North Charleston, SC – Members of the Elbit Out of South Carolina Coalition met with Major Michael Aiken of the North Charleston Police Department (NCPD)’s Office of Professional Standards on April 29, to discuss the disturbing patterns of behavior by off-duty NCPD officers working as paid security at Elbit Systems America’s facility in Ladson, South Carolina. That location is a subsidiary of Israeli weapons manufacturer Elbit Systems.

For the past year and a half, organizers from the coalition have picketed outside of Elbit’s Ladson facility weekly to bring awareness to its role in manufacturing Howitzer cannons for the Israeli use in the Palestinian genocide.

“Over the course of the past year, we’ve seen Elbit employees act aggressively towards picketers, all while NCPD officers have stood by in their uniforms and cars, fraternizing with Elbit security and doing absolutely nothing to protect community,” said Miranda Xiong, one of the coalition members who attended the meeting. “Elbit employees have hit us with their cars, swerved onto the grass and pavement where we’re standing, and threatened us verbally.”

Throughout the meeting, Mayor Aiken claimed that off-duty NCPD officers have an obligation to protect private citizens, collect reports when crimes occur on scene, and act in an unbiased manner. However, members of the coalition brought up the fact that Elbit pays NCPD officers $60 per hour, a number Aiken himself confirmed during the meeting.

“North Charleston Police Department leadership is lying when they claim there is no conflict of interest between Elbit and NCPD officers,” said Matt Colburn of the Lowcountry Action Committee (LAC) and Freedom Road Socialist Organization (FRSO). “It just shows that even when cops are off duty they exist to protect profits of companies like Elbit and not Lowcountry residents.” Colburn was arrested at a picket in front of Elbit in August 2025, but won a not guilty verdict.

During the meeting, coalition member Collin Holloway discussed his experience of being verbally threatened by an Elbit employee and forced to call NCPD’s non-emergency line because the off-duty NCPD officer present refused to file a report.

“The officers that work for Elbit are openly corrupt by pretending not to notice Elbit workers committing crimes, while treating us as criminals,” said Holloway.

Throughout the meeting, Major Aiken repeatedly resorted to explaining the perspectives of NCPD officers and the “potential” security threats that picketers posed. When pressed for more information on what exactly he meant, Aiken cited instances of vandalism and fears that the Elbit facility in Ladson would be “hijacked.”

Coalition member Christopher Newhard expressed his concern that such language is frequently weaponized to demonize organizers and activists within the pro-Palestinian movement.

Xiong added, “It’s clear that NCPD doesn’t see us as equal because if they did, they wouldn’t be trying to gaslight us into thinking that we are somehow the threat here, when Elbit is a multimillion-dollar corporation profiting directly off the Palestinian genocide.”

Another area of conversation surrounded the failure of existing NCPD channels for community feedback, such as CRIMEWATCH. In December 2025, LAC led a conversation with NCPD Chief Ron Camacho and North Charleston Mayor (former Police Chief) Reggie Burgess to discuss community control of the police.

Denise Scott, the sister-in-law of Walter Scott, the unarmed 50-year-old African American man shot and killed by an NCPD officer in 2015, was also present at the December meeting. When LAC representatives raised similar concerns related to NCPD officers’ behavior, whether on or off duty, Chief Camacho and other NCPD officers present explicitly urged community members to file complaints about misconduct through the CRIMEWATCH website.

The CRIMEWATCH website was launched haphazardly in response to the recommendations from a 2021 Racial Bias Audit, which determined “community members have not filed complaints even after negative experiences with NCPD personnel, and the complaint process is confusing to most.”

At a NCPD town hall meeting officers the day before the LAC’s December meeting with the mayor and chief, officers prided themselves at having fulfilled 89% of the audit’s recommendations. Yet, since the December meeting, coalition members have submitted at least five complaints concerning officers’ behavior at Elbit, four through CRIMEWATCH and one over the phone.

Major Aiken admitted that he had not seen anything regarding these complaints and that they must have “fallen through the cracks” via technical difficulties because CRIMEWATCH was supposedly a “new” system.

The Racial Bias Audit recommended NCPD revise the complaint process to make it more accessible and ensure residents are updated on the status of their complaints and involve community members in the complaint review process, among other suggestions made back in 2021, but NCPD only launched the new process days before the December 2025 meeting. “The inability of NCPD to acknowledge the concerns of their community is yet another unfulfilled and false promise to the community by NCPD,” said Xiong.

Erica Veal of LAC and FRSO said these inconsistencies are precisely why they advocate for community control of the police, “Law enforcement has proven they are unwilling or incapable of adhering to protocols and recommendations to keep communities safe and are not committed to transparency and accountability,” Veal said. “We have presented ample evidence of their officers’ unequal enforcement of the law at pickets, we used the channels they insisted we use to document the misconduct and we have been met with excuse after excuse.” She went on to say, “The Racial Bias Audit was not enough. We demand community control of police now!”

#NorthCharlestonSC #SC #AntiWarMovement #Elbit #EOSC

North Charleston, SC – Monday, December 29, marked the three-year anniversary of the death of D’Angelo Brown, and organizers with the Lowcountry Action Committee (LAC) honored the day by gathering in remembrance of him and the more than 20 other lives stolen by Al Cannon Detention Center.

