Trouble in paradise: 3 Hilton Head business owners respond to Coligny Beach shooting
For decades, Hilton Head Island residents have debated whether town and county officials are doing enough to prevent crime.
Some argue the town should create its own police force, like most other municipalities in Beaufort County. Others demand that the county sheriff’s office assign more officers to patrol Hilton Head areas.
A July 4 shooting on Coligny Beach, which injured eight people, reignited that old debate. In the days following the shooting, Hilton Head residents have taken to Facebook and Nextdoor, writing hundreds of comments and posts about what the most recent incident means for the state of Hilton Head Island.
“Is Hilton Head the new Myrtle Beach?” one commenter wrote under an Island Packet Facebook post about the shooting. Myrtle Beach has the highest violent crime rate on South Carolina’s coast and third-highest in the state overall, according to FBI data. Many islanders fear Hilton Head’s natural beauty and tranquility could give way to overdevelopment, traffic and crime.
An investigation into the Coligny Beach shooting is ongoing, but police said it stemmed from a dispute between two groups of youths aged 17 to 19 that escalated into a fistfight. Four people aged 17 to 18, all from St. Helena Island, and a 22-year-old from Beaufort have been charged in the incident so far.
For Hilton Head Island business owners, visitors are the people that keep the lights on and the doors open. The Island Packet asked three business owners to share their reflections on the incident and how Hilton Head Island leaders should respond.
‘It was a mess’
July 4 was a chaotic day, remembers David Martin, owner of the Piggly Wiggly in Coligny Plaza. By 10:30 a.m. on Saturday, Martin said, traffic and parking were “out of control.”
“There was horn blowing, there was arguments,” Martin said. “There were people parking all over the place, including non-parking spaces. There were cars being towed.”
Martin works with Lowcountry Alliance for Healthy Youth, a group aimed at addressing substance abuse and risk behaviors among local teens.
The group has been trying for a while to fund some kind of community force to patrol Hilton Head’s beaches and educate teens. Martin himself has been sober from cocaine for 40 years, something he refers to as both his greatest success and his greatest failure.
More supervision is needed in the Coligny area, and not just on the Fourth of July. For four to twelve weeks out of the year, the Coligny area gets especially chaotic, and those that work in Coligny Plaza every day bear the brunt of the chaos, he said.
Teenagers fighting in the Coligny area are not uncommon, Martin said. It’s been happening more over the past several weeks, he said. He said his employees, many of whom are teenagers, often send him videos of fights between groups of teens on Coligny Beach.
The same day of the shooting, Martin said he had to deal with groups of “unsupervised teenagers” coming into his store.
“It was just really an overall mess,” Martin said.
Islanders usually blame rowdy tourists, but Martin said even “our local teenagers” are participating in risky behaviors at big events in the Coligny area with alcohol, drugs and violence.
“They’re all our children, whether they’re from here or from Savannah or from Lady’s Island,” Martin said.
‘These kids, they don’t have any direction’
As a teen, Robert Rini, owner of RE/MAX Island Realty, got in trouble often while hanging out with his friends on Hilton Head’s beaches.
“Sure, we’d get in some fights sometimes, but we didn’t have guns,” Rini said. “And after the fights, we usually became friends. But the times have changed.”
Growing up on Hilton Head without a father, Rini said he lacked direction.
“And so I know what these kids are doing, and it’s sad,” Rini said. “...They don’t have any direction.”
During a Sunday press conference, Hilton Head Island Mayor Alan Perry referred to those involved in the shooting as “thugs” from “out of town.”
Rini questioned whether that was the right language to use.
“These kids are acting like thugs, but they’re kids,” Rini said. And they’re also from Beaufort County, he said.
What kids need are good parents who stay aware of their children’s whereabouts, Rini said.
“It takes 30 seconds to make them,” Rini said. “It takes a lifetime and a village to raise them.”
‘We’re darn lucky’
Ken Fagut, owner of Avocado Bikes near Palmetto Dunes, said Hilton Head is “fortunate” to have a “fairly safe environment.”
“It’s almost Pollyannan to think that stuff like this would not happen on Hilton Head Island,” Fagut said.
Fagut and his business partner, Mike Meyers, praised law enforcement’s quick response to the shooting, as did Rini.
According to Beaufort County Sheriff P.J. Tanner during a Sunday press conference, the first officers arrived on scene within 17 seconds after reports of gunfire came in.
Hours after the shooting, the Beaufort County Sheriff’s Office released a statement saying it had detained six people for questioning, and by the next morning police announced four arrests had been made. Four firearms have been recovered, Tanner said Sunday. The sheriff’s office arrested a fifth person on Wednesday.
“Thankfully there were no fatalities,” Fagut said.
Fagut said he’s thankful leaders are taking steps to increase surveillance in the area in response to public concern. Weeks before the incident, the Beaufort County Sheriff’s Office stationed a mobile surveillance trailer near the Tiki Hut in response to reports of after-hours juvenile activity. Last month, the Town of Hilton Head Island announced its plans to install new cameras on the Coligny beach areas and parking lots.
“As a business owner, certainly it’s important to my partner and I that people feel safe when they come to the island,” Fagut said. “But we have to be realistic and understand that stuff like this can happen.”
Meyers, Fagut’s business partner, agreed.
“People come here and they think that it’s heaven, and they don’t realize that we have gangs, we have drugs, we have robberies,” Meyers said. “We’re darn lucky that we don’t have more of this stuff going on.”
