Cross burning in South Carolina stirs debate over hate-crimes laws

Monica and Shawn Williams, both Black veterans of the U.S. Army, thought they had bought a retirement home in a neighborhood that lived up to South Carolina’s slogan: “Smiling Faces, Beautiful Places.”

But within hours of moving into their three-bedroom house near Myrtle Beach in 2021, the Williamses said their next-door neighbors, a White couple, started scowling at them. The uncomfortable stares eventually led to racial slurs and a bitter two-year dispute. Then, on the day after Thanksgiving, they discovered a cross set on fire just outside their yard.

“I can’t believe what I am seeing,” Shawn Williams, 59, said he thought. A dozen relatives visiting for the holiday also grew distraught.

When Horry County Police Department officers and firefighters arrived, the neighbors stood near the cross and hurled racial epithets at the family, according to police reports. But police left that night without charging anyone with a crime. South Carolina is one of just two states without a hate-crimes law.

“Since no criminal activity took place, this report will be for informational purposes only,” the initial police incident report concludes.

A week later, after the Williamses protested the lack of charges, Horry County police filed second-degree harassment charges against Alexis Hartnett, 27, and Worden Butler, 28. Bail on the misdemeanor charges was set at $500, and the couple were released from jail within hours.

Both cases are pending. Neither has yet entered a plea. Butler has asked for a jury trial and is expected to appear in court in March.

Now, the fallout from the cross burning in Conway is reverberating across South Carolina — turning into a galvanizing moment for civil rights activists pushing the state legislature to enact a hate-crimes law. The bill is named in honor of the pastor who was killed along with eight others in a predominantly Black church in Charleston in 2015.

The debate over a proposed hate-crimes law in South Carolina comes as legislators around the country are gearing up for sessions expected to take on what constitutes a hate crime and how to enforce the statutes. From the Northeast to the Pacific Northwest, lawmakers believe they have the best chance in decades to make substantial changes to how crimes involving a host of matters involving race, religion and sexual orientation are investigated and prosecuted.

Many GOP lawmakers have resisted enacting broad new state-hate crimes laws in recent years — but a number of those legislators are now at the forefront of the outrage over an apparent rise in antisemitism following Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack on Israel. Democrats now believe 2024 may be the year for a bipartisan breakthrough on hate-crimes laws.

In New York, legislators will consider a proposal to increase the number of charges that can be classified as hate crimes and given more severe penalties. In Pennsylvania, lawmakers will weigh legislation to update the hate-crimes law for the first time in two decades. And in Georgia, legislators will consider a proposal to better define what constitutes antisemitism.

The flurry of legislation comes at a time when the country is increasingly strained over acts of hate that have left vulnerable communities on edge.

Attacks against racial minorities as well as the LGBTQ+ community rose after Donald Trump was elected president in 2016, according to FBI statistics. There was another surge of hateful incidents against Asian Americans after the coronavirus pandemic originated in China. Now, law enforcement agencies report a significant uptick in antisemitic and Islamophobic behaviors related to Israel’s war in Gaza.

According to the most recent FBI statistics, there were 11,634 hate-crime incidents reported in 2022, compared with 10,840 in 2021. In 2019, before the pandemic, the nation reported 7,314.

“I think what is happening around the country helps build momentum toward its passage,” said Pennsylvania state Sen. Jay Costa (D), who is pushing for legislation that adds sexual orientation and disability to the state’s hate-crimes law. “There is no question in light of October 7, my Republican colleagues are to seriously consider advancing some of these measures.”

Bonfires, machetes and a moat

The Williamses said they never considered South Carolina’s lack of a hate-crimes law when they purchased their property in Conway. Wyoming is the only other state without a hate-crimes law, although several cities there have enacted ordinances.

The couple wanted to be closer to the ocean and spend their golden years in a house that could accommodate visiting friends and relatives. They said they were the first Black family to move into their subdivision filled with one- and two-story houses on spacious tree-lined lots. The neighborhood is about 15 miles from Myrtle Beach.

Cross burning in South Carolina stirs debate over hate-crimes laws

Most of their new neighbors were welcoming. But the couple said Hartnett and Butler refused to talk to them.

