MYRTLE BEACH, SC (WBTW) – It was a violent weekend in the City of Myrtle Beach with four shootings in 48 hours.
The shootings have gained national attention, and Monday, not one city official in Myrtle Beach would speak to News13 about the violence.
Lt. Joey Crosby with Myrtle Beach Police says his officers are tired, they’re frustrated, they’re ready to put people behind bars if they break the law, and they will not tolerate the violence any longer.
A Facebook video of a shooting near 5th Avenue North and Ocean Boulevard has been viewed millions of times on social media that shows a guy pulling out a gun and firing multiple rounds into a crowd. That incident sent seven people to the hospital.
“As you can imagine, as you see on the Facebook live video, it was a very chaotic scene there for a while,” said Crosby.
Chaotic describes the entire weekend in Myrtle Beach starting Saturday when police responded to a shooting around 4:30 at Coastal Grand Mall, and about 20 minutes after were sent to another shooting at the Crown Reef Motel.
“We take pride in wearing the badge that we wear and serving the citizens and the guests in the city of Myrtle Beach. We’ve worked a lot of long hours, and we know that we’re going to work a lot of long hours. So, when something like this happens, it frustrates us and it makes us angry quite honestly to have someone come into our city and commit an act such as this,” said Crosby.
Myrtle Beach City Council leaders asked former Chief Warren Gall to consider a zero tolerance campaign with a concentration on violent crimes to put more people behind bars after a similar violent weekend around Easter.
News13 obtained an email from council member Mike Lowder to other council leaders that reads in part “Our Chief of Police stands in front of us this past Tuesday and tells us if zero tolerance is what you want, I am not going to do that….It appears that we are on opposite ends of the rope.”
A few weeks later, Chief Gall retired, and while Interim Chief Amy Prock declined to comment on how she plans to handle the violence, Crosby says nothing is off the table at this point, and officers are cracking down.
“We’ll utilize every resource possible to hold this person and every person that’s thinking about doing something like this accountable for their actions this behavior will not be tolerated,” said Crosby.
News13 reached out to every council member, the city’s spokesperson, and the mayor, and we’ve been told that no one from the city is talking right now.
City Council will hold a special called meeting Tuesday afternoon at 2 to talk about the violence, and you can count on News13 to be there.