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13-02-2022, 11:31 AM
By JEFFREY COLLINS
yesterday
COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — It took South Carolina lawmakers only two months to act when a female college student was kidnapped and killed by a man posing as an Uber driver. The Legislature acted swiftly to prevent such crimes in the future.
By comparison, state Rep. Wendell Gilliard says, more than six years have passed since the racist murders of nine African Americans at the Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, and the Legislature has yet to take action to add punishment to victims of crimes motivated by bias against a particular group. That makes South Carolina one of only two states — the other being Wyoming — without a hate crimes law.
“It was wrong what happened to that young woman,” Gilliard said of the college student. “Nobody should ever meet their demise in such a way. But when you look at the Mother Emanuel Nine, we have this bill that has been waiting patiently now for six years.”
......
The bill currently sits in the Senate. The clock is ticking. If senators don’t approve the proposal by the end of their session in May, everything goes back to square one.
......
Efforts to pass a hate crimes law in Wyoming, where the killing of gay college student Matthew Shepard led to the federal hate crimes law, have repeatedly failed including in 2021.
https://apnews.com/article/ahmaud-arbery...a9c6f67fc1
yesterday
COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — It took South Carolina lawmakers only two months to act when a female college student was kidnapped and killed by a man posing as an Uber driver. The Legislature acted swiftly to prevent such crimes in the future.
By comparison, state Rep. Wendell Gilliard says, more than six years have passed since the racist murders of nine African Americans at the Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, and the Legislature has yet to take action to add punishment to victims of crimes motivated by bias against a particular group. That makes South Carolina one of only two states — the other being Wyoming — without a hate crimes law.
“It was wrong what happened to that young woman,” Gilliard said of the college student. “Nobody should ever meet their demise in such a way. But when you look at the Mother Emanuel Nine, we have this bill that has been waiting patiently now for six years.”
......
The bill currently sits in the Senate. The clock is ticking. If senators don’t approve the proposal by the end of their session in May, everything goes back to square one.
......
Efforts to pass a hate crimes law in Wyoming, where the killing of gay college student Matthew Shepard led to the federal hate crimes law, have repeatedly failed including in 2021.
https://apnews.com/article/ahmaud-arbery...a9c6f67fc1
