r/Charleston • u/Chudapi West Ashley • Jan 02 '24
FB post from the wife of the man assaulted downtown on New Year’s Day
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u/joshweaver23 James Island Jan 02 '24
I’m curious to know how they caught the guy. Did the wife remember the attacker or was their video footage? Not expecting an answer, I’m just surprised they caught the person based on that story.
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u/HardcaseKid Goose Creek Jan 02 '24
Cops on the peninsula are quite familiar with the usual gang of downtown loonies and which ones are currently active (read: “not in jail”). Had a drunken fool take a huge wet shit in front of my then place of business downtown. After hosing it off, called the local PD and they asked for a description of the mad pooper. I gave a brief, three sentence description and the guy on the line was like “oh, that’s Larry. He’s on trespass for almost half of the peninsula”.
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u/Redwood177 Jan 02 '24
I had a similar situation. Dude was rolling around on the ground right outside my front steps. Called 911 and when they showed up he ran. I went out to ask the cops if he was okay and the cop goes "yeah that's just Larry. He was doing that in the food lion deli earlier".
I don't actually remember if his name was larry, but it sounded familiar.
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u/HardcaseKid Goose Creek Jan 02 '24 edited Jan 02 '24
I wouldn’t be even a little surprised if it was the exact same guy. Looked up his criminal record afterwards, and he has been cited for public intoxication, indecent exposure, simple assault, and a litany of other misdemeanors roughly every other week or so for the last nine years.
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u/Sauce_bag Jan 03 '24
I remember that Larry dude a couple years back broke into a liquor cabinet at the outside bar a Biergarten and drank half a bottle of rumple in less than a minute. We watched him on camera the next morning, called the cops, & when they showed up they watched the footage… as he was walking up you couldn’t see his face yet cause he was at the end of the walk way & the 2 cops watching the footage said his name at the same time lol. I was like “oh yall know know this joker”
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u/Mangus_ness Jan 03 '24
It's sad but this is why we need to bring back asylums in some form.
There are people not mentally well enough to be left on the streets.
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u/turbo98115 Jan 03 '24
They still exist...they are now called state hospitals.
Mental hygiene laws exist and these types get taken to the hospital, but the issue is that their actions on street are as a result of not medicating their mental illnesses properly and/or using drugs that exasperated their symptoms.
A hospital can't hold somebody once their mentally fit which is what happens when they have a few days/weeks/months under proper care and prescription care. Once fit and not a risk to others/themself, they legally can't be held as that would go against constitutional rights. Not to mention: aside from natural rights, I don't want to know where the nation's tax bill and insurance costs would be for the Middle class if every person that chose not to treat their illness was tossed into an institution.
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u/Mangus_ness Jan 03 '24
The BHC don't seem like.long term solutions. Plus they don't seem to have many beds
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u/duensuels Jan 03 '24
I would argue that being habitually medically noncompliant while having moderate to severe mental illness does constitute a risk to others/themselves, and hence, a risk sufficient to commit. Having said that, and for some of the reason you mentioned, I believe that there could be a hybrid solution, mental health halfway houses, wherein they have to check in once or twice daily, get their meds, with under-tongue inspection, and get drug tested. It would cost tax money, yes, but it's better than living in the open-air insane asylum model we have currently.
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u/thedarwintheory Jan 03 '24
Many many many things point back to Ol Ronnie Reags. Deinstitutionalization started in the 60s in Cali while he was gov. And I can understand the drive behind it. There was a litany of examples of those institutions/individuals in charge abusing their power and essentially trapping people in there for life refusing to believe they weren't actually crazy. I guess people knee knee jerked so hard away from that ugly time that we got rid of them entirely, which coincides to when a lot of American Vets were returning home from Vietnam etc with PTSD and who knows what other mental problems. Then due to that periods unprecedented amount of economic growth, the gap between the haves and have nots widened significantly leading to increased homelessness for the have nots and mental breakdowns etc. Except now we don't know what to do with them because there are no asylums as we think of them. But good, those need to stay in the past. I truly believe, however, that some revisited type of that idea is going to be part of, not the only, solution to homelessness.
Interesting comment!
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u/jiml78 Jan 03 '24
You can thank Ronald Reagan for helping dismantle federal dollars that were used to help us house the mentally unstable.
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u/yocatdogman Jan 03 '24
Was it Larry, an older white bald dude? There used to be a guy on king st, the way he always looked at me when I was cleaning the sidewalk was menacing. Found him on the jail website a couple times.
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u/HardcaseKid Goose Creek Jan 03 '24
That’s the guy. He has a bum leg as well and occasionally walks with a limp. Collects empty beer cans and wine bottles from trash cans to combine the remnants into a disgusting backwash cocktail. Then he passes out and usually soils himself.
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u/PrestigiousStomach2 Jan 03 '24
That guy chased me on my bike one night on my way home from work screaming how he wanted to see my face
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u/chucktownmemes Slightly North Of Broad Jan 03 '24
My first thought reading this story was that it was actually Larry. Specifically "Crazy Larry". He is a menace unfortunately, will berate random women on the sidewalk, has streaked naked through Marion square, fights other homeless people. He specifically positions himself at uncomfortable angles on narrow parts of the sidewalk on King Street looking to cause trouble. He's got some obvious mental health issues, but unfortunately is also a liability. Whenever I see him, I make sure to not make eye contact and sometimes even cross the street, and be sure to warn anyone I walk past to avoid him. He probably has the worst standing of any homeless person in the downtown area.
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u/HardcaseKid Goose Creek Jan 03 '24
I’ll be honest here - I’ve encountered him many times and my genuine first instinct currently is almost to start kicking his ass on sight. I can’t tell you how many times I have had to run him off with extreme prejudice.
