Former Bluffton student arrested for 2023 campus shooting at SC State, SLED says
More than 18 months after the incident, state investigators arrested a 21-year-old Bluffton man in connection with a March 2023 shooting at South Carolina State University that injured one student.
Melvin Anthony Williams, 21, was charged Thursday with attempted murder and felony firearm possession. He graduated from May River High School in 2021, where he played varsity football, and was formerly a student at the Orangeburg-based school, which is the state’s only public historically Black college or university.
The shooting took place shortly after midnight March 3, 2023 outside Hugine Suites, an on-campus residence hall. Arrest warrants from the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division say Williams shot “into a crowd of students” during a nearby party, striking one male student in the leg and sparking an approximately one-hour lockdown on the campus of about 3,000 students. The gunshot victim was hospitalized and later released.
This was the second and perhaps final arrest related to the incident. In June 2023, SLED charged 21-year-old Columbia man Daniel Eugene Hutto II as an accessory before the fact to the shooting. Also a former SCSU student, Hutto was “involved in an argument” with others on campus that night and opened his backpack to give Williams access to the gun that was used in the shooting, a SLED affidavit says.
At his May 2024 sentencing, Hutto received two years of probation and dodged prison time under South Carolina’s Youthful Offender Act, according to Orangeburg County court records.
Williams was booked into the Orangeburg County Detention Center following his arrest Thursday, according to SLED, and court records show he was denied bond at a hearing later that day. His first appearance is scheduled for Dec. 13.
