A Black veteran accused his new Myrtle Beach neighbors of harassment. One was arrested. (2024)

MYRTLE BEACH — Eugene Gary didn’t know his neighbors when he moved to the Wave Rider Resort on March 1.

At 69 and recently homeless, the Black Marine Corps veteran was just relieved to find housing. Gary had been living in a Camden hotel after a series of hardships: breaking his hip on some icy steps in 2013, struggling with his balance after surgery and losing jobs as a cook and racehorse caretaker.

Yet his fortunes appeared to be turning in Myrtle Beach. He became a client of the Eastern Carolina Housing Organization, completed a three-month program for veterans and landed at the Wave Rider in a first-floor unit by the pool.

Then came his new neighbors’ ire. Gary was accused of being a drug dealer. Some assumed he was drunk because he walks with a pronounced limp. One woman called his granddaughter “dirty braids.” And when a man started standing outside his home watching him, Gary began to live in fear.

“I’ve seen some things, but nothing like this,” he said. “I don’t go