“There was just a lot of staring and things that make you feel intimidated,” said Monica Williams, 58. “And [Butler] was doing a lot of strange things on his side of the property — burning bonfires, using machetes and crossbows.”

Monica Williams, who spent 11 years in the Army and now works as a teacher in Charlotte, said other neighbors cautioned them about Butler.

“They warned us to be careful of him,” she recalled. “Most felt he was all bark and no bite, but we had one neighbor who really warned us, saying, ‘You all need to get a fence.’”

Monica Williams in 1984, left, and Shawn Williams in 1990, right, while serving in the U.S. Army.

So the Williamses spent $13,000 on a fence, the first section of which was completed in the spring of 2023. Butler became enraged and would frequently harass the surveyors and construction crew, the Williamses said.

“They would call us complaining, ‘This guy won’t let us do our work,’” Monica Williams said.

Meanwhile, according to police reports and court documents, Butler was engaged in work on his side — digging a “moat” around his property.

On Thanksgiving, as she waited for her extended family to arrive, Monica Williams said she reached out to Butler and Hartnett to try to ease the tensions.

Shawn Williams, second from left in the back row, and Monica, third from left in the back row, with family members at their home in Conway over the Thanksgiving holiday.

But when she approached their property, Hartnett came running out shouting racial slurs, Monica Williams said. Then, she said, her neighbor threatened her.

“She said, ‘I have killed Black people before and I didn’t get caught and I will do it again,’” Monica Williams recalled. “She said, ‘I shoot n-words.’”

An arrest warrant issued after Hartnett was charged with harassing the Williamses accuses her of “threatening bodily harm and referencing having killed a black woman in the past.”

The Washington Post attempted to reach Butler and Hartnett by phone, but several numbers were disconnected. The Post sent a certified letter to their house seeking comment, but no one was home to accept it. An attorney listed in court files did not return phone calls seeking comment.

A day later, the Williamses looked out their window and saw the cross burning in Hartnett and Butler’s yard. As the flames flickered, Hartnett bolted out of the house “ranting and raving, calls us all kinds of n-words” as police looked on, according to Monica Williams. A police report also stated an officer’s body camera captured Hartnett “repeatedly using a racial slur towards the victim family.”

But responding officers did little to stop Butler and Hartnett, and they left the scene after concluding no crime had been committed, the Williamses said.

“We just felt so unsupported and alone,” Monica Williams said. “Police and firefighters are just standing there and they did not realize how serious and intimidating a cross burning is and what it represents.”

Horry County police did not respond to a request for comment.

A few days later, Monica Williams decided to contact Horry County Sheriff Phillip E. Thompson to see if her neighbors would face any repercussions. Thompson told the Williamses he had no knowledge of the incident — but he promised to check with Horry County police on whether they investigated the matter.

Alexis Hartnett, left, and Worden Butler in booking photos.

Within 24 hours, the Williams family received a phone call from a deputy chief saying police leaders did not even know the cross burning had occurred.

“He was very apologetic for how things were handled,” Monica Williams said.

Police then intensified their investigation, discovering Butler had posted on Facebook that he intended to burn the cross to send a message to the Williamses. Next to a picture of the Williamses’ mailbox, Butler had written he was “summoning the devil’s army and I don’t care if we both go down in the same boat,” according to a police report.

Investigators charged the couple with second-degree harassment a week later.

In an interview with My Horry News, a Myrtle Beach-area news outlet, a local police commander said it took time to build a case against the couple because it’s not a crime to burn a cross.

“There is no current law for burning a cross in your own yard. It’s the totality of the situation at hand,” said Capt. Danny Furr of the Horry County Police Department. “It was done in a way in order to intimidate.”

Legislative battles

The cross burning — as well as police officers’ initial response — was condemned by civil rights leaders in South Carolina who saw it as one more warning that the state needs a hate-crimes law.

“It was a cross this time, but what comes next? The rope?” asked the Rev. Kenneth Floyd, president of the Conway branch of the NAACP.

