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Resident warns Orangeburg County violent‑crime ranking, points to two neighborhood hotspots
Summary
Resident David Thornberg told the council a state newspaper placed Orangeburg County among the state's top violent‑crime rates for 2024, identified two neighborhood hotspots, and urged new approaches to reduce crime; his crime‑rate calculations and hotspot naming were presented as his figures and sources.
David Thornberg, speaking during the public‑comment period at an Orangeburg County Council meeting, said a state newspaper reported the county ranked third in the state for violent crime in 2024 and offered his own calculation of roughly 900 violent crimes that year based on a population figure he cited.
"At that rate, our population is 83,183. So that would be 900 total violent crimes in that year of 24," Thornberg said, explicitly framing the computation as his calculation drawn from a newspaper report.
He compared local rates to Chicago's and warned that the county’s rate was troubling. Thornberg also identified two neighborhood locations he said SLED (South Carolina Law Enforcement Division) had flagged as main problem areas—transcript text reads 'Edesto Drive' and 'Golf Avenue'—and urged continued effort by the sheriff’s department and new ideas or outside help to make residents and businesses feel safe.
The transcript records no direct factual verification in the meeting excerpt; the crime counts and ranking are reported in this article as claims made by the speaker and attributed to a state newspaper and to Thornberg’s own calculations. No formal response from law‑enforcement officials is included in the provided excerpt.
Thornberg also linked public‑safety concerns to fiscal questions raised in his remarks, asking about two $40,000 budget line items and suggesting residents needed tax relief and clearer fiscal planning.
