By Delayna Earley
The Island News
The City of Beaufort has unanimously voted to join other municipalities in South Carolina to take a stand against hate crimes.
The council members voted during their Tuesday, April 23, City Council meeting to amend an ordinance with language stating that “a person who violates another with intent to intimidate another person or persons in whole or in part because of the actual or perceived race, color, creed, religion, ancestry, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, physical or mental disability, or national origin of the other person or persons in guilty of the separate offense of hate intimidation.”
South Carolina is one of two states, along with Wyoming, that does not have a statewide statue on hate crimes.
The amendment to the ordinance first came up in the city council’s work session on April 9, and during the April 23 City Council meeting it was brought up for a vote following its a first reading.
During the work session, both Beaufort Mayor Phil Cromer and Council member Josh Scallate expressed concerns about parts of the ordinance, but both expressed their full support during Tuesday’s meeting after having their questions answered by the appropriate parties.
Assistant City Manager John J. Sauve said, last year the council passed a proclamation in support of the state of South Carolina adopting a code addressing hate crimes.
This is largely a symbolic ordinance, but it will hopefully send a message that the City of Beaufort does not allow anyone in a protected class to be intimidated, Sauve said.
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.
This ordinance does not create a standalone offense, so you wouldn’t have someone charged with violating the hate crime statute, but it would fall to the police department to prove that a crime has been committed against one of the protected classes and the hate intimidation charge would be added if warranted.
The last time a report was taken in the city of Beaufort for a violation of a protected class was in 2021, but other municipalities in South Carolina have had more recent issues.
The state legislation, named the “Clementa C. Pinckney Hate Crimes Act,” has passed the House and the Senate’s Judiciary Committee, but has failed to pass the full Senate.
Pinckney, who was from Beaufort, 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.
“Although the numbers are low here at the time, I believe that this is a tool that the police here can have in their belt,” Sauve said. “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.”
City Council member Neil Lipsitz applauded the Lowcountry legislators and senators for what they have done to try and pass the bill at the state level and said that hopefully this will help to show how important this is.
“We cannot outlaw hate, but laws shape attitudes and attitudes shape behaviors,” Mayor Cromer said. “Hopefully with this we are sending a message.”
The ordinance still needs to pass a second reading and final vote.
Delayna Earley, who joined The Island News in 2022, lives in Beaufort with her husband, two children and Jack Russell. She 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.