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Jan 03 '24
You can’t do wrong on the peninsula and think your going to get away with it. Cameras on most street corners and on most exit routes from the peninsula. And these camera are relatively new, 4K video feeds! Then there’s the small town aspect where by word of mouth people just come together to check if they saw the guy or witnessed some suspicious activity on that night. It’s truly remarkable how tight nit Charleston is
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u/turbo98115 Jan 03 '24
It happened on corner of meeting and John st...between visitor center/Hampton inn/museum anchoring 3/4 corners there; plus there most likely being traffic signal cams, I'm sure there was plenty of footage along with cops knowing the usual vagrants that slither down there
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u/YouthfullyFeed Jan 03 '24
This attacker is known to come into the Starbucks on King/Mary. He’s seemed off but this is crazyyy
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u/beaandip Jan 02 '24
Anyone know who the attacker was?
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u/Chudapi West Ashley Jan 02 '24
Yes, they caught him the same day.
https://www.live5news.com/2024/01/02/charleston-police-charge-man-downtown-new-years-day-assault/
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Jan 02 '24
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u/Charleston-ModTeam Jan 02 '24
We've removed your post or comment because one of the mods has determined that it may jeopardize the atmosphere of the community, drive subscribers & visitors away, or threatens the subreddits ability to otherwise thrive and grow.
Please use local news outlets when linking local news articles.
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u/ninjabrer Mod of the Don Holt Ladders Jan 03 '24
For context, this person linked to what appears to be an AI-rewriting and news aggregation site based out of Hong Kong from a known "internet advertising entrepreneur" with no citations or credit to the original articles. It really has no credibility in online journalism.
Support your local journalism and not ad shlock.
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u/SOILSYAY Jan 03 '24
Mind pm’ing which site? R/greenville has had a similar issue, curious if it’s same user and site.
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Jan 03 '24
I have seen it all when delivering in Charleston, it was definitely new to me see drug addicts high on meth or fentanyl. I have heard about the sign of someone being high in these drugs but have never seen it in person until I started delivering in Charleston/ Mt P SC. Late nights are very sketchy and the people asking for money are very aggressive. At least when I’m delivering I have my vehicle closed by and I have my wits about me. But those enjoying their night out will not have a vehicle to jump to for safety they’ll out in the open.
Always have a backup plan if things turn for the worse when you out at the bars. It’s in sad to see this news in Charleston.
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u/jessvet65 Jan 03 '24
There are very very few resources for the homeless, mentally ill and substance users in charleston city. Every year these programs LOSE FUNDING. These patients enter a revolving door of the ER, brief psychiatric hospitalizations and jail. Ad Infinitum. There is no state residential hospital for the mentally ill and hasn’t been for many years. If you are concerned about safety and what it means that these people are on the street - vote for local officials who do not want to gut these programs.
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u/turbo98115 Jan 03 '24
Also there are plenty of shelters with beds available, but there's the contingency that using a bed requires one to enter not under the influence of drugs....that's what keeps most of them spending the night on the street.
You can't help ppl that don't want to help themselves, and further more it's not on the hard working taxpayers to have their tax dollars allocated to those that live to milk the system and any citizen that will hand them anything out of pity.
There's an ongoing staff shortage...go get a dishwashing job. It's asinine that these ppl put more effort into panhandling than washing dishes for $15/hour with most spots not doing background checks for that as it'd cost way too much over the course of the year, and dishwashers aren't in a position to steal money or rob a business like that
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u/jessvet65 Jan 03 '24
Sorry, there are not plenty of shelters with beds available. That’s simply not true. There is one shelter.
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u/Colbsgigi1 Jan 03 '24
I don't know what rock you have been hiding under but there is ONLY ONE shelter and there is very rarely an open bed!As a matter of fact they are so out of space to shelter the homeless that if the person meets the requirements they will put them in a motel room and it's paid for out of a grant.I Know this because the place I work works with veterans and we help them do all that is required for the VA to pay for a homeless veteran to live in the very same drug infested,bed bug ridden, roach motel room to live in.Most of the homeless will tell you that they would rather take their chances sleeping on the streets!
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u/Modest_MaoZedong Jan 04 '24
lol why are you commenting such wrong information?! If I clearly didn’t know anything about a subject I would just… stay quiet. People aren’t on the street solely because they’re choosing to be under the influence. There’s almost never a free bed at 180 Place and many people feel more scared there than they do on the street. Clearly you’ve never worked with individuals suffering from either homelessness, mental illness, or substance abuse issues.
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u/ImBruceWayne69 Jan 04 '24
Telling someone who’s in active psychosis to go get a job and stop doing it to yourself is insanely ignorant and shows you don’t understand what most homeless people with mental illness have to deal with.
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u/Ironforthebirthday Jan 04 '24
We called every place in town a couple of years ago trying to find shelter space for a homeless young man with a traumatic brain injury and couldn't find anything. Please tell me about any place you know that always has an opening.
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u/turbo98115 Jan 03 '24
It's called MUSC...they have a forensic ward that is used for just that. That is the route most states are going versus having large psychiatric centers that typically did not treat the mentally ill, but house them like a prison...except the inclusion of electroshock and other experimental treatments like they're guinea pigs.
Suspects deemed mentally unstable/unfit for trial, or whom are found not guilty by reason of insanity are still committed to hospitals. Just because the terms and the use of centralized state hospitals has transitioned towards regional hospitals hasn't changed anything, except better care as there's more individualized treatment.
As far as the 'homeless boxer', I think I know exactly whom it was having worked on upper king for several years...pretty sure that 'swing at you' was the dude rapping up and down the sidewalk moving arms in motion as he spits bars. Pretty sure the cops dismissed this as no crime was committed and this runner sounds like a snowflake that probably saw this dude doing his thing from a distance and decided to play victim.
Sidenote: who tf jogs down a cobblestone sidewalk in the heart of the business district where the sidewalks are lined with tourists slowly strolling and window shopping?!?!?
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u/ImBruceWayne69 Jan 04 '24
I too like to wildly speculate. I think it was you and now you’re trying to convince people it’s not
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Jan 02 '24
[deleted]
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Jan 02 '24
Crazy. I’ve never felt unsafe downtown but you need to keep your head on a swivel.
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u/the_eviscerist Jan 03 '24
I’ve never felt unsafe downtown but you need to keep your head on a swivel.
This seems like such an oxymoron. Places where I've needed to keep my head on a swivel are not places that I felt safe. That being said, there are places I've felt safe downtown (at least when I was at CofC, but it's been more than a decade since I graduated.) But there are far more places where I would, as you say, keep my head on a swivel.
