COLUMBIA – Fort Jackson officials are investigating the actions of a white soldier captured in a video denouncing a black man for walking inside a subdivision of Richland County, an incident that sparked a protest.
“This type of behavior is inconsistent with our military values and will not be tolerated,” Fort Jackson spokeswoman LA Sully said in a statement on April 14. “We have started our own investigation and are working with local authorities.”
He two minute clip posted on Twitter on April 13 shows a man less than a foot away from the black man, who is on a sidewalk in The Summit, a large diverse neighborhood in northeast Richland.
“Go, right now,” the man says. “What do you do there?”
The black man says he was walking and suggested the white man call the police. A woman who is not seen on camera says officers have been called.
“You’re attacking our neighborhood,” the white man says pushing the black man. “You better leave or I’ll take your (expletive) out of here.”
“I didn’t do anything,” the black man says.
“I’m about to do something to you,” the white man says. “You better start walking.”
Then the white man and the black man exchange accusations about who started the discussion.
“You’re in the wrong (explosive) neighborhood,” the white man shouts. “Exit. Exit.”
The white man said the black man was “harassing the neighborhood.” The black man says he lives in the neighborhood, but does not answer the questions where asked.
“Look, we’re a very close-knit community,” the white man says. “We take care of each other.”
The video does not show how the confrontation began or ended.
The Richland County Sheriff’s Department said in a statement that the black man in the video is accused of two incidents in the same neighborhood days before the confrontation. A man touched a woman and picked up a baby without consent, according to incident reports from the sheriff’s office.
It was not known whether deputies issued any charges. The suspect and victim reports were drafted in reports sent to The Post and Courier.
About 40 protesters showed up outside the soldier’s house on April 14, shouting “This is our neighborhood too!”
“This young brother could have been another hashtag instead of a living, breathing warrior,” Jerome Bowers, CEO of One Common Cause: Community Control Initiative, said during the protest.
Four Richland County sheriff vehicles were parked right on the street after the protest and another six patrol cars were parked at Brookland’s nearby Baptist church with officers milling out of the cars.
Neighbors from further afield gathered on the sidewalk, some confused about the source of the activity, in what a resident said was a typically quiet subdivision with newly built houses and houses under construction.
No one answered at the soldier’s front door.
Fort Jackson, the largest army training camp based in Columbia, did not identify the soldier.
“This is in no way accepted by any member of the service,” a tweet of the story of the commander of the Fort Jackson general, he said. “We’ll get to the end of this ASAP.”
Brig. General Milford Beagle, the commander of the fortress, issued a statement on April 14, where he thanked the community “for notifying him.”
The Richland County Sheriff’s Department said it was investigating the confrontation.
Sheriff Leon Lott is scheduled to meet with elected officials and representatives of community organizations to discuss the incident before making a public statement, according to the department on April 14. Lott will hold a press conference at 5 p.m.
“Sheriff Lott realizes the importance of posting correct information quickly as there has been a lot of incorrect information distributed through Facebook and other social media,” the sheriff’s department said in a statement. “The video itself is very disturbing and has helped tremendously in our research.”
State Senator Mia McLeod, a Democrat in whose district The Summit is located, delivered a passionate speech from the Senate floor asking her colleagues to defend themselves against injustice.
“What else has to happen? It’s like a time bomb,” McLeod said from the Senate podium. “We have to decide right here, right now, whether we will move forward to 2021 or go back to 1921.”
State Rep. Ivory Thigpen, a Democrat who represents The Summit, said, though she understands that something could have happened before the video: “What we saw, in my opinion, was an assault and intimidation.”
“Leaving the race aside, I was infuriated by what I saw as school bullying and I hate bullies,” Thigpen told The Post and Courier. “There needs to be clear information, actions taken, hopefully mediation and resolution will promote harmony in the community.”
Stephen Fastenau i Sean Adcox contributed from Columbia.
This is a developing story and will be updated.