Hilton Head apartments again a shooting hot spot. Young boy arrested over Labor Day weekend

A fight at Hilton Head Gardens late Saturday night led to a round of gunfire and screams of terror outside the apartment complex, although most residents were unwilling to speak to police about the event. A second incident on Monday led to the arrest of a young boy who was armed with a pistol.

Just before 11:30 p.m. Saturday, deputies from the Beaufort County Sheriff’s Office responded to a report of several shots fired and “people screaming” at the apartment homes, located on Southwood Park Drive on north-end Hilton Head Island. In the parking lot, police found four pistol shell casings, multiple clothing items and “a wig on the ground,” according to an incident report.

Deputies first spoke to a “young female” who stated nothing had happened but then began bragging about “beating an old lady’s a**,” the report says. They then interviewed a boy between the ages of 6 and 8 standing in his apartment’s doorway, who said the shots had been fired at his 12-year-old brother. He only told police his brother’s first name.

“His lack of knowledge for his brother’s last name appeared to be coached,” the officer noted.

Officers eventually located the 12-year-old boy’s mother, who was believed to be the “old lady” involved in the fight in the parking lot. She told police she was assaulted while trying to break up a fight. That’s when she heard gunshots behind her — but she “had no idea” who had fired them, she said.

Shortly after, a resident from the other side of the altercation told deputies the 12-year-old child had been the one shooting. When police brought this allegation to his mother, “her mannerisms toward (the deputy) changed” as she reportedly became more hesitant about answering questions. She ended her statement by asserting “neither she or her 12-year-old son have firearms,” the report says.

Noting that the witnesses’ accounts conflicted with each other, police collected the shell casings and left the scene. One resident provided deputies with a video showing the boy’s mother intervening in the reported fight, although it did not contain footage that allowed them to make an arrest.

The incident reflects two trends seen in gun violence across Beaufort County, according to Sheriff P.J. Tanner: increasingly younger perpetrators as well as bystanders that seem unwilling to provide statements or details to law enforcement.

“When we arrive on scene, when you have multiple people that live in the house, or there was a party in the yard — all the sudden, nobody knows anything,” Tanner told The Island Packet and Beaufort Gazette early this year. “We’re being met with either negative information or no information at all, which makes the job incredibly hard.”

Police data shows 2023 was the area’s deadliest year in decades for gun violence, with 20 homicides recorded across Beaufort County. If murders continue at their current rate, this year’s death toll could be slightly higher.

Boy arrested after running from police

Around 5 p.m. Monday, Beaufort County deputies received another call from Hilton Head Gardens. The anonymous complainant said a boy wearing a black hoodie was walking around the complex with a firearm and had “recently threatened” the caller and their children.

With help from residents, police spotted the child walking between the apartment buildings. When they instructed him to stop, the boy “took off running.” After chasing him through a breezeway and across the parking lot, deputies detained the minor and found an empty gun holster on his waistband. A few minutes later, police located a 9mm pistol in a flower bed along the route the child had fled, according to an incident report.

The boy admitted to having the firearm and said he ran because “he did not want to get in any trouble,” although he denied threatening anyone with the gun. Police later spoke to his mother, who was identified in the report as the same woman who intervened in Saturday’s altercation.

Police arrested the child for unlawful carrying of a pistol and fleeing from police, taking him to the Department of Juvenile Justice for a bond hearing.

The boy’s mother was identified as the same woman from the first incident, although it was unclear if he was the 12-year-old allegedly involved in the weekend gunfire. Master Sgt. Danny Allen, a spokesperson for the sheriff’s office, would not confirm the suspect’s identity.

Hilton Head Gardens has a higher rate of reported gun violence relative to the rest of the island. After being shot in the head while trying to break up a fight in the complex’s parking lot last summer, a 32-year-old woman sued the apartment complex for failing to keep residents safe due to a lack of security measures, a lack of working surveillance cameras and a failure to warn residents about the property’s history of violent crime. Another still-pending lawsuit alleges the property management company negligently leases units to individuals with lengthy criminal histories .