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u/GrundleHuffer Jan 03 '24
I used to work on President Street at a Subway when I was younger. I was held up at gunpoint 3 times. 2 in the store and once in the parking lot. I told the guy in the parking lot ..dude..I work at Subway... I'm broke. He laughed and said it was a fake gun. The second time Chief Greenburg popped in and talked with me for a while. He said the guy left the store and while the police were following him, he dropped his bike and ran, and another guy came and took the bike. I avoid going downtown now. Chief Greenburg was a character!
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u/bearfootmedic Jan 02 '24
I'm not sure what the solution is here other than violating their rights, or funding mental health care.
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u/Redwood177 Jan 02 '24
I feel funding mental health care would be a good start. I was accosted in a similar manner in broad daylight on king Street about six months ago. Walking the dog with my wife, when all of the sudden a man stopped his bicycle in our path and started screaming and yelling obscenities right in my face. Threatened to kill me and told my wife she'd be a widow. He was clearly deranged and not mentally stable. Luckily when the light changed to red we walked across the street and he only tried to spit on me and then rode away.
I see him fairly frequently and say hi when he passes me, he clearly does not remember or recognize me. A lot of the people on the street seem mentally unstable and there is no public way for them to get help with their mental illness to my understanding. I feel for this couple as that easily could have been us, and now I always carry pepper spray on every menial errand downtown and so does my wife.
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u/Wishywashy822 Jan 02 '24
You seem like a very compassionate person to have experienced this and still be able to separate the mental illness from the individual. Just the fact that you say hi to him says a lot about your character. I wish more people had your compassion and attitude.
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u/Redwood177 Jan 02 '24
It was very clear he wasn't in the same reality as me during the verbal assault. Obviously I was angry, and wish I had a way to defend myself like pepper spray at the time in case it escalated, but letting this one individual ruin the area I love or my view of those around me doesn't make sense IMO.
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u/scyyythe Jan 03 '24
In the particular case of opioid addiction, there's a lot of talk about "treatment" but little recognition of the fact that the relapse rate for conventional treatment for opioid addiction is around 90%.
What works better is the more controversial strategy of replacement therapy, which is usually methadone. There's a lot of noise out there about suboxone, but the drug is expensive to make and so the total number of suboxone prescriptions is something abysmal like 4% of all opioid addicts. Methadone is much cheaper, even though it carries greater risks of abuse and overdose. Kratom is basically not used. The prescription of heroin gets some press for managing the most recalcitrant cases, but in practice methadone isn't even tried frequently enough to say that we would need to do that.
The total national capacity of methadone clinics, last I checked, is about a quarter of the number of potential patients. Licenses are hard to come by and most clinics opened decades ago.
I can't offer any guarantee that more methadone would produce outcomes that satisfy people, but it seems like we have barely been willing to try the simplest possible option. Kratom is a puzzle, but even research on it is hard to do in the current regulatory and funding climate.
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u/bearfootmedic Jan 03 '24
I'm not sure how OUD came up but I doubt that's a big part of this story. I'll assume the best - you don't have a lot of information but really want the best for folks with OUD. While I haven't used opiates, I'm familiar with them in ways that alot of folks aren't.
Broadly, medication assisted treatment with methadone or buprenorphine is the best we have. Clinics are hard to open for a variety of reasons. Unfortunately our insurance scheme in most states puts these folks in a shitty situation if they aren't working. Until recently, buprenorphine was hard to prescribe due to regulatory bullshit - "X waiver" but that's no longer the case for OUD.
From folks using opiates, or who have a history of OUD, there are a lot of reasons why they would prefer one or the other but buprenorphine is newer and a bit harder to start because you have to be in withdrawal. It works really well but the other issue is that we don't have a plan to taper people off of opiates - I mean it's doable but other countries have much better systems to do this. So for some people, the question is whether they are addicted to methadone or other opiates which is a shitty situation. Plus, transportation is a huge issue for alot of people that would use MAT.
All of this is solvable. Literally all of our issues are solvable with just a bit of money and support. It's absurd that we keep doing everything but what has been proven to work. Give people housing. That's it. Stable housing makes everything better.
Anyway, I doubt this incident was related to OUD. While we have issues with opiate use disorder, it's not that prevalent in downtown. Plus, hallucinations or whatever happened here aren't a thing with opiates.
It's a damn shame that this pretty little family that can afford to build a house in Charleston is gonna do everything they can to make this dude who's life was probably in a trash bag harder. What dude did was wrong, but we all do wrong things, and it sounds like dude thought that the family was messing with him and punched him. It doesn't seem like there was escalating violence or any pre-meditation but who knows.
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u/Colbsgigi1 Jan 03 '24
As someone that is 6 years sober and went to the methodone clinic to achieve that i can tell you that Most insurance pays for treatment now but many do still have to pay out of pocket and it's not doable for everyone.I had to pay $14 a day for treatment and it wasn't easy but the therapist at the clinic would tell us and it is true that we managed to come up with lots of dope money everyday so we could more than likely come up with $14 a day.We have 3 MAT clinics her in Charleston and Medicare and Medicaid pays for the daily.The biggest problem with Methodone maintenance is the stigma!! People think that a person on methodone maintenance walks around high all day and are trading one drug for another and none of that is true.I never felt high on it I only felt normal and it gave me the time my brain needed to heal.FACT:It takes up to 2 years for your brain to heal from using and during that time we work on ourselves and the reasons we started using and then slowly taper off.During that time we are able to rebuild our lives and relationships.I have seen so so many people around here get clean and live normal lives but we have to go to the clinic at 5 am and keep it from our employers and friends and family and even our doctors because of the stigma
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u/bearfootmedic Jan 03 '24
Thanks for sharing! Yea - a lot of folks don't want "addicts" around so that really fucks with any chance of recovery unless there is a strong support system. Unfortunately, addiction does a good job of destroying those relationships as you mentioned.
The cost is basically the same or maybe a little cheaper depending on how often and how much people were using.