Because South Carolina has no hate-crimes law, the state has become reliant on the FBI and federal prosecutors to tackle crimes suspected of being motivated by bias, Floyd said. Federal laws generally allow prosecutors to charge anyone who injures or attempts to injure someone because of their race, color, religion, sexual orientation or national origin. Interfering with a person’s right to conduct federally protected activities like work and travel on account of those factors can also be a crime.

The South Carolina State House, in Columbia, in 2021.

The FBI is conducting an investigation into what happened to the Williamses. In December, after news of the cross burning became public, the FBI visited the house where Butler and Hartnett live. An FBI spokesman said the investigation is ongoing.

Jimmy Richardson, the state prosecutor for Horry County, said his job would be easier if South Carolina had a hate-crimes law. Richardson added that the magistrate who set Butler’s and Hartnett’s minimal bail could only consider whether they were a flight risk or danger to the community.

“I don’t know if these charges of harassment really speak to the type of harassment that occurred,” he said.

Last year, Richardson noted, a man was leaving “disturbing antisemitic literature” on mailboxes and in door hinges in Myrtle Beach. But state prosecutors could only charge the suspect with littering.

Just in the greater Myrtle Beach-Conway area, the NAACP has documented 94 incidents over the past decade that the civil rights organization suspects of being driven by hate. The incidents range from property destruction and assaults to intimidation, said Marvin Neal, a vice president of the South Carolina State Conference of the NAACP.

Neal suspects the true number of cases is far higher.

“With the lack of a hate-crimes law, people have gotten to the point where they just don’t even report it anymore,” Neal said.

South Carolina state senators watch a video of Charleston church massacre survivor Polly Sheppard asking lawmakers to pass a hate-crimes bill in April 2022.

Last year, the Republican-controlled state House of Representatives overwhelmingly approved a hate-crimes law, which would have added five years to prison sentences if someone was convicted of a violent crime that targeted a person because of their race, religion, sex, gender, sexual orientation, national origin, or physical or mental disability.

But the measure stalled in the GOP-controlled state Senate.

State Sen. Josh Kimbrell (R) has been opposed to the hate-crimes bill but said he’s open to considering it this year — if it removes protections based on sexual orientation. He believes hate-crimes protections for the LGBTQ+ community will lead to “censorship of free speech.”

“Right now, anything to do with sexual orientation or gender identity is a very prickly subject,” Kimbrell said in an interview. “I am open to a discussion but as of now, the language is far too broad and I can’t support it.”

Sense of safety dashed

In several other states, there is expected to be more momentum behind revisions to hate-crimes laws.

In New York, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg (D) — whose office prosecuted 111 hate crimes last year, compared with 31 in 2019 — has teamed up with Assembly member Grace Lee (D) and several other legislators to upgrade that state’s statute. The proposed law adds 31 categories of crimes that can be prosecuted as hate crimes, including gang assault, forcible touching and making graffiti.

“Unfortunately, we are seeing hate crimes being committed in ways that probably wouldn’t have even been conceived of when the statute was originally enacted,” said Lee, who is Asian American and notes there has been a surge of xenophobia against Asian New Yorkers. “It is important we take a proactive approach to addressing hate crimes because there is a long-term corrosive effect when hate crimes are committed and there is no consequence.”

On the West Coast, lawmakers in Washington state are considering a bill to establish “a hate crimes and bias incidents hotline” where residents can report hate crimes.

A team of researchers at Florida Atlantic University and the University of Colorado concluded that state hate-crimes laws are often murky and leave too much discretion to police and prosecutors. Many states’ statutes, for example, mention churches but fail to explicitly cite synagogues and mosques.

“Victims are the one who suffer from that,” said Seth Fallik, an author of the report and a criminology professor at Florida Atlantic University.

The Williamses outside their home in Charlotte.

The Williamses say they know all too well about that suffering.

Fearful of their neighbors in Conway, the Williamses fled back to Charlotte, their primary residence, where they plan to stay until more can be done to assure their safety.

“My sense of security and sense of peace of mind has been totally eradicated at this point,” Shawn Williams said. “I can no longer send myself, my wife, my family or any friends to that house.”

“We love the state of South Carolina,” Monica Williams added. “But they need to get it together and stop playing games with racial issues.”