jeff Sessions — doesn’t automatically mean there is a decreased focus on other gun crimes, Crick said. The federal government still is interested in other types of gun crimes, including so-called "straw" purchasers of guns and gun-running networks, Crick said.

A review of roughly 30 pending "Operation Real Time" cases showed that many of those arrested were low-level gun offenders — for example, alleged drug dealers who were arrested in their houses and who told police they had a gun for their own protection.

Lott, who says some of the guns are found in houses where children live, sees a major, positive impact.

"Anytime we can get guns off the streets and out of kids' hands, that's something positive and preventive," said the Richland sheriff. "We can never put a number on how many times we have stopped someone from using a gun by seizing the gun."

This story was originally published May 23, 2018 at 12:46 PM with the headline "Feds, SC cops scooping up 'bad guys with guns'."