‘Everyone was running.’ Hilton Head tourists recall night of Coligny gunfire
It was a beautiful day on Hilton Head Island. Adriana Moriates and her family were relaxing by the fountain at Coligny Plaza after dining at a nearby Greek restaurant. They had spent some time at the beach, and were ready to finish the day by watching the Fourth of July fireworks.
Then they heard the gunshots.
“We were like, ‘Were those fireworks?’” Moriates recalled. “And then we looked up and everyone was just running.”
The family of five took off. They ran to their car and headed back to where they were staying.
“It was terrifying,” the 18-year-old said. “We’ve never really experienced anything like that... It was more scary just not really hearing about it for a while. No one really knew what happened.”
The next day, people woke up to news reports confirming the shooting. Gunshots were fired around 8:21 p.m. during a disagreement between two individual groups near the volleyball court by the Tiki Hut, Beaufort County Sheriff P.J. Tanner said. Eight people were injured, and as of Tuesday, four individuals have been charged. The incident is still under investigation, police say.
At a Sunday press conference hosted by the Beaufort County Sheriff’s Office, Hilton Head Island Mayor Alan Perry” urged tourists not to let this “one-off” incident alter their perception of the island as a safe and family-friendly destination.
“We can’t rest our laurels on one bad incident,” Perry said. “That’s not who we are as a community. That does not define Hilton Head Island.”
‘I was dismayed’
Not everyone relaxing on the beach Saturday evening caught wind of the events happening further down the shoreline.
Heather Stillerman, 55, and her family are staying at a house in North Forest Beach. She and her husband are from Charlotte, North Carolina, and planned a beach vacation to get together with their adult children.
The family arrived on Hilton Head Island the morning of July 4. That evening, they grabbed a few chairs and walked to the beach to watch the fireworks.
From where they were sitting, they didn’t hear any gunshots.
“It was hard to make out with all the fireworks going on,” Stillerman said.
Looking down towards Coligny, they could see police cars, but it wasn’t until the next morning, after Stillerman saw reports on social media and in the news, that they realized what had happened.
“I was really dismayed by it all,” Stillerman said. “I was surprised being down here at a beach town that people would bring guns out, and then I was really disturbed, obviously, by the ages of the people who had been arrested.”
Three 17-year-olds and one 18-year-old, all from St. Helena Island, have been charged so far in connection to the shooting. Police have recovered four weapons, one of which had been converted to be fully automatic.
“I just never imagined that would have happened down here in this small little coastal community,” Stillerman said.
News of the shooting is still spreading
Even on Monday, some tourists who set up their towels and umbrellas on Coligny Beach were unaware of what happened in that very location less than 48 hours earlier.
Rochelle, 44, from Indianapolis, Indiana, had just arrived on the beach with her family when a reporter approached her about the incident. She and two other members of her family sitting with her hadn’t heard of it.
The three women were surprised by the news, but thankful that nobody had been killed.
“I think it’s awful,” Rochelle said. “I wish that people could regulate their emotions a little bit better and not resort to violence.”
The group said they often near news of shootings happening in cities where they live, but Saturday’s shooting was the first event of its kind that they’d heard of occurring on Hilton Head Island.
“I always hate hearing about anybody young doing this,” mother-in-law Robin, from Columbus, Ohio, said. “Being a mom, it’s hard to think that that’s somebody’s child.”
Moriates, the 18-year-old who was in Coligny Plaza with her family when the shooting happened, said her family’s trips to Hilton Head Island are their “big vacation for the year.”
Seeing Hilton Head’s family-friendly atmosphere appear to shift slightly towards a being place that attracts “rowdy crowds” is a “little bit disheartening,” she said.
“We’ve made a lot of memories here,” Moriates said. “You’re just going to watch some fireworks. It’s obviously a scary thing to see.”
What we know about the shooting
Eight people were injured in the shooting that occurred near the public volleyball court on Coligny Beach around 8:21 p.m. Saturday evening, Beaufort County Sheriff P.J. Tanner said in a Sunday press conference.
Two groups of individuals aged 17 to 19 were near the volleyball courts that evening, Tanner said. A dispute between the groups escalated into a fistfight, and shots were fired shortly after.
The incident remains under active investigation, BCSO confirmed Tuesday.
Four individuals, three aged 17 and one aged 18, have been charged in relation to the incident, according to Beaufort County’s online inmate inquiry system. All four reside in St. Helena Island.
Three of the suspects were charged with attempted murder, breach of peace, and firearm-related charges. The fourth was charged with accessory after the fact, and was released Monday afternoon. The other three remain in confinement, according to Beaufort County’s online inmate inquiry system.
New AI-powered camera technology installed around Hilton Head Island, including Flock cameras and a movable surveillance trailer, was crucial in law enforcement’s response to the shooting, Tanner said.
During the traffic stop regarding a suspect vehicle on Cross Island Parkway, officers could tell something was being thrown out the window of the car, Tanner said. Officers later recovered two weapons from the marsh below the bridge. Another weapon was recovered from the vehicle and a fourth from the beach.
A rumor has been circulating on social media that someone jumped off the Cross Island bridge during an interaction with police. BCSO spokesperson Lt. Daniel Allen confirmed Tuesday that the rumor is false. “We did not have any jumpers,” Allen told The Packet in an email.
