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A Black man from South Carolina is calling for hate crime laws to be enacted in the state, one of only two states in the US that do not have them, after being targeted at in a racist attack.
Jarvis McKenzie said that on 17 July, while waiting to go to work, a white man in a car picked up a rifle, fired over his head and shouted “you better get running, boy!”, according to the Associated Press. McKenzie reportedly escaped behind a brick wall and police later arrested Jonathan Felkel, 34, in the shooting, according to WIS 10.
Wyoming is the only other state that does not have hate crime laws. Richland county, where McKenzie lives, does have its own hate-crime legislation, as do more than 20 local governments in South Carolina, but local statutes are limited to misdemeanors, with a maximum one-month sentence.
That law was used to charge Felkel, making him reportedly the first person arrested under the county’s hate crime ordinance. Felkel was also charged with assault and battery of a high and aggravated nature, and possession of a weapon during a violent crime.
The Richland county sheriff’s department alleged that following his arrest Felkel admitted he fired because of the man’s race. “So I went down there and I seen a man standing in the bushes,” he reportedly said.
“It was a Black man in a white shirt, just standing out there at 4 in the morning, and I saw him there and he was by himself so I was really going to do something at first … Well, I was going to shoot at him. I was. I was going to shoot at him.”
His lawyer could not immediately be reached for comment.
“It’s heartbreaking to know that I get up every morning. I stand there not knowing if he had seen me before,” McKenzie reportedly said, and called for the enaction of a state-wide law.
Many localities, including Richland county, have put forth their own hate crime laws in order to push South Carolina’s senate to vote on proposed legislation that would impose more serious penalties on perpetrators of crimes motivated by victims’ race, ethnicity, religion, gender, or sexual orientation.
The bill, which could result in years of additional prison time, has been backed by survivors of the Charleston, South Carolina, church massacre of nine people. South Carolina business leaders also pushed the legislation after George Floyd’s 2020 killing by Minneapolis police, which prompted outcry across the US and demands for ending systemic racism.
South Carolina’s house approved the bill in 2021, but it has since languished in the Republican-led state senate, which refuses to vote on it.
