Obligatory Anniversary Post

It is once again time for our obligatory anniversary post. March 31st marked the end of Charleston Thug Life’s third year. A lot has changed since we started this site to expose a “choirboy” shot by police. Someone had to step up because the media was not doing their job.  After that initial flurry we did not expect CTL to hang around, but as we dug deeper we discovered there was much more to the thug and crime problem than most folks were not aware of. Citizens did not know what was happening in their criminal justice and prison systems because they did not know how to search for the information and the powers that be only issued press releases to disseminate the results in high profile cases when they needed a boost as elections drew near. The failures of prosecutors, judges, the prison and probation and parole systems were not intended to be reviewed, discussed or even known about by the general public.

During the past year we have noticed reactions from some who complain we ruined the main thrust of the site by getting involved in politics. We are not involved in politics, per se. It is an unfortunate fact that politics and crime tend to go hand in hand. It is impossible to criticize the actions of an elected official without politics becoming a tangential issue. According to 9th Circuit Solicitor Scarlett Wilson this site is just an “internet tabloid” trying to take her down. Having someone point out her professional failures is what Wilson does not like. We upset the status quo of no news coming out about her office or her performance unless she was the one releasing it. In the eyes of someone who relies on voters to keep a job that is considered a political attack.

In the past year we have also noticed some whining from law enforcement that the site is anti-cop. We find that strange considering the constant support we provide to LE. How quickly they forget about the posts that started it all and exposed the “choirboy” for what he really was, or the series of articles we did to refute the narrative of the race hustlers and their media cohorts in the Denzell Curnell and Ferguson, MO cases. Apparently some cops are willing to overlook our repeated contention that law enforcement is doing it’s job locking these serial offenders up while prosecutors and judges continue to drop the ball.

No, what these officers look at are the stories we have done on the corrupt administration at BCSO or the few reports we have had to do when an officer is jailed or fired for committing a crime. We initially avoided reporting that stuff and left it up to the local media, which takes great glee in telling you about officers who run afoul of the law. We decided that made us look a bit one-sided and those stories are hard to avoid when they are being blasted all over the local news and social media for days on end. To some wearing the badge the fact that we reported on those stories at all lumps us into the same classification they give the local television news and newspaper - cop haters.

Of course, that media reporting, or lack thereof, depends on their connections to a particular agency. We happen to know several citizens who tried to get the media involved in the BCSO scandals to no avail. They have only stepped up and done a few stories on the corruption there since the former sheriff resigned. Some, like WCBD News 2, are still running scared and are afraid to report the threat made to them by Chief Deputy Rick Ollic.

Do we hate BCSO or Berkeley County as some have contended? Nope. We hate corruption, malfeasance, mismanagement and criminals with badges. We have repeatedly told you there are some great hard-charging deputies at that agency who find themselves in the position of having to keep their heads down and hope they will eventually get a leader who will clean things up so they can get back to doing what they love - protecting their citizens and putting criminals behind bars.

We try not to let the opinion of those few law enforcement officers bother us. We continue to provide intelligence and evidence found on our social media travels to just about every law enforcement agency in the area and even refrain from publishing some information we find to allow them time to assess and utilize it. More often than not that leads to us not being able to break a story first, but being first never was our ultimate goal here at CTL. In addition to providing CPD with the identity of the Chuck E. Cheese shooter we have assisted the Department of Corrections on a multitude of occasions, and even provided information to BCSO regarding the unsolved murder of Ariel Morgan. We were happy to do it, even if their investigative supervisor did not bother to acknowledge the email in which we sent that information.

So, what are our future plans? For the time being we have decided that a majority of citizens find CTL to be a useful resource for information about our criminal justice system. We will continue to report on the realities of that system. For how long? We can’t say for sure, but we can guarantee we have at least another year in us. Jobs and family matters come first, but we will continue to do our small part to keep the public informed through our crime reports and commentary.

Thanks for reading!