The Greenville City Council passed a new hate crime ordinance at Monday night’s City Council meeting.
South Carolina is one of only four states without any form of hate crime laws (Georgia, Arkansas and Wyoming), and Community Activist Bruce Wilson said he wanted to change that.
Wilson has been petitioning the Greenville City Council to create a hate crime ordinance for the past half year.
“When we realized we were one of [4] states that did not have a hate crime law in the state, period – just looking at that, it’s like how? And merely taking down a confederate flag – that’s not going to solve an issue,” Wilson said. “We need to make sure we’re protecting each other.
At the end of last year, when Wilson spoke at the beginning of a City Council meeting, he was informed that an ordinance had been drafted. Unfortunately, it was not named after him like councilwoman at the time Lillian Flemming jokingly remarked.
The proposed ordinance was presented to City Council at the beginning of this month. After District 3 City Councilman Ken Gibson helped modify some of the ordinance’s wording, it was presented again Monday and unanimously passed.
“I did not do the drafting – our city attorney did,” Gibson said. “But from the language that’s in it, it appears to track the same language as other statutes. And that’s the one change that we made. We changed the language to make sure that it tracked the language of other statutes.”
The ordinance makes what it calls “bias-based intimidation” a separate offense with additional penalties, including a maximum $500 fine or 30 days in jail.
A judge can also decide an offender must pay restitution for damages, such as “medical bills, counseling or therapy or damage to property”.
A “hate intimidation” law that was passed in Charleston a year ago was a direct influence over parts of this ordinance. Councilman Gibson referenced the Charleston law when changing the wording of the bill, and it was used as a reference point when drafting the ordinance as well.
Wilson said it doesn’t end here though. He said he plans to petition the Greenville County Council to enact a hate crime ordinance as well, and he said he hopes this will help to also push state legislators to do the same.
“Individuals from the low country have reached out to me to see how we’ve done it here in Greenville,” Wilson said. “And so now we’re going to try and build a coalition where we can take this to the state and let the state know – hey, we need to do this. There’s no reason that South Carolina should not have a hate crime statute.”