Authorities 'saturate' Walterboro streets after rash of deadly shootings

WALTERBORO -- Tyrone Brown wanted a pack of cigarettes.

He had to go through two license-check roadblocks to get to the Shell convenience store down Jefferies Boulevard from his home. At the store, a Colleton County sheriff's deputy squad car and a State Law Enforcement Division SUV had pulled over a car.

When he looked around, a Walterboro police squad car cruised past. It was 11 p.m. Thursday, and the downtown area might as well have been under lockdown.

"All I see is police, it's so hot right now," Brown said, pumping gas into a Lincoln Town Car. "I'm going home. I'm not going out tonight. It looks like it's going to be like this until they catch everybody."

Walterboro at night is surreal. Motorists can't turn a corner without running into a traffic stop or seeing patrol cars roll by each other. People are out -- the Maxway is crowded with shoppers; smokers lean on the wall outside the Comfort Zone sports bar across from the courthouse. But the mood is as subdued and disturbed as the blue lights flashing with no sirens.

Three people were killed about 10 p.m. Monday in a rain of rifle fire that came from inside a car driven past a home at Gerideau and McDaniel streets. Among the dead was 20-month-old Shaniyah Burden. Also killed were her relatives Charles "Bubba Dog" Kittrell, 45, and 21-year-old Christopher Powell.

They were among 20 people at the home watching football, playing cards and grilling food. Six people, including Shaniyah's mother, were wounded in the fusillade. Witnesses said the gunfire appeared to come from a machine gun.

Two more people were shot Wednesday night just blocks from the site of the slayings as police ran from one location to another chasing down reports of gunfire. Police have arrested one suspect so far in connection with the McDaniel Street shooting. Danziel Akeem Chapman, 19, was ordered held without bail Thursday during his first court appearance on a charge of murder.

Police 'saturation'

This week's gunfire was just the latest in a series of incidents in which people have been shot, seemingly at random, in their homes or going about their business.

The army of police out on the streets is a show of muscle to reassure the community as much as to find the shooters.

In an interview with The Post and Courier, SLED Director Reggie Lloyd said the police "saturation" effort will continue as long as necessary to stop the violence and calm people's fears and that he has commitments from several federal, state, county and local law enforcement agencies to assist with the effort.

Investigators are aggressively combing the community and identifying a number of people they want to talk to or question about the shootings, Lloyd said. He advised anyone with information on the crimes to come forward before SLED comes knocking on their doors.

"The earlier in the door, the better off they are," he said. "Those who delay coming forward might find themselves on the short end of the stick."

At a news conference Friday outside City Hall, Mayor Bill Young said residents should continue to live their lives as normal and urged anyone with information about the shootings to call Crime Stoppers at 554-1111.

"We will not surrender to gangs, or drug violence, or continue to live in fear," Young said. "We want people to go about their daily lives."

He said he called the news conference because he wanted to assure residents that Walterboro is safe.

The news conference was held in front of the State Law Enforcement Division's mobile command post and participants included Gov. Mark Sanford, Lloyd and a bevy of city, county, state and federal officials.

Sanford said his role was to listen to local officials and to learn if there were additional ways the state could help.

SLED Capt. Roger Heaton, who is leading the investigation, said officials had decided against imposing a curfew because enforcing one might divert officers from patrolling the streets.

Heaton declined to estimate how many officers would be on duty at night but said police presence would be significant. "This is probably the safest place to be in the whole state of South Carolina right now," Heaton said.

'Scary'

The show of police force isn't just in town. Take a ride into the wooded countryside, turn onto a dark residential side road and the blue lights are on; a half dozen police wait on both sides of the street in the beams of flashlights. Some are in uniform, some in plainclothes with a handgun and shield strapped to the belt. Some are in camouflage with bulletproof vests and ammunition packets.

Turn a second corner and more police cars with blue lights shining have surrounded a Crown Victoria with a bullet hole in a door. The driver leans up against it, slouching with his hands in his jacket pockets.

"Scary," said the woman driving a small sedan waiting in line for the roadblock to clear. Before she can say more, police tell a reporter to get back in his car, threatening arrest.

Follow a convoy of five U.S. Marshal and SLED trucks, cars and SUVS as they wheel down one road in the night, and you end up down a dirt back road in the middle of nowhere. Where it dead ends, two squad cars are turned to face the road, their lights out, in a stakeout. Along the way, squad cars in teams of two are backed off the road and waiting in the shadows.

The blocks around where this week's shootings took place is within walking distance of the city police and county sheriff's stations. At night, the trees shadow the street lights. Few people are out and few have their house lights on. An officer in one of two squad cars blocking the street down the road hands a driver's license back and gives the driver an intent look.

"Be careful in this neighborhood, all right?" the officer says.

It's nearly midnight, and a few blocks back toward the downtown, James Warren drags his garbage cans out to the dark curb. He jumps at a noise and peers back over his shoulder. A lone man on a bicycle peddles down the shadowed street like a phantom.

"I don't like to walk out on the street," Warren says. "I've got two kids and I'm keeping my kids in the house. I think a lot of people are like that."

David W. MacDougall and Glenn Smith contributed to this report. Reach Bo Petersen at bpetersen@postandcourier.com or 937-5744.