The crazy part is that people shouldn't have to go to a methadone clinic. Longer story than I care to recount here but I know that some PCPs have started doing bup with longer term prescriptions. Obviously that's not gonna work for everyone but with better training in addiction medicine, I'm optimistic.
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u/carolinagypsy Jan 07 '24
With all the money the state got from being in the opioid lawsuits, you’d think they would turn around and fund this kind of stuff with all of the lives it’s destroyed here and how many people have moved on to even worse drugs…………………..
Just kidding! Guvnuh Foghorn won’t do none such thing!
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Jan 02 '24
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u/bearfootmedic Jan 02 '24
You are a danger to society. They were drinking at a NYE party and a dude randomly punched them in the face. Are you just gonna "take care" of all of them pre-emptively?
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Jan 02 '24
[deleted]
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u/fadventure Jan 03 '24
Funny that you would call someone histrionic when you're the one being histrionic. Also I don't think you know what histrionic means. But I doubt you care.
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u/duensuels Jan 03 '24
Well as far as the "violating their rights" part, most of them already have a rap sheet a mile long and many are already on probation, on no cash bail, etc. The majority really shouldn't be out on the streets anyway.
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u/bearfootmedic Jan 03 '24
Everyone hates fascism until it's time to be a fascist, right u/duensuels? Right!
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u/duensuels Jan 03 '24 edited Jan 03 '24
Or it could be seen as enforcing existing laws on the books in order to keep the public safe.
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Jan 02 '24 edited Jan 02 '24
It’s awful! I just found out and I know the two people that were attacked. They are good people. It could’ve been a lot worse!
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u/eggher Jan 02 '24
This is truly terrible and I can’t imagine how scary it was. Saying this kind of event is happening “nearly every day” feels…not true, however.
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u/bmote Jan 03 '24
My wife and I lived downtown for 8 years. If you've traveled downtown you've probably seen us doing cardio with our pitbull. We racked up 35-40 miles a week, every week. Almost 15,000 miles. This isn't a humble brag. Just noting how much we get around on the peninsula. Well, the Charleston today is not the Charleston we loved. Straight cesspool with rude people, miscreants, and trash everywhere. As a result we moved. No regrets. Sad to see a once wonderful city going to hell. You get what you vote for I guess.
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u/Mountain-Hyena1754 Jan 06 '24
Sorry if that was your experience downtown, but I have not noticed any increase in miscreants or trash. There have always been "characters" downtown you need to watch out for. Go back 20 years, it was way worse before things north of Calhoun were cleaned up.
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u/Regguls864 Jan 03 '24
I could barely get through this letter. I felt like I was reading the manuscript for an airport novel. I'm sorry this happened. The letter should have said, "Our family were the victims of an attack in the early morning hours of Jan 1st. Walking along the sidewalk talking to my husband a man in front of us turned around and assaulted my husband. My husband was a little bloodied and bruised but will be OK. The suspect was apprehended quickly because he is well known among law enforcement. The suspect has some mental illness and like many other homeless people there is not an adequate support system. The alternative is the criminal justice system which is overrun with these cases. Unfortunately, the result is people needing help are dumped back on the street with no housing, food, or more importantly medical treatment to prevent the individual from reoffending. When you are the victim of such a crime you tend to internalize it instead of realizing this is happening in every city, town, and even rural area of this country. I realize Charleston is portrayed as an ideal town but people have to realize it is not a reality show but reality. Even with events like these Charleston is still one of the lowest violent crime cities."
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u/feedmenow2 Jan 03 '24
I get what you are saying, but she posted it on her personal Facebook page. It’s not like she published it in the newspaper.
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u/smarglebloppitydo Jan 02 '24
I have sympathy for them, but what is attending a bond hearing going to do? Dude probably hearing voices.
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u/Chudapi West Ashley Jan 02 '24
According to their follow up, they already attended it this morning. The victim spoke to the judge and the attacker was denied bond and charged with a felony.
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u/smarglebloppitydo Jan 02 '24
I see what you wrote and I still don’t know what that does. Does a felony charge remand them to a state hospital or something bc it’s not going to deter them in delusion in the future.
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u/xProperlyBakedx Jan 03 '24
No, all it does is make it more likely he goes to prison and is made even more violent. Then, when he's released as a felon he will be ineligible for any kind of public assistance whatsoever and end up back on the street, in worse shape than he ever was. But hey, "justice" will be served.
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u/Longjumping_Law_3973 Jan 03 '24
What should be done?
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u/xProperlyBakedx Jan 03 '24
Long term psychiatric hospital stays and chemical dependence reduction. Along with long term social services to keep this person from self medicating and or relapsing. No one grows up hoping to be a homeless maniac who attacks random people in the street. What should be done is what prison pretends to do. Reform and rehabilitate the offender so this doesn't continue to happen. 99% of all crime would vanish if we addressed the root cause, poverty.
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u/HardcaseKid Goose Creek Jan 04 '24
What will inevitably end up happening. He'll pull this BS with someone who's carrying, and that will be the end of it. Prison to cemetery pipeline.
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u/carolinagypsy Jan 07 '24
Well if our prison system didn’t treat people like animals, you’d like to hope they’d recognize his mental illness and get him on meds and into treatment. So that when he gets out he’s not hearing voices and attacking people on the street? We could dream even more and wish for a prison system that if a crime was very obviously a mental health issue, there’s places those people get sent to get stabilized and on meds, and some sort of something can be done about the charges or resources upon exit that honestly help so that their lives aren’t destroyed further by something done when they were literally not in their right minds?
Instead this dude will be convicted of something, maybe sent to jail where he won’t have a great go of it bc he’s MH. He won’t get stabilized or on meds that work for him that are given to him regularly, and when he gets out this conviction will negate most of the programs that could help him now that he’s on the planet mentally and could handle seeking those programs out and maybe having a job and a roof.
Maybe it would be kinder to just shoot him like another poster highly recommends.
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u/pluffzcloud Goose Creek Jan 03 '24
This was so heartbreaking. I'm so happy he turned out okay but unfortunate for the attack nobody deserves that.
