The city of Conway is making strides to fight against hate crimes and 鈥渂ias motivated events.鈥
City leaders on Tuesday, Sept. 3, took their first vote to pass a hate intimidation and hate crimes ordinance that, if violated, is considered a misdemeanor. The proposed ordinance passed unanimously.
Before the vote, Conway Mayor Barbara Blain encouraged the council members to support the ordinance.
鈥淚 see us as being open minded. I see us as being open armed,鈥 she said, adding that she hopes the ordinance will be a message to state leaders who have not passed a state-level law that could enforce stricter penalties than municipalities.
The hate crimes ordinance comes after a cross-burning incident in the Conway section of unincorporated Horry County the day after Thanksgiving last year and was directed toward a family after multiple disputes with the neighbors. Two people were charged with harassment, a misdemeanor, in connection with the incident.
Conway staff said the city has also experienced "multiple incidents" of antisemitic literature thrown from vehicles onto properties. In those cases, the city can only currently enforce its littering charge.
Myrtle Beach was the first jurisdiction in the county to pass a hate crime ordinance in April, which is as strict as the limits allow for a municipal ordinance. It would add a penalty of $500 or additional jail time up to 30 days for those convicted of hate crimes in city limits.
In March, Conway City Council passed a hate crimes resolution encouraging state leaders to enact a hate crime law. But city leaders have said that the city is limited in its ability to create an ordinance and enforce harsh penalties because the city only handles misdemeanor charges.
Higher-level charges with harsher penalties are dealt with at the circuit court level, or the federal level in some cases. Those charges, for example, include murder or armed robbery. Because no state law related to hate crime exists, the city can only charge hate crimes as misdemeanors.
The penalty for a misdemeanor in the city, specifically violating the proposed hate crimes ordinance, would be a punishment of no more than $500 or no more than 30 days in jail. City records state the sentence imposed shall be 鈥渃onsecutive to the sentence for the underlying criminal offense unless the court articulates on the record why the sentences should run concurrently.鈥
The proposed hate crimes ordinance will require a second favorable vote from city council before it can be enforced.
(2) comments
Hate crimes are being committed in 'higher learning facilities' and among all those organizations and entities who permit pro-Palestinian occupiers who attack, spit on, shove, punch and prevent Jews from attending the schools they paid tuition for. When we have a govt that acknowledges 'hate' to apply to those who would put a 70yo grandmother in jail for praying inside an abortion clinic but doesn't have room to imprison the 3 Jordanian terrorists who attacked Quantico that were relased on bond... Well, I don't think we need 'government' deciding what is 'hate' any more than we need govt to tell us that healthcare is mutilation of children and Nobel Prize-winning scientists with verifiable data get censored for proving deadly antigen therapies are not 'vaccines'. It's the govt that enables hate and the govt that enables 'dis/mis-information' - all the while claiming our protected rights to free speech must be herded and limited to fit their narratives. Hang that. The Constitution exists to LIMIT government power - and PROTECTS the rights of the PEOPLE.
I wonder if it鈥檒l take care of the loser from the MB area who writes hate propaganda against Jews and leaves it in peoples driveways in the middle of the night. He鈥檚 all over peoples security cams in many neighborhoods throwing his little plastic baggies of hate from his black 4 door but because SC doesn鈥檛 recognize that as a hate crime he gets away with it. In general Conway appears to have little to no 鈥渉ate鈥 crime but if it stops this particular issue that鈥檇 be great since it鈥檚 been going on for years now.
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