Gun violence continues city-wide over Christmas as November and December become high profile months of public shootings
E.U. Study shows direct relationship between high crime on the streets and political corruption.
Three more people were shot the morning of Christmas Eve at 3rd Avenue Sports Bar & Grill in Myrtle Beach. This news follows a shooting in the parking lot of Landry’s at Broadway at the Beach just days earlier.
The months of November and December have witnessed a “Wild Wild West” atmosphere in Myrtle Beach with the city manager, John Pedersen shutting down two businesses in the Superblock on November 28th after five people were shot at Club Pure. Pedersen called what amounted to martial law closing an entire area located directly adjacent to the former Myrtle Beach pavilion in the heart of tourist driven downtown Myrtle Beach.
Local business owners we spoke with yesterday have grown tired of the “Murder Beach” reputation the city has now been tagged with on social media.
Mayor John Rhodes and City Councilmen, that include Randal Wallace, Mike Lowder, and Wayne Gray have long claimed that high crime rates in Myrtle Beach are directly associated with a large influx of tourists. However, the Christmas season shootings in Myrtle Beach come at a time when tourism in Myrtle Beach is at an all time low. Shootings have been an almost daily front page news story city-wide, including a local city playground that John Pedersen chose to fence off after a shooting occurred there.
Myrtle Beach merchants are asking why Myrtle Beach is continually rated among the most dangerous cities in America by Neighborhood Scout, for now, the past 5 years running. A recent European Union Study examining the links between organized crime and corruption clearly spell out the direct relationships between political corruption and high crime on the streets in the worst of European nation states. In short, the study shows a direct link between high crime and political corruption.
EU Crime Study Shows Relationship Between High Crime and Political Corruption
The current political corruption indictments handed down by S.C. Solicitor David Pascoe explains why Myrtle Beach’s crime rate remains high. References from the EU Study are clearly spelled out in Pascoe’s attempt to interrupt this crime at its source.
FBI crime reports show that murders, shootings, and high crime in Myrtle Beach have only escalated since 2009. 2009 was the year when Brad Dean, Myrtle Beach Area Chamber C.E.O., and like-minded business owners, saw the passage of a $25 million annual tax. Dean had worked to stuff the pockets of local city councilmen and statewide representatives with consecutive numbered cashiers checks drawn on the same bank on the same day campaigning for this tax. Dean was highly successful in getting a tourism tax general assembly bill passed through those efforts. Records show that as investigations began, all those associated with the effort were paid or chose to remain silent.
Myrtle Beach City Council and the Myrtle Beach Area Chamber of Commerce are once again under the scrutiny of state-wide prosecution. However, the chairman of South Carolina political watchdog Common Cause says it is likely that indicted General Assemblyman Jim Merril and his brother, John Denver Merril, will choose to remain silent and take the political punishment personally rather than exposing what locals believe is the true source of high crime in Myrtle Beach and South Carolina.
As shootings continue city-wide over Christmas, local residents and merchants wait to see what arrests, if any, will come from the state-wide political corruption probe. Locals fearing only more of the same, however, have begun their own Drain The Swash campaign for 2017 elections.