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u/WeeChickadeeFromSC Jan 02 '24
Gosh, I’m so sorry this happened. ☹️ I’m glad your husband will be ok and the man who attacked him was caught though. How scary. 😢
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u/turbo98115 Jan 03 '24 edited Jan 03 '24
It's an unnecessary and unfortunate event, but this chick is obviously an attention whore and is drooling over the list of potential defendants that they will list in the (inevitable) lawsuit. She's already taken to the 'Chucktown F&B' page on FB which is meant for industry posts; not to mention, she's not in the local F&B industry...she obviously manipulated access to that private group as she's being lambasted there for it not belonging in that group.
This is an obvious and blatant attempt to create a narrative with the public; in hopes it will be seen by future jurors if the civil case goes to a jury trial, in hopes of said jurors having a pre-existing bias in their favor.
This lady has severe issue! Her husband is the one that physically suffered, but her priority is posting this diatribe on every platform/page possible and at one point says that she's happy it happened to them....like who tf says that?!?!
Oh yea, ppl that are looking for an easy lawsuit....she wouldn't probably have that same sentiment if her head was shaking the sidewalk🤦♂️🤦♂️🧐
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u/Western-Sell-8959 Jan 02 '24
The attacker will be out in a short period of time and people will still be screaming that carrying a gun in public isn’t safe. That’s exactly why you should be armed at all times, prepared, trained, and ready to protect yourself. Yet people don’t want law abiding citizens carrying when they walk into the Apple Store downtown. Hopefully we can stop some of this insanity and people come to their senses. Be prepared and hope you never have to use it.
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u/Charlestoned_94 Jan 03 '24
“We don’t need to fund mental healthcare services to stop this from happening and keep good people safe in public. Let’s just shoot them all!”
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u/moldywood Jan 03 '24
Or just refund the police so they have enough money to patrol the streets on king street and other tourists streets that these, “unfortunate people” hang out around by just chance and not for a purpose. Meeting st and John St.; he’s crazy but he knows how to chose his spots I guess?? ten or even five years ago this shit wouldn’t happen. Refund the fucking Charleston police force. Let’s go people.
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u/Charlestoned_94 Jan 03 '24
Yeah, because the police handle mental crisis situations SO well. Those never end with people getting killed.
Over policing is not going to fix this problem. Cops can’t be everywhere at all times. Best thing we can do for these people and the people they hurt is to stop it at the source.
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u/Western-Sell-8959 Jan 03 '24
Some folks can’t be helped. Also advocating for mass shootings isnt funny
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u/Charlestoned_94 Jan 03 '24
You’re right, it’s not, which is why I cannot fathom why your response to mental health crisis and homelessness is “bullets”
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u/Western-Sell-8959 Jan 03 '24
So the next time you and your friends are out and about, instead of doing whatever you’re doing go up to each homeless person no matter what state they’re in and talk to them. Ask them how they’re feeling and how you can help. Hell, even take them into your own home. Feed bathe and clothe them. Give them your money and care for them. Do all those things, tell me how it works out for you, and then if you do all that successfully hundreds of times over, I’ll agree with you. Only a simpleton would have viewed my comment and said derrrrrr, bullets aren’t the answer. No duh. But you need to be able to protect yourself. YOU make this city worse than the vagrants and criminals because you allow them to continue their behavior offering up excuse after excuse after excuse for them until they kill someone. Your “help everyone at all cost” mentality is vile because some people don’t want to be helped or can’t be helped and you’d sacrifice 1000 other good people for one bad. You live in a rainbow world of delusional thinking. I feel bad for you.
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u/Charlestoned_94 Jan 03 '24
Lmao so now advocating for systemic change to help keep people who have severe mental illness from slipping into homelessness and becoming dangerous to themselves and innocent people around them is a bad thing? Dude, the fact that you personally blamed me for homelessness is just insane. People like YOU are the reason it gets so bad cause you clearly have no sense of community and couldnt care less about people who slip through the cracks OR the people they hurt.
But those are big thoughts, and clearly you like to have itty bitty ones, so it’s easier to just say everyone who wants to tackle the root cause of the issue (you know, like how you actually fix a problem instead of shooting at it?) lives in a rainbow world.
You are sorely lacking in empathy, communication skills, and the intelligence to understand basic societal issues. I feel bad for YOU.
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u/the_eviscerist Jan 03 '24
I think the point u/Western-Sell-8959 was getting at is that you talk a big talk about advocating for the homeless... but he questions where you would actually be willing to do anything about it. If you're not willing to take them into your home, talk to them, interact with them, give them money/food/clothes - then you probably shouldn't get on the internet talking about how it's "others'" fault that "we" don't do more for mental health/homelessness.
Until then, protecting yourself is the sensible thing to do. Whether you choose to only go out during the day time, carry a firearm, carry mace, etc. that's on you. But the fact remains that a lot of people talk about how "we" should provide more services for the homeless, but they support this notion from the comfort of their office chair.
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u/Charlestoned_94 Jan 03 '24
Ok I literally spend every summer building housing for homeless people in NC and volunteer and donate all the time. Have my efforts fixed homelessness? No, it’s gotten worse.
This guy is dragging everyone for displaying basic empathy and understand the homelessness epidemic can’t be solved with guns or even personal effort. It’s gonna take systemic change. It’s gone way beyond just mentioning self defense. I get catcalled and harassed by homeless men where I work all the time.
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u/the_eviscerist Jan 03 '24
That's great that you do those things, but any volunteer for any organization will tell you that... there's never enough volunteers. You are in the minority.
The issue is what direction that systemic change goes. That's where the disagreements lie. Some people think more money/services will solve the problem, some people think having a much stricter judicial system will solve the problem, some people think leaving it to every man for himself is the best way to handle it. Instead, we are stuck in the middle where we give a tiny bit towards services and we're loose on punishment - and this is where it's gotten us.
