By Delayna Earley
The Island News
The City of Beaufort has joined the ranks of municipalities that have passed a hate crime ordinance following City Council’s unanimous vote during the May 14 council meeting.
“Although the numbers are low here at this time, I believe that this is a tool that the police here can have in their belt,” Assistant City Manager John J. Suave said during the April 23 meeting. “Hopefully this will send a message to Columbia, to our elected officials, that they need to act. That we need this at the state level for more serious offenses.”
Currently, South Carolina is one of only two states that does not have a state statute or code that addresses hate crimes.
The other state is Wyoming.
By passing the ordinance, Beaufort has joined 12 other municipalities across the state – Summerville, North Charleston, Bluffton, Hardeeville, Charleston, Clemson, Columbia, Conway, Florence, Greenville, Mount Pleasant and Myrtle Beach.
The language used in the ordinance was adopted by the City of Beaufort from the other municipalities to help create continuity between all of the cities.
Under the new ordinance, violations against the protected classes would be misdemeanors and could bring a fine of up to $500 and jail time of up to 30 days.
The ordinance does not create a standalone crime or violation, there must be an offender taking an action already illegal, so violating another city ordinance, and they have to do that with the intent to violate that person’s rights based on the protected class.
“Think of it as more of an enhancement than a standalone offense,” Suave said.
There is currently bipartisan legislation that has passed the S.C. State House and is currently pending in the S.C. State Senate, but according to Beaufort City Manager Scott Marshall, who recommended the ordinance originally, there is no guarantee that it will pass.
The bill is named “Clementa C. Pinckney Hate Crimes Act,” and is named after the former lawmaker who was one of the nine Black churchgoers who were shot and killed during the 2015 massacre at Mother Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston.
The mass shooting was executed by white supremacist Dylann Roof, and during the May 14 City Council meeting, Councilman Mitch Mitchell mentioned the lack of a hate crime statute when Roof was being tried and sentenced for his crimes.
“I don’t think anyone doubts that he killed those folks because he hated them, but there was no addition to the punishment,” Mitchell said. “From a legal perspective, they could not add an additional punishment for hate crime because the state does not have a hate crime bill. So that should clarify, in my mind, for anyone, what we are trying to do here.”
Originally, Beaufort Mayor Phil Cromer and Council member Josh Scallate expressed concerns over the “subjective nature of prosecuting a hate crime involving gender identity, as described by Suave, as internal and not necessarily visible to other people.
Additionally, Scallate worried about potential costs that additional hate crime sentences would incur and Cromer worried about training law enforcement offers for dealing with another level of investigation regarding crimes.
After meeting with appropriate parties and having their questions answered, both Cromer and Scallate expressed their full support.
Council member Neil Lipsitz supported the ordinance from the beginning and made his approval of its passage apparent during each of the times it was brought before council.
“Three words,” said council member Neil Lipsitz. “About dang time.”
Delayna Earley, who joined The Island News in 2022, formerly worked as a photojournalist for The Island Packet/The Beaufort Gazette, as well as newspapers in Indiana and Virginia. She can be reached at delayna.theislandnews@gmail.com.
