... because shooter(s) were melanin minorities.

See also: "According to demographic ​data compiled by researchers at Mass-Shootings.info, black men committed 73% of mass shootings in 2020, in contrast whites were only 13% of known culprits." (source)

See also: Whites Responsible for Less Than 3% of All Mass Shootings In 2022 So Far—But Black Attacks Skyrocket.

10 people hospitalized in Memorial Day mass shooting on Charleston’s East Side

A pregnant woman, a 17-year-old girl and a Charleston police officer were among 10 people hospitalized after a mass shooting at a late-night Memorial Day party in the city’s East Side neighborhood, authorities said.

Four people remained in critical condition the afternoon of May 31, Charleston Police Chief Luther Reynolds said at a news conference. No deaths have been reported, and police indicated the pregnant woman did not lose her baby. 

A police officer came under fire after responding to a noise complaint around 11:40 p.m. at 41 South St., Reynolds said.

Two bullets struck his police cruiser as he took cover and called for backup, Reynolds said. The officer was not shot, but he suffered minor injuries from shattered glass. At least one bullet was found lodged in the headrest of the squad car, police said.

“We are lucky we don’t have a dead cop,” Reynolds said.

“Up to 100 people or more” were on South Street attending an unauthorized party in a vacant lot when the shooting started, the chief said. The party was the third unauthorized event held on the block since late April, he said.

Some residents who attended the news conference voiced frustration with how police officers handled the gathering, saying they contacted authorities about the party well before shots were fired.

“We need to do better,” Reynolds acknowledged.

More East Side neighbors gathered later in the afternoon to express their frustration in the wake of the shooting. Resident Steve Bailey called for an independent investigation into what police officers knew about the block parties prior to the violent outburst. Bailey writes a freelance column for The Post and Courier.

The cops knew about each of the three parties, Bailey said, because he told them. The resident said he had called, emailed and even met with law enforcement officials about the unauthorized events, but his concerns weren’t taken seriously.

“The first two events, nothing happened. (Police officers) got lucky,” Bailey said. “They ran out of luck when we came to the third event.”

Mayor John Tecklenburg said at the news conference he plans to examine law enforcement’s response to the shooting to understand “what went wrong, what went right, how we can do a better job.”

Monday’s party began at a private residence, but the large crowd eventually spilled into a vacant lot and the street, Tecklenburg said.

Surveillance footage provided by a neighborhood resident shows dozens of people walking on South Street before gunfire sends them scrambling for cover. Two women cower behind an SUV as a man jumps over a fence and lies in the grass before sprinting away, the video shows.

Sporadic gunfire is heard for at least 45 seconds in the video.

The shooting marked the latest bloodshed in a neighborhood that has long grappled with gun violence and a persistent drug trade. It was one of at least a dozen mass shootings that occurred across the country over the Memorial Day weekend, according to reporting by The Washington Post.

More than 100 placards marked evidence at the sprawling crime scene, which extended across several blocks, Reynolds said. Not all of the evidence collected was shell casings, but much of it was, the chief said, for both pistols and long guns. Reynolds said some of the casings were for .223 ammunition, a large projectile commonly used in semiautomatic weapons.

“I have seen the pictures from the crime scene,” he said. “It is no joke.”

Charleston County sheriff’s deputies and North Charleston police officers helped local police control the crowd after the shooting. Two women were arrested on allegations they assaulted two deputies amid the chaos, authorities said.

Tahira McGee, 50, of North Charleston is charged with second-degree assault and battery and resisting arrest. Ayesha Saleemah McGee, 26, of North Charleston is charged with third-degree assault and battery. Both [black] women appeared at bond hearings May 31.

Sheriff’s Deputy Bobby Hoskins told Magistrate Amanda Haselden that Tahira McGee punched Deputy Stuart Prettel II in the face. Ayesha McGee is accused of pushing Deputy Caroline Yeargin, causing the officer to fall and strike her head on the concrete, Hoskins said. Both deputies suffered minor injuries.

Tahira McGee’s right eye was swollen shut during the morning court hearing. Haselden said it was her understanding that the woman had to be subdued by multiple deputies after the alleged assault.

Haselden ordered $35,000 bail for Tahira McGee. Ayesha McGee, who is charged with a misdemeanor, was ordered jailed on a $1,087 bail. 

Officers arrested a third person the morning of May 31. Maurice Antonio Malloy, 35, is charged with public disorderly conduct. He was released from the Charleston County jail by noon the same day, records show.

Crime-scene tape was still strung across several intersections around South Street the afternoon of May 31. Police officers guarded the roads in the neighborhood while investigators processed the scene. Residents milled about, chatting among themselves. A few waited to retrieve their cars, which were trapped inside the crime scene.

Yellow evidence markers dotted the roadway around America and South streets. An empty package of QuickClot Combat Gauze, medical gloves and bandage scissors were left outside the stoop of one residence. Red disposable cups and other trash littered the streets.

Paper tape measures were still stuck to the outside of another South Street home, framing a small bullet hole. The homeowner, who asked to remain anonymous, said she had been sitting on her couch when the gunfire erupted. She immediately dropped to the floor, the foam cushions of her couch swallowing a bullet that tore through her wall. Police officers who came to survey the damage told her she was lucky, the resident said.

The shooting occurred near the road’s intersection with America Street. Bookended by housing projects and lined with wood-frame, Victorian-era homes in various states of repair, America Street runs for about a mile and serves as a main artery through the East Side. South Street bisects that path, leading to bustling East Bay Street, where a U.S. Post Office complex sits perched on the corner.

The East Side has long struggled with violence that often went hand-in-hand with grinding poverty. In the 1990s and early 2000s, the heroin and crack cocaine trades drove a black-market economy that kept some afloat and lured a host of outsiders to the area. Young men lined street corners along America, brazenly hawking drugs in an open-air market that drew people through the region. Gun violence became a common occurrence.

The neighborhood underwent marked changes in the past decade, as Charleston’s soaring housing prices drove more and more college students, young professionals and would-be homebuyers into the East Side in search of affordable rents and mortgages.

Longtime Black residents have been pushed out by the rising prices that followed, leading to tensions over gentrification. Through it all, complaints about crime have been a nagging constant, as have suspicions that the culprits are coming from outside the community.

In April, a stray bullet struck a 9-year-old boy in the foot during a suspected drive-by shooting at America and Johnson streets.

Last July, five people were shot — one fatally — near Hanover and Johnson streets amid a dispute at Meeting Street Manor, a public housing complex owned by the Charleston Housing Authority.

In 2019, there were four fatal shootings between mid-June and late September, including a daylight August shooting on Hanover Street that claimed the life of a popular sous-chef at The Darling Oyster Bar. In the months after the shooting, about 125 new cameras were donated and installed to help curb crime and address the pervasive “no snitch” policy on the East Side.

Both Tecklenburg and Reynolds pledged action following the Memorial Day shooting, expressing anger over the recent bout of violence. Thoughts and prayers for the victims are necessary, but they aren’t enough, Tecklenburg said. (read more and watch video)