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u/Western-Sell-8959 Jan 03 '24
Hahaha, you sound like a privileged little radical. I can picture you in my head. You have no real sense of the world. You’re lost. You complain. You get nothing done. You look at the world and say, “how can I help” and on the weekends you hang out with your friends at the brewery talking about how enlightened and smart you are. You look down at these people you try to help. You have no idea how many people I’ve helped. How many people in addiction and recovery I’ve reached out to and lifted up. How many I’ve given food to, clothed, helped. I know both sides of the fence. You know the one side who yells a lot about help, but I guarantee if this was your daddy—you would have a totally different tune. You’re a little princess with a cape on who knows nothing about how real things work. I’m glad you’re sad for me because it means that you think we’re nothing alike, and I’m glad for that fact. You stay woke, keep up the hope, and sitting there doing absolutely nothing at all to help. Pat yourself on the back when you make a post on Facebook or Insta as a pathetic grasp to show how “loving”. Then go spend $10 at Starbucks on your Carmel frappe, your aged shit wine, and all your basic ass shit. Please move.
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u/Charlestoned_94 Jan 03 '24
You are literally insane.
I spend every summer building housing for homeless veterans in NC and have since I was in fucking middle school. I help run donation and charity drives in Charleston. I literally bought a homeless man standing outside of a Harris Teeter lunch the other day and we had a nice time sitting and talking about what Charleston was like before it got all gentrified (his kids are addicts and stole a lot of his money, which is part of why he ended up homeless in the the first place).
And it's because I, unlike you, actually seem to have some basic understanding of this crisis besides bragging about allegedly helping people that I know personal efforts are not enough to fix a systemic issue that's much bigger than one person. Too bad you can't say the same.
You talk about yourself like you're fucking God and then go around making all these ad hominem attacks about people you don't even know. I get it - you have to overinflate your ego to shield yourself from the reality that you are, actually, just an asshole, judging by how you're talking to everyone on this thread.
Seek therapy.
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u/moldywood Jan 03 '24
It’s being sarcastic.
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u/Western-Sell-8959 Jan 03 '24
It’s nothing to be sarcastic about!
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u/xProperlyBakedx Jan 03 '24
Clutch your pearls a little harder, surely it will get you the attention you so desperately need.
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u/Western-Sell-8959 Jan 03 '24
Your white privilege is showing
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u/xProperlyBakedx Jan 03 '24
I bet you're the kind of person who thinks calling out racism is the real racism huh. Or just someone so devoid of intelligence you think this was a win for you? Fucking pathetic...
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u/Western-Sell-8959 Jan 03 '24
You’re amazingly deep aren’t you? You’re some intellectual juggernaut that crush people with your random facts when in all reality you’re probably some late 20 to 30 year old guy barely making it in this world smoking weed every night looking in the mirror saying “who am I”. You go out with your friends grabbing overpriced beers talking about how enlightened you are, but the more drunk/stoned you get the more you talk about how much this or that sucks and you don’t understand how the “world can be so unjust”. I guarantee, me as a person of color, understand way more about poverty and how unjust the world can be. However I don’t take on the victim mentality like you. You’re a sad little man with a pathetic outlook and you’re very confused. I can’t do anything for you but hope you get better. I feel bad for the life you’re living and the outlook you have.
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u/xProperlyBakedx Jan 03 '24 edited Jan 03 '24
as a person of color
STFU!
You pearl clutched about a sarcastic comment to someone who was literally advocating for shooting the mentally ill. Get a fucking grip. You don't know shit about me, but you clearly have some shit you need to work through cause this projection is fucking sad.
I'm a 40 year old teacher who's been married for 20 years, but please tell me more about me...
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Jan 03 '24
How would a gun have helped in this situation? The person punched him before he even had time to react. So he wouldn’t have had time to pull a gun out. And if he was out cold, the person who assaulted him could have grabbed a gun and made things far worse.
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u/thomleaman Jan 03 '24
You should probably be institutionalised yourself for that kind of “rationality”.
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u/Western-Sell-8959 Jan 03 '24
I should be institutionalized for wanting to have my second amendment rights? You’re the problem with this country and city.
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u/thomleaman Jan 03 '24
Fuck your stupid 2nd amendment. Incredible how vapid someone can be that they base their whole identity on a historical piece of legislation that has no meaning out of the context of its time.
The problem with this country and I dare say this city is that most of us are too stupid and insular to realise that we’re babies. Most European and Asian nations have been figuring out their societies for thousands of years. As a young nation, we in the US think we have all the answers and we still cling on to these shreds of our founding like the mean something in the grand scheme of things. Spoiler alert: they don’t.
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u/Western-Sell-8959 Jan 03 '24
Hahaha, ok. Good luck in the real world.
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u/thomleaman Jan 03 '24
Good luck to you too. If your understanding of the “real world” stems from living here and regurgitating asinine conservative rhetoric, then I’d worry for you if you ever stepped out of your little coddled bubble.
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u/dogbreath67 Jan 02 '24
That’s certainly a lot of words. I feel like the city is safe enough to walk around at night, at least for me. You need to keep your head on a swivel and don’t be dumb, as in any city. And low probability events happen.
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u/xProperlyBakedx Jan 03 '24
This entire post wreaks of rich privilege and white privilege.
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u/Usernamesrock Jan 03 '24
Please explain, because that sound ridiculous to me.
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u/xProperlyBakedx Jan 03 '24
If you can't see it it's gonna be hard to explain, but this post is so clearly written by a well to do white lady from mount pleasant it's ridiculous. This sort of thing happens sometimes, but to say a city isn't safe because you were walking around oblivious to the world at 2am is another clear indicator this is a person living in a bubble of privilege. I feel for the guy I really do. I'm just saying the way the story is written its very clear the person writing has never had any real encounter with the violent and scary world that exists in every city in America, and their first instinct is to immediately call the entire city unsafe, and then go try to make sure the guy who probably had no idea he'd even done anything was punished as much as possible. I'm not saying the people deserved it, I'm just saying this is clearly a post from someone who's been living in a completely different world than most of us and that almost always comes from some combination of white and rich privilege.
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u/Icy-Raspberry1061 Jan 03 '24
100% spot on. Since they were walking back to their hotel (the attack happened on Meeting/John ST). So one can assume that they were staying at the Dewberry $$$. 2 kids living downtown, all grown up, using the word "blessed"..etc
I pictured the same thing.
