Two neighborhood watch meetings in Myrtle Beach in recent days highlight the great divide that separates the city, according to several candidates in this year’s city election.

A meeting of the Withers Swash Neighborhood Crime Watch group was filled with complaints about three home invasions, one that included a rape of a woman with a gun, an armed robbery, drug deals in church parking lots, prostitution arrests and a shootout on Maple Street, among other incidents all in the last month.

To say the group attending the meetings was irate is to minimize the feelings in the room. However, being on the south end of the city, the neighbors are used to serious crime and minimal police presence.