With record number of murders in 2020, SC police plead for community and lawmaker help
More people were murdered in South Carolina in 2020 than in any single year on record, according to state police.
Aggravated assaults, which include shootings, also rose, state police reported in an annual crime statistics study.
Police can only do so much, and lawmakers and communities have to step up to help stop violent crime, South Carolina Law Enforcement Chief Mark Keel said at a news conference Thursday.
“Gangs, drugs and criminals’ access to guns continue to play a significant role,” Keel said at the news conference, held at the state’s police academy on Broad River Road. “Yet given this surge, it is very disheartening to see so much effort and attention being directed to anti-public safety legislation that puts criminals back on the street and makes our communities less safe.”
Murders have increased 51% in the past five years, according to Keel. From 2019 to 2020, they increased 25%, from 457 to 571. Aggravated assaults increased 9% in the same year, from almost 19,500 to nearly 21,300.
But property crimes decreased for the sixth consecutive year, some significantly. South Carolina had almost 4,000 fewer burglaries and thefts, the report says. However, arsons jumped by more than 100.
Robberies and sexual assaults also decreased.
The preliminary report did not provide information on drug crimes. The report will be finalized in late summer or early fall, a SLED spokesperson said.
It’s rare for Keel to hold a news conference, which speaks to the gravity of the violent crime surge.
“I never dreamed I would be talking about a 25% increase in murders,” Keel said. The world in which officers now police would have been unfathomable when he started in law enforcement in the 1970s. One of the most prominent differences is the proliferation of guns, he said.
Keel took a shot at a legislative proposal to reform drug sentencing, saying it would “incentivize criminal conduct,” and called on lawmakers to uphold laws that punish criminals.
“I’m so sick of hearing drug crimes are victimless crimes.,” he said, adding that street dealing leads to homicides. “Not holding criminals accountable is not the answer.”
The House of Representatives passed a drug sentencing reform bill this year that would allow judges sentencing discretion for high-level drug offenses instead of mandating prison terms. Supporters say the bill makes South Carolina a more fair state and doesn’t change the ability of judges to sentence hardcore drug dealers to longer jail terms. The bill still has to be passed by the Senate and be signed by the Governor to become law.
About 30 sheriffs, police leaders as well as solicitors from across the state attended the news conference.
Members of communities affected by crime have to come forward as witnesses to help police get trigger-pullers off the streets, according to Keel and other police. But he understands that certain communities distrust police and that police have to earn that trust back, he said.
Police Chief Skip Holbrook, who attended the news conference, said that’s a problem in Columbia. People witness crimes or have information about criminal activity but don’t come forward. It’s a particular problem in Black communities where trust in police is low and fear of retaliation is high, Holbrook said. All of Columbia’s 10 homicide victims and the suspects in those deaths have been Black, Holbrook said.
Columbia’s Black community members would help decrease violent crime by providing police with information.
Gun violence is “a public health issue,” Holbrook said. “We have to approach it like that.”
Homicides doubled in the city of Charleston from eight to 16 from 2019 to 2020, Charleston Police Chief Luther Reynolds said.
He said each homicide had one thing in common — “every one of them was preventable.”
The criminal justice system, communities, federal and state police have to collaborate to reduce violent crime, he said.
If violent crime continues trending the way it has in recently months, 2021 will be more violent than last year, Keel said.
Keel recalled what a mentor of his used to say. “’If it’s not safe to go to the church, to go to school and go to work ... then what kind of community do you have? Well you don’t have much of one.’”
This story was originally published June 3, 2021 at 2:22 PM.