By Ishmael Tate
The State (Columbia, S.C.)
COLUMBIA - The back-seat passenger, bobbing his head to a rap song playing in the truck, quickly flashes several gang signs to the video camera.
He leans back to show off a pistol from under his seat, clutching a can of Budweiser in a brown paper bag.
Up front, the driver lovingly pats a gun in his lap while a passenger off camera says, “That thing right there, that looks real nice.”
The two men and a front-seat passenger leisurely pass around a marijuana cigarette. A close-up of a watch reveals it’s just after 11 a.m.
Less than 20 minutes later, Richland County Sheriff Leon Lott said, the men would fire their guns at another man in a Northeast Richland community.
The men, whom Lott identified as gang members, had recorded their search for a victim Tuesday.
They found one in a 20-year-old man sitting in his car at his Woodfield Park home, Lott said.
A brief car chase ensued, and two shots were fired at the man, striking his car. The shooters then fled in their truck.
The man was not injured but was traumatized by the shooting. He knew the men only by nickname.
“It just shows that anyone can be a victim at any time,” Lott said, adding that gangs are notorious for taking photos and recording their crimes.
Police found the video when they searched the Windsor Shores apartment where the three men were arrested, Lott said.
Curtis Joyeux, 19, and Bowe Wimbush, 24, are charged with assault and battery with intent to kill and pointing and presenting a firearm. They are in custody at Alvin S. Glenn Detention Center, each under $60,000 bond, according to jail records.
Christopher Grim, 18, is charged with assault and battery with intent to kill and pointing and presenting a firearm, and possession with intent to distribute crack cocaine. His bond is $120,000, according to jail records.
Karmidae M. Leggett, 18, is charged with misprision of a felony because Lott said he knew about the crime and did not report it to police. He also helped conceal evidence, Lott said.
Lott called the shooting senseless -- and said the fact that it occurred in daylight, at 11:30 a.m., was disturbing.
“They’ll do it whenever they want to,” Lott said. “It could be 11 a.m. or it could be 2 a.m. -- that’s what makes them so dangerous.”
Joyeux, Wimbush and Grim are known to police as gang members, said Lt. Chris Cowan, department spokesman.
Based on their behavior in the video, the presence of guns and their interviews, Cowan said, investigators believe they were looking for trouble.
Grim was arrested in 2007 and charged with first-degree burglary, according to the State Law Enforcement Division, but the disposition of the charge is unclear. In March, he was charged with simple assault and battery.
Wimbush and Joyeux have no criminal record in South Carolina, SLED records show.
It’s hard to say exactly how many gang members are in Richland County, Lott said, but he said it’s a problem that communities cannot ignore.
“The community has to stand up and say, ‘We’re sick of this. We’re tried of people shooting up our neighborhoods.’”