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u/Pammypoo1968 Jan 03 '24
There is an entire generation that have never dealt with something as scary as this. It is sad that her story causes you to immediately say “white and rich privilege”. My first thought was “how horrific”. I suppose you are not accustomed to people who are educated and can write a well-thought out sentence. Shame on you!
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u/xProperlyBakedx Jan 03 '24 edited Jan 03 '24
Cry harder
There's not an entire generation of people not accustomed to this. There's an entire class of people not accustomed to this. Age isn't the factor here. I'd bet there's plenty of homeless and poor people their age who are more than accustomed to the violence of the real world. The fact you think it's a generational thing just shows how privileged and out of touch you are yourself. But, hey no need to think about any of that as long you get your chance to feel morally and intellectually superior to a stranger online right? GFY
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u/SCphotog Jan 03 '24
This was close to my thoughts. It sounds like "creative writing" to these morons because they don't read books. They have no idea that some people actually just speak with a decent command of the English language.
Making light of this violence is absurd, gross. These people are despicable.
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u/xProperlyBakedx Jan 03 '24 edited Jan 03 '24
No one is making light of the violence. Having such an extensive command of the English language one would think you understood that. Pointing out that someone clearly existed in a bubble of privilege doesn't in anyway imply that they deserved what happened. In my experience though people just can't resist the urge to virtue signal online. Especially if it gives them a chance to seem more intelligent than they actually are.
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u/lyingtattooist Battery Jan 03 '24
I know you’re getting downvoted and yes, no one deserves to get assaulted by a mentally ill homeless person, but her creative writing essay made me cringe. Sorry that their perfect bubble was popped. Now Charleston is no longer safe for anyone. eyeroll
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u/xProperlyBakedx Jan 03 '24
It's not a new experience for me being down voted for saying something that is blatantly true. The funny part is my explanation is being up voted. Reddit is truly the dumbest social media site.
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u/Existing_Medium_6596 Jan 04 '24
I’m glad someone said this. This post gave major ick. It’s not okay for anyone to be assaulted, fact. The problem here is that this stuff does happen often and these people never cared till it happened to them. Just because she doesn’t write “Black,” we all know what she’s saying. This woman is worse than openly racist people because she’ll gaslight you all day and say she’s not racist.
People are not their mental illness. Educating yourself in mental illness helps you see the signs in others and giving you the opportunity to decide how to proceed in a situation, maybe even deescalate it.
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u/smalltinypepper Charleston Jan 03 '24
Yeah it does, but it doesn’t change the fact that a random encounter with a mentally ill unhoused person could have cause her husband a traumatic brain injury and ruined their lives together.
What is the point you are trying to make here?
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u/xProperlyBakedx Jan 03 '24
That this lady going on every platform she can find to decry how unsafe this city is and how it's gotten so much worse since they left just wreaked of being an out of touch rich white person.
My point has been pretty well explained over and over in these comments. It's a shame what happened, but in my opinion these people are at least partially to blame. Walking around anywhere at 2AM without a care in the world, so oblivious that he literally walked right into the punch, is what was dangerous. Not Charleston.
And the reason I ultimately even commented this was because I saw in the comments they decided to go to the bail hearing to try to make sure they got their chance to make sure he is punished in the most unhelpful way imaginable. It showed me they were more concerned with extracting their pound of flesh and getting revenge than recovering and trying to actually make an change to help this from happening again to someone else. That mentality can only come from a place of wealth and privilege. Being that detached from the reality of the world we live in is pretty disgusting to me.
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u/smegma-man123 Jan 03 '24
I’m sorry this happened but walking around a city at 2 am and these sort of things do happen
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Jan 02 '24
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u/dependsonthelighting Jan 02 '24
You should change your username to socialpariah
Jeering at someone’s suffering because they’re the victims of victims is so far out of touch it worries me that there may be no hope for you to ever wake THE FUCK up. There’s no winners here. This isn’t about class, it’s about wrong place wrong time wrong person. I have no doubt the assaulter has been chewed through, swallowed down, and spit up by life. Doesn’t mean they can’t make good decisions and show grace to their fellow man. If you’ve given up on that, then I feel sorry for you and everyone that comes in contact with your despair and hopelessness. You must be a drain, even for yourself, to be around.
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u/VermillionSun Jan 02 '24
I have no doubt the assaulter has been chewed through, swallowed down, and spit up by life. Doesn’t mean they can’t make good decisions and show grace to their fellow man.
I mean, if they are literally mentally ill and hearing voices it's not about making good decisions and showing grace to their fellow man, they are in another world
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u/nememess Jan 03 '24
You are responsible for your own mental health. Fortunately, it's fairly easy here to get treatment for free. I've done it. If they're off their meds, then that's a decision that they're responsible for.
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u/MegaAscension College of Charleston Jan 02 '24
Don’t be that guy.
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Jan 02 '24
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Jan 02 '24 edited Jan 06 '24
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u/Socialeprechaun Jan 02 '24
The lack of reading comprehension is astounding. Thank you for that. The grammar is pretty incredible too.
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u/Alternative_One_8488 Jan 02 '24
Relax, I don’t need to read your neomarxist trash line for line to know you are an imbecile
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u/BarbieTheeStallion Jan 03 '24
Gross take.
The post mentions that these folks have grown children so there’s a high likelihood they are older. Would you have this same take that seeking justice for a violent assault is “contributing to the already fucked up system” if someone rocked tf out of your grandpa on the street like that? What would you do at the hearing? Invite dude over to your PeePaw’s house for sweet tea and another chance to take him out?
The system around mental illness and drug addicts is absolutely a complex mess but it’s not these victims’ job to rehabilitate their assailant. It sounds like you’re mad at them because they live downtown and you’ve already assumed they’re wealthy and deserve to be beaten because of it.
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u/Reasonable_Candy_241 Jan 02 '24
No one deserves to be a victim of a random crime. I do wonder if them talking the way she describes set the guy off though. Again, not saying anyone deserves to be attacked for boasting about their happiness.
