Richland County Sheriff Leon Lott swears in a group of new deputies on Wednesday, Jan. 15, 2025, at the sheriff’s department headquarters in Columbia. Richland County Sheriff Leon Lott swears in a group of new deputies on Wednesday, Jan. 15, 2025, at the sheriff’s department headquarters in Columbia. A monument honoring police dogs that have served the Richland County Sheriff's Department is seen outside the department's headquarters. Some city officials admitted it can be hard to get older teens to partake in activities such as Glow Night. They make sure to ask the teens themselves what they would be interested in, and try to cater the city's services to their needs. Richland County Sheriff Leon Lott swears in a group of new deputies on Wednesday, Jan. 15, 2025, at the sheriff’s department headquarters in Columbia. Richland County Sheriff Leon Lott swears in a group of new deputies on Wednesday, Jan. 15, 2025, at the sheriff’s department headquarters in Columbia. A whole generation of kids in the Midlands is being lost, Richland County's top law enforcement officer said. They're "either getting killed or going to prison,” Sheriff Leon Lott said in a recent interview with The Post and Courier at his office. The walls surrounding him are covered in photos of his family taken over the years. “Something’s got to change," he said. As shootings and
killings involving teenagers ticked up over the holidays, Lott took aim at the role parents play in these crimes, saying that "if parents refuse to hold their children accountable, then we will hold
them accountable." And now he's doing just that. Earlier this month, the Richland County Sheriff's Department launched the Parent Accountability Initiative. The department will now include parents when investigating juveniles caught committing crimes between midnight and morning. If those parents are found to “be complacent, or allowed or condoned that behavior” they could face charges themselves. Asked to define criminal complacency, Lott said the department was still figuring that out. “It doesn’t take rocket science to figure out where that line is — that’s common sense,” he said. Three parents already have been arrested since Jan. 3, but there are some doubts about whether the new initiative will have its intended effect. “It doesn’t result in better parenting," said Madalyn Wasilczuk, an assistant law professor at the University of South Carolina and director of the Youth Defender Clinic. "It doesn’t result in more stable families. And, if anything, this also comes between the parent-child relationship and interposes in a way that may create more alienation among young people.”
Three arrests in three weeks
The first arrest was made in connection with the killing of one of the department's police dogs. Shameka Williams was charged with accessory after the fact. According to the sheriff's department, surveillance shows Williams picking up her 13-year-old son at 3 a.m. on Dec. 23. Earlier that night, her son allegedly shot at officers, resulting in the death of a K-9. Investigators searched her home and found her son’s clothes in the wash and his shoes in the attic. “I have no problem with her going and picking him up,” Lott said. “She should have brought him here to the sheriff’s department.”
A monument honoring police dogs that have served the Richland County Sheriff's Department is seen outside the department's headquarters. On Jan. 6, Patrice Johnson was charged with accessory after the fact of a murder for allegedly knowing someone had been shot in an incident involving her son but waited two hours to call the police. Just before 3 a.m. on Dec. 16, deputies heard shots fired but couldn’t locate the source. Around 4 a.m., Johnson called 911 to report a body on her back porch. Her 14-year-old son was charged with murder. A third parent, Khadeidra Thomas, was arrested Jan. 15 when she accompanied her son when he turned himself in. She faces charges of contributing to the delinquency of a minor and obstruction of justice for allegedly lying to law enforcement about her son’s whereabouts when she was first questioned. Her 17-year-old son was wanted by the sheriff's department for allegedly hiding the gun used in a killing involving Johnson's son. The list of charges parents could face under the new initiative includes unlawful conduct, contributing to the delinquency of a minor, obstruction, misprision and accessory after the fact. Parents also could be fined up to $5,000 in civil court under the Parental Civil Liability for Damage to State Property law — a new approach for the department.
Richland County’s problem with youth crime
According to data provided by the Richland County Sheriff’s Department, the number of juveniles arrested for violent crimes with guns nearly doubled from 2019 to 2023. But in the past year it has dropped 17 percent. Despite this decline, Lott said December was a particularly bad month for his department. There were 42 people aged 17 or younger taken into custody that month — six of those arrests were for violent crimes committed with guns between midnight and morning. That’s as many juveniles arrested in one month for overnight gun crimes as September, October and November combined. “There’s no excuse for a 13-year-old to be out at 2:30 in the morning, and as a parent, you should know where your child’s at," Lott said. "And if you don’t care, then you should be held accountable for it.”
