Tag: violent crime

Increased Crime, Poor Planning as Myrtle Beach City Elections Near

Five weeks remain before voting begins in the Myrtle Beach city council elections and it looks like the incumbents don’t want to face the public in other than a completely controlled environment.

Two years ago, we were told the city was safer than ever. There was an ad campaign complete with thousands of mailers claiming so. We know that claim was incorrect when it was made and things have only gotten worse since.

National crime statistics just came out showing Myrtle Beach had a double digit increase last year in violent crimes.

The recent shooting incident near Futrell Park puts an exclamation point on a situation which has been basically ignored by city officials.

Mayor John Rhodes recently blamed the iphone for hurting the image of the city by spreading negative pictures and comments about it. What Mayor Rhodes forgets is iphones and the people who use them can only show what is happening and comment on it. They do not create the incidents that are shown, at least not yet.

This is exactly the type of detached thinking and denial of what is happening that is hurting the city.

Or am I wrong? Was there really no shooting on Ocean Boulevard, or at Futrell Park? Was this just something an iphone made up and spread throughout the internet?

Eighteen months ago, Bennie Swans, Jon Bonsignor and Tim McCray went before city council to ask for help with problems around the Futrell Park area. They were basically called traitors and told their words would hurt tourism in the city.

However, a problem doesn’t go away when it is ignored. Maybe, if the city council had listened to rather than attacked what was being said, a young pregnant girl would not have been shot in a car last week killing her and her unborn baby.

Community Violence Meetings Next Week

Horry County’s Community Violence Subcommittee is scheduled to meet again next week, hopefully to move forward on a plan to address crime problems in neighborhoods.

For its first four months of existence, the subcommittee has been stuck on compiling statistics comparing Horry County to counties in neighboring states.

I suppose that’s an approach. In the meantime, Horry County is experiencing approximately 20 deaths per month from heroin overdoses, according to local media reports, and violent crimes are on the rise.

All of the violence in our local communities can’t be tied directly to an increasing heroin epidemic that officials are beginning to acknowledge exists in Horry County. Poverty and lack of opportunities to rise above it play their parts also.

Interestingly, the Myrtle Beach Police Department is hosting a forum called “Facing the Heroin Epidemic Head On” at the Recreation Center on the former Air Force Base Tuesday August 16th beginning at 6:30 p.m.

When local community activists went before Myrtle Beach City Council nearly six months ago asking for help in combating community violence, Mayor John Rhodes blamed the activists for the problems and said crime was decreasing in Myrtle Beach.

The activists were also told they were ‘hurting tourism’ by focusing on community violence problems.

A raging heroin epidemic will hurt tourism a lot more. Maybe that’s why the Myrtle Beach forum will address the problem next week.

While local governments have begun to address the community violence problem, at least acknowledging it exists, a local group of pastors has been holding meetings in various communities around the county. This seems to be the most intelligent approach. It does seem logical to learn about community violence problems from those most affected by them.

Gingrich, Myrtle Beach, Oil and Interstates

Missing the Message in Myrtle Beach

With the city elections just over one week away, the issue of the Myrtle Beach Police Department and crime statistics came up in a recent candidate forum.

This is no surprise as the MBPD and crime are raised in every city campaign, then, promptly forgotten about until the next campaign.

The incumbents gave the same time worn excuses we always hear for the number of violent crimes that occur each year in Myrtle Beach – “It’s the tourists”. I’ve recently heard a slant on that one – “It’s the homeless”.

Some tourists do come down here and commit serious crimes. I really don’t think we have any Al Capone wannabes among the homeless.