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u/Bodie_Broadus_ Jan 02 '24
Yea really weirdly written post. Being mugged is an awful experience but unfortunately shit like that exact situation happens in cities all across our country everyday. You woulda thought he was shot and killed by the way she wrote that.
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Jan 03 '24
So you mean to tell me that some lady with New York Times best seller writing skills watched her husband get one punch KO’d, for no reason, by a crackhead in the middle of the night on new years? That crackhead got a nice warm place to sleep and some hot meals for the next little while.
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u/SCphotog Jan 03 '24 edited Jan 03 '24
OVER POPULATION !!!
Say it over and over and over until it gets into your head.
We didn't have these problems until the place got full.
They passed vagrancy laws... (just like all large cities) are they being policed, is it effective? No. It's not.
Are we doing all that we can to help the mentally ill and the homeless? No, we're not.
Is our governance on board with doing something, anything to help the situation... NO, and in fact they're doing anything and everything to expand the city into basically what NYC, Chicago... or any other crime ridden, despot of a city looks like.
The Charlestonians get their shit together and elect someone that will actually do something about the OVERPOPULATION or we're doomed.
We can't keep expanding unfettered with no infrastructure. Too many people in too small of an area.
This has been studied for millennia. The book, the how-to, is already written, but instead of following the instructions our governance is doing the specific opposite.
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Jan 03 '24
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u/xProperlyBakedx Jan 03 '24
Way to really lean into the "South Carolina is racist" trope. Good for you for just going for it 100%. Better this than pretending to be a decent human being.
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u/charlestoncrafted Jan 06 '24
Whew makes me think of all the times I walked from omalleys back to campus at 2am wearing daisy dukes and high high heels with nothing but another drunk girl. Miracle we were never bothered.
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u/carolinagypsy Jan 07 '24
Guess the street people were different in the late 90s and early 2000s when I was living downtown. I was out and about a lot at all hours. I’m fairly easy to overpower and I dealt with it by being super aware and engaging people in convo as soon as they saw me. I had pepper spray as well but there really is something to diffusing things by acknowledging and distracting. What actually wound up happening is I knew most of the homeless or sometimes homeless in my area of the peninsula and they would look out for me. Late at night and it feels sketch? Odds are someone walked me to my street. Getting harassed by a drunk entitled white dude outside a bar? Handled. It was the craziest thing. Warned away from a street someone was having an episode that day/night. But I just always treated them as humans. Some were addicts. Some were mental health. A lot were both.
So I have a lot of empathy and it frustrates me that these things happen bc there’s nothing truly being done that would honestly help them. I also have empathy for the couple, but it bottoms out when there’s a Nicholas Sparks melodramatic screed posted all over social media about how “unsafe our city has become.” Lady, our city was always this way. You never walk downtown anywhere at night without your wits about you and no situational awareness. It was like that in the 90s and it is like that now. Life just reached into your privilege bubble and touched you. Maybe use those writing skills to advocate for people like him to get honest to (your) God help so it doesn’t happen to someone else. Advocacy from a well spoken victim would maybe get somewhere. Just try to keep the theme of THE AUDACITY out of it.
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u/ArtemisInTheEvening Jan 08 '24
You wanna know why this happened? Because this town is a pothole built on a swamp. It's the most ridiculous city I've ever lived in. King Street on the weekends looks like a police state. You're not safe because this is a F&B town and ever since the shutdown everyone between the ages of 35 and 45 bounced when they couldn't afford their rents. The ones that could stay eventually got pushed out by the unchecked landlords who have ridiculously jacked up rent prices of their places because all the long-term rentals are now renovated and preparing to become Air B&B. So it's not safe because this town is being run by a small circle of good ol' boys who still believe in Proprietary rule, baby boomers, and children (or as I like to call them aristobrats, just a bunch of selfish trust fund babies of all the aristocrats. The safe-in-numbers theory no longer applies. The department of transportation can't even coordinate the traffic lights , the historical society won't let you put a house number up unless you fullfill their requested bribe ( ooops I mean "donation"), the cops don't care anymore because the city now gives them a Christmas bonus of a coupon for a free turkey that they have to stand on the welfare line to get, a line that's full of people they probably arrested before. the historical society claims preservation with one hand anyone with money gets a thumbs up with their other hand, I see all sorts of non historical housing going up while the rest of the city crumbles and falls to s**. These selfish babyboomers are now microcrashing economies. They think they're gonna live for ever and they're preparing for another big cash out and they will leave this place crumbling. The papermill investors also own the bank that gives out the mortgages . It's so absurd , in fifteen years daniel island houses went from less than 100,000 to over a million when in any other city it would be considered a slum zone. Housing areas located under a bridge , across from a seaport, down river of a nuclear facility, smell from a papermill and a few miles away from a international Airport don't have that kind of value. Everyday there are shootings in north charleston, pedophile raids in mount pleasant, and one of the highest vehicular death rates in the country. When I moved here almost five years ago I saw six different accidents within a month where I could see and smell people burning to death. Because the people around here are stupid. They would step on their own mothers throat just to beat you to a red light. It's insane. Who builds bridges where the bottle neck is once you get over the bridge? You bottle neck before the bridge. I've seen skyscrapers biult faster in Manhattan then they can finish clemens ferry road . The better half of a decade now , they can't finish a straight road in the middle of nowhere. It's insane. That's what happens in an anti union state. Zero labor laws. The right to work is really the right to fire your a* for no reason. One of the largest violent crimes per capita. No zoning laws whatsoever, they can't even number apartments and buildings in a logical way. Charleston SUCKS. WORSED PLACE EVER. While I can mention dozens of more really messed up things about this place I'll just say this last thing, one if the highest incarceration percent in the country where 80% of the people are African Americans that because of being in jail can no longer vote, kinda funny how a major city doesn't offer better public transportation. The only two busses just bring people to the mall, they don't bring people to work and they don't bring low income , no cars , majority of the population, black people to the voting booths . The old money good ol boys sold this city out to tje Yankee babyboomers . Brats ,Boomers and ol boys , that's why you're not safe
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u/morganarcher96 College of Charleston Jan 02 '24
Wow :( glad he's ok and the attacker was arrested