Police have obtained and several local media outlets have published raw video of the tragic shootings that took place on the sunny coast this weekend in which several young people enjoying the tony beach town-- including a 22 year old woman-- were killed and five more wounded. It's still being determined whether the shootings were connected, but each is assumed to be the work of a lone gunman.
The video is reproduced below. However, you will not be seeing it replayed ad nauseum on CNN, MSNBC, Fox News or any of the other major media outlets, so you may want to catch it now. Because these shootings over the weekend did not occur in Santa Barbara, California but in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.
-- Myrtle Beach authorities responded to six separate shootings Saturday that left three people dead and five people wounded in the popular South Carolina resort city, police Capt. David Knipes said Sunday.
The deadly incident occurred at the beachfront Bermuda Sands motel, where three men were killed and one person was wounded. Knipes said no one has been arrested.
The shooter responsible for the three deaths is described as
a black male with black pants. All of the shooting victims appear to be black.
Although the shooter hasn't yet been identified yet, some facts are fairly certain: He wasn't the son of a movie director, his intended victims weren't attractive blonde-haired white sorority girls, and his website obsessions and interests won't be pored over ad nauseum by the corporate media. There will be no sociological analysis of the implications of the killings, or any exploration of his emotional state or motivation. He will likely not have a whiny, self-obsessed seven minute video excoriating women that will be posted and then dissected on every major news website.
Horry County Deputy Coroner Darris Fowler identifies the victims as Jamie Williams, 28, of Ladson, Devonte Dantzler, 21, of Summerville, and Sandy Gaddis Barnwell, 22, of Summerville. He says all three victims died from trauma to vital organs due to gunshot wounds.
Williams, Dantzler, and Barnwell were found shot to death. Another man suffered a gunshot wound at the motel, according to Knipes. Two of the victims were found on a second story breezeway.
There will be no
wrenching interview with his victims' parents, and no tearful denunciation of the "idiots" in Congress or the National Rifle Association, carried by all the wire services and sparking anew the national debate about gun control. The shooters' own parents will not have high-priced lawyers who will attest to his psychiatric condition and he will almost certainly not have recently visited a psychiatrist. We will not hear all about how his roommate intended to move, nor will the news media provide
in-depth profiles of his victims.
There will not be 5000 opportunities (so far) to read more about this story "in depth." In fact, assuming he's caught, the shooter's name will likely be forgotten within a 24 hour news cycle and never repeated again.
As far as the investigation into the cause of the murders themselves, here's the designated police officer from the department responsible for leading the investigation calling the killings "kind of a big thing," and "something a little unusual" that he "hope(s)" to "put a lot of work" into.
“You always try to prepare for the unexpected. We’ve shooting incidents before, we certainly don’t like to see a shooting where somebody dies during this event or any event,” one official said. “To have three people in one night is kind of a big thing. We’ve only had two homicides for total last year, so it’s something a little unusual. We hope to put a lot of work into this and get it solved real quick.”