The Richland County Sheriff's Department has made three arrests since announcing the parental accountability initiative. Wasilczuk said this isn’t the first time laws have been used to correct parenting behavior. Laws exist in some form in every state to hold a parent either civilly or criminally responsible for their children’s actions. The first “contributing to the delinquency of a minor” law can be dated to 1903. Recently, the conversation about parental accountability reached the national stage after
a Michigan judge sentenced two parents to 10 years in prison for failing to stop their son from killing four students at his high school in 2021. The conviction is the first of its kind and could indicate how the role of parents in youth crime is viewed in courts. This isn’t the first time parents have been arrested for involvement in their children’s crimes, Lott said. But this go-round is different because he's intentionally publicizing the initiative. “It’s a slap in their face,” he said. “You need to be concerned about your child and what your kid is doing." But according to Wasilczuk, the focus should be less on enforcing the law and more on community outreach. “Tough on crime policies, in general, are not shown to bring down youth crime,” she said. “The sorts of things that do are better schools, mental health treatment and income assistance to families — and so, in a lot of ways, this policy runs counter to the sorts of policies that do in fact lower crime rates.”
Community resources
The sheriff’s department does have numerous youth programs and even some workshops for parents. Lott emphasized that it’s up to parents to take the initiative to seek out those services. The city of Columbia offers their own youth programming year-round, and partners with the Crime Prevention Team to host conversations with youth about topics like gun violence and crime. “The biggest thing is just to be able to provide them with something that’s safe to do, but it’s enjoyable, as well,” said Christy Wright, assistant recreation superintendent for the city of Columbia's programs and services. “It … keeps them from wanting to be able to venture off and get into things that they shouldn’t be able to get into.”
Teens play mini-golf at a Glow Night hosted by the city of Columbia on July 7, 2023. But for families who need them most, barriers to accessing these programs and resources often can make help seem impossible. “To be honest, a lot of them don’t have ways to come out of their neighborhoods to find out what’s out there,” said Keisha Washington, a program manager at the city's office of neighborhood engagement. The office was created 18 months ago with the goal of understanding how safe people feel in their communities, what resources they feel are lacking and the best way to get those resources into those areas. The office is still in the data-collection phase but soon could launch a host of pilot programs. In initial data collection efforts, Washington noted a lot of parents in underprivileged communities were lacking financial, workforce development or educational resources.
Some city officials admitted it can be hard to get older teens to partake in activities such as Glow Night. They make sure to ask the teens themselves what they would be interested in, and try to cater the city's services to their needs. “A lot of them are either working two or three jobs to try to support their families," she said. "They're not home, so of course the kids are able to run rampant. That’s when they’re finding trouble.” Washington rejected the idea that working multiple jobs makes someone a bad parent. Instead, a lack of structural support is to blame. “A lot of people don’t have the support system,” Washington said. “I used to work at (the Department of Juvenile Justice) and I ran into a lot of kids that say that’s what led them there, because they see their parents struggling.”
Parental accountability or parental support?
Gwendolyn Singletary, president of the Wiley-Kennedy Foundation, agreed parents need more resources. “Parents need to parent," she said. "But we also know parents need help parenting.” In 2024, the foundation partnered with local officials, community leaders and nonprofits to create Safer Communities for the Midlands in response to
several shootings among teens. The two guns allegedly brought to Spring Valley High School near Columbia by a student on Oct. 24. The main focus of the group is its Youth Council initiative, made up of teens from across the Midlands. The council will help the foundation discover what issues are plaguing teens and leading to violence, and how to structure services and programs to meet their needs. The teens will be paid for their time. As for parental involvement, Singletary said she’s been frustrated by the lack of response to programs in the past. This time, they’re trying a more involved approach to overcome common barriers. “I really understand what the law enforcement people are saying, and I’m not disagreeing with them, but I’m going to try to believe that it’s more (about) parents needing help,” Singletary said. “Whether that means picking the child up, whether that means making sure the child got a meal, whether that means reminding the parents on a regular basis, that’s what we’re trying to do now to make sure those bases are covered.” Applications for the council open Jan. 20.
Correcting behavior
Lott conceded that he wasn’t sure if the charges against the parents who have been arrested since the initiative took effect would stick in court. But to him, it's not about keeping parents behind bars or punishing them financially with civil charges. “I don’t care about somebody going to jail, I just want somebody to do the right thing,” Lott said. “If it makes them be a parent like they should be, then it’s a win. The goal isn’t to put people in jail, it’s to correct the behavior.”