Brown, who suffered from schizoaffective disorder, was murdered by medical neglect at the jail in 2022. His death was ruled a homicide and, according to LAC members, is part of a larger pattern of abuse and neglect at the facility.

“Over 20 people have died at Al Cannon since 2015 and most of them have been Black and struggling with mental health issues like schizophrenia, bipolar disorder or addiction,” said Erica Veal, co-founding member of LAC. “Mental health is not a crime, but for people detained at Al Cannon it’s a potential death sentence. That’s not right and we want to see the jail shut down immediately.”

At the vigil, organizers poured libations and read the names of 24 people who died at Al Cannon. One of the names was that of Jamal Sutherland who was tasered to death by corrections officers on January 5, 2021 after being transferred to the jail from a mental health facility. In the aftermath of his murder, which was also ruled a homicide, LAC members formed part of the Justice for All Coalition to demand accountability.

Brown and Sutherland were both Black, but the jail’s most recent victim was white. Mary Brucato was murdered at the detention center on August 11, 2025 and it took nearly six months for her death to be ruled a homicide due to medical neglect and complications from withdrawal. Brucato had been struggling with substance use disorder.

“Mary Brucato, D’Angelo Brown and Jamal Sutherland should still be with us today,” said Shaquille Fontenot, a co-founding member of LAC. “We are here to honor lives taken by police violence and to speak the names the system tries to erase. This vigil is not an ending, but a checkpoint in a longer struggle for justice and community control.”

Alfred Peeler, LAC Solidarity Network member explained to the crowd that community control means the community determining how they are policed and by whom. “The community decides if it wants to shut down a jail that is under DOJ investigation for medical neglect while there are still people literally right to this day dying from medical neglect in it.”

He went on to say that the community “should have a say if it wants a portion of the police budget to instead go to attacking real material concerns like food deserts and afterschool care,” all of which are known to reduce violent crime, according to Peeler.

On the same day as the vigil, the Charleston County Sheriff’s Office announced they would no longer publicly release information on inmates who die in the county jail from natural causes. “It just screams coverup,” said LAC Solidarity Network member Matt Colburn. “Hopefully this will push more families to open up and trust in us to support them in their demands for justice for their loved ones. Accountability is not symbolic,” Colburn said. “True community safety requires honesty, transparency and consequences. We will continue to fight until these families find justice.”

#NorthCharlestonSC #SC #InJusticeSystem #PoliceCrimes #KillerCops #Jail #LAC #Incarceration

North Charleston, SC – On October 28, organizers with the Lowcountry Action Committee (LAC), a branch of the National Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression, attended a North Charleston Police Department (NCPD) Town Hall meeting to stand in solidarity with Black young people who have been brutalized by police for selling Palmetto Roses at various stores in North Charleston.

In September a CVS drugstore employee harassed and profiled a 17-year-old attempting to shop in the store. He was subsequently tackled and aggressively restrained by NCPD officers who arrived on the scene after the employee falsely claimed he threatened her with a knife – a misunderstanding due to his use of the common colloquialism “bands” in reference to having money. Many are upset that charges were filed against him for third-degree assault and breach of peace and not the CVS employee for filing a false report.

The town hall was led by NCPD Chief Ron Camacho and was advertised as an open conversation and “opportunity to engage with local leaders” but community organizers felt that, in practice, the event was an attempt by NCPD to control the narrative surrounding their recent brutalizations. The family of Walter Scott, who was shot in the back and killed by an NCPD officer in 2015, attended the town hall out of concern for what they believe is the inevitability of another police killing of an unarmed Black person. Chief Camacho stated he had plans to assemble and lead an “advisory board” to address community concerns, but local organizers pushed back.

“We don’t want an advisory board,” LAC co-founder Erica Veal said. “We want community control of the police.” Veal went on to describe an all-civilian elected council with final authority over police policy, oversight policy, and budget, including writing and reviewing, hiring, firing and subpoena power. Attendees also asked how community members who made false reports against Palmetto Rose artists would be held accountable. But answers from the panel of officers were unclear.

This past July, a white Circle K store employee called the police on a young artist who makes Palmetto Roses, claiming vandalism after the teenager tucked a bunch of Palmetto Roses into a vase of water. The incident went viral on social media. The police response was overwhelming, with eight officers and a K-9 unit arriving to help former Corporal Casey Ray Pace detain the juvenile. He was released without charges, and the corporal was suspended and eventually fired, but the damage to the young artist and community had already been done.

NCPD debuted a public service announcement they created in response to the admitted officer misconduct. “They played this PSA video about how children need to treat the police but refused to accept criticism of how they engage with children,” said LAC member Alfred Peeler. “The brunt of their message was blaming children and parents for the actions of police.”

The police coordinated with Charles Middleton, a leader in the police’s Reclaiming Every Community Around Peace (RECAP) program, who correlated the rise of police violence toward children to the ending of “prayer in schools” and lack of corporal punishment on the part of parents. When pressed about the need for violence interrupters and “a community group to be trained to take calls that don't go to police,” Chief Camacho asked for research of its effectiveness.

LAC will hold a press conference on Friday, October 31, at 11 am in Ralph M. Hendricks Park in response to the NCPD’s lack of accountability during the town hall. They plan to discuss their demands for community control and provide a platform for community members who were silenced during the town hall to share their views.

#NorthCharlestonSC #SC #InJusticeSystem #LAC #NAARPR #PoliceCrimes