Lexington County is a county located in the U.S. state of South Carolina. As of the 2020 census,the population was 293,991. Its county seat and largest community is Lexington. The county was chartered in 1785 and was named in commemoration of Lexington,Massachusetts,the site of the Battle of Lexington in the American Revolutionary War. Lexington County is the sixth-most populous county in South Carolina by population and is part of the Columbia,SC Metropolitan Statistical Area. It is located in the Midlands region of South Carolina.
Pagan's Motorcycle Club,or simply the Pagans,is an outlaw motorcycle club formed by Lou Dobkin in 1957 in Prince George's County,Maryland,United States. The club rapidly expanded and by 1959,the Pagans,originally clad in blue denim jackets and riding Triumphs,began to evolve along the lines of the stereotypical one percenter motorcycle club.
Joseph Michael Arpaio is an American former law enforcement officer and politician. He was the Sheriff of Maricopa County,Arizona for 24 years,from 1993 to 2017,losing reelection to Democrat Paul Penzone in 2016.
Sean W. Kennedy was a gay American man who was severely punched by a younger man,Stephen Andrew Moller as Kennedy was leaving a bar in Greenville,South Carolina. The punch was so hard that it shattered his facial bones and separated his brain from his brain stem. Kennedy died 17 hours later of his fatal injuries. This attack and Kennedy's death drew attention to South Carolina's lack of a hate crime law and is believed to have contributed to passage of the federal Hate Crime Prevention Act of 2009,for which his mother lobbied. Additionally,Moller served so little time "because of the lack of an applicable Violent Crime Law in South Carolina" at the time,according to the Judge,although this explanation was seen by the LGBT community as merely thinly veiled homophobia.
The Federal Correctional Institution,Edgefield is a medium-security United States federal prison for male inmates in South Carolina. It is operated by the Federal Bureau of Prisons,a division of the United States Department of Justice. The facility also has an adjacent satellite prison camp for minimum-security male offenders,which houses between 500 and 549 inmates.
Eric Himpton Holder Jr. is an American lawyer who served as the 82nd United States attorney general from 2009 to 2015. A member of the Democratic Party,Holder was the first African American to hold the position.
Shawn Robert Adolf,Tharin Robert Gartrell and Nathan Dwaine Johnson plotted to assassinate Barack Obama,then the 2008 Democratic Party presidential nominee. The trio allegedly planned to shoot Senator Obama with a high-powered rifle during the Democratic National Convention in Denver,Colorado.
Robert Randall "Randy" Crane is the Chief United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Southern District of Texas.
Preetinder Singh Bharara is an Indian-born American lawyer and former federal prosecutor who served as the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York from 2009 to 2017. He is currently a partner at the law firm Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr. He served as an Assistant U.S. Attorney for five years prior to leading the Southern District of New York.
Richard Mark Gergel is a South Carolina lawyer who serves as a United States district judge of the United States District Court for the District of South Carolina.
Alan McCrory Wilson is an American lawyer,politician,and South Carolina National Guard serving as the 51st Attorney General of South Carolina since 2011. He is a member of the Republican Party.
Peter Franz Neronha is an American lawyer and politician from Jamestown,Rhode Island who currently serves as the attorney general of Rhode Island. He previously served as the United States attorney for the District of Rhode Island under President Barack Obama from September 16,2009 until March 10,2017,after which he ran successfully as a Democrat for the office of Attorney General of Rhode Island in the 2018 elections.
On April 4,2015,Walter Scott,a 50-year-old black man,was fatally shot by Michael Slager,a local police officer in North Charleston,South Carolina,United States. Slager had stopped Scott for a non-functioning brake light. Slager was charged with murder after a video surfaced showing him shooting Scott from behind while Scott was fleeing,which contradicted Slager's report of the incident. The radical difference led many to believe that the shooting was racially motivated,generating a widespread controversy.
The Charleston church shooting,also known as the Charleston church massacre,was an anti-black mass shooting and hate crime that occurred on June 17,2015,in Charleston,South Carolina. Nine people were killed,and a tenth was injured,during a Bible study at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church,the oldest black church in the southern United States. Among the fatalities was the senior pastor,state senator Clementa C. Pinckney. All ten victims were African Americans. At the time,it was the deadliest mass shooting at a place of worship in U.S. history and is the deadliest mass shooting in South Carolina history.
Dylann Storm Roof is an American white supremacist,Neo-Nazi,and mass murderer who is currently serving time on death row at USP Terre Haute for perpetrating the Charleston church shooting on June 17,2015,in the U.S. state of South Carolina. During a Bible study at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church,Roof killed nine people,all African Americans,including senior pastor and state senator Clementa C. Pinckney,and injured a tenth person. After several people identified Roof as the main suspect,he became the center of a manhunt that ended the morning after the shooting with his arrest in Shelby,North Carolina. He later confessed that he committed the shooting in hopes of igniting a race war. Roof's actions in Charleston have been widely described as domestic terrorism.
United States v. Roof F. Supp. 3d 419(D.S.C. 2016) was a 2017 federal trial involving mass murderer Dylann Roof and his role in the Charleston church shooting in 2015. Five days after the shooting,Roof was indicted on 33 federal charges,including 12 counts of committing a hate crime against black victims. On May 24,2016,the Justice Department announced that Roof would face the death penalty. As he was already facing the death penalty in his state trial,Roof became the first person in U.S. history to face both a federal and state death penalty at the same time.
Richard A. Harpootlian is an American attorney and politician serving as a member of the South Carolina Senate from the 20th district. He served as the chair of the South Carolina Democratic Party from 1998 to 2003 and again from 2011 to 2013. He also previously served as solicitor for the Fifth Judicial Circuit of South Carolina from 1991 until 1995.
David Michael Pascoe is an American lawyer serving as the First Circuit Solicitor in the state of South Carolina since 2005. The First Circuit comprises Dorchester,Calhoun,and Orangeburg counties. In 2016,Pascoe won a Supreme Court case against the South Carolina Attorney General where the Attorney General attempted to remove Pascoe as the special prosecutor in a corruption probe involving the General Assembly. Pascoe oversaw the investigation and secured convictions on five powerful South Carolina General Assembly members that included the House speaker,President Pro Tem of the Senate,Chairman of the House Judiciary,and two former House Majority Leaders.
James Alton "Al" Cannon Jr. is an American law enforcement officer,attorney and politician. He served as sheriff of Charleston County,South Carolina,from February 1988 until January 2021. He was defeated by Democratic challenger Kristin Graziano in the November 2020 election.
On February 1,1988,two armed Tuscarora men,Eddie Hatcher and Timothy Jacobs,took hostages in the offices of The Robesonian newspaper in Lumberton,Robeson County,North Carolina. At the time,Robeson experienced a significant level of drug trafficking and increasing public distrust of the county sheriff's office,especially from the area's significant Native American population. Hatcher believed he had evidence of corruption in the local justice system and,fearing for his life,enlisted the aid of Jacobs to try to raise awareness about his concerns. The two held the staff of the county daily newspaper hostage for 10 hours before extracting an agreement from North Carolina Governor James G. Martin to investigate corruption allegations in Robeson.
