'We are tired of marching': Greenville activist asks state leaders to enact new laws

Seal the criminal history of the victim who dies or is seriously injured during an interaction with police.

Make police body camera footage accessible via the Freedom of Information Act.

Establish a system that allows a resident to appeal a complaint against a police officer with the Criminal Justice Academy.

Those are three new laws that Bruce Wilson of Greenville Black Lives Matter is asking the South Carolina General Assembly to enact.

His request was made Tuesday while standing in front of U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham's downtown Greenville office and preceded a ceremony in Falls Park honoring George Floyd.

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The ceremony featured an exhibit of 30 pillars showcasing 120 photos. The photos were mostly of victims killed by law enforcement, but also included Ahmaud Arbery and the Emanuel Nine who were shot and killed during Bible study by a self-proclaimed white supremacist.

"We are tired of marching," Wilson said. "We are tired of seeing these lives lost. It's time to put a stop to it."

The April conviction of former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin for the murder of Floyd does not mean the call for justice is done, Wilson said.

"There has not been any meaningful change," he said. "It's true that the death of Floyd woke up the nation, and in fact the world, but nothing has truly changed.

"When they tell us that we have come so far, I say we have not," he said. It's OK to march in protest and that did allow us to get a conviction, but now it is time for meaningful legislation, laws that will protect Black lives and people of color."

On the federal level, Wilson wants to see meaningful change with the passage of the George Floyd Justice In Policing Act. He called on South Carolina's two senators,  Graham and Tim Scott, to vote "immediately" on the act.

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He said there is a need for similar legislation to be passed in South Carolina.

Wilson said when a person who loses their life or is seriously harmed by police, he'd like to see a state law that seals that individual's criminal history, pending a SLED use of force investigation.

Wilson referenced what happened to Andrew Brown Jr., who was shot and killed on April 21 after Pasquotank County, North Carolina deputies attempted to serve him with arrest warrants.

"They talked about everything in that young man's background even though he was shot in the head. He was not here to defend himself.

"We know nothing about the officers that shot him," Wilson said. "We don't even know their names."

Wilson said it makes "no sense" for citizens to pay for body camera footage and not be able to see it. "It is not an investigative tool," he said. "Body camera footage was installed and enacted to create transparency for the community and law enforcement.

"What good is it if only law enforcement can see it? It needs to be part of the FOIA request," he said.

Wilson is also asking for a mechanism that allows citizens to make complaints about police officers directly to the South Carolina Criminal Justice Academy.

If the academy sides with the citizen, it can recoup the hours that they used to investigate the complaint from the sheriff's department or the municipality, he said.

"That will ensure that municipalities and sheriff's departments do not rubber stamp complaints, he said.

The legislation Wilson is proposing "will go a long way in stopping some of the things we're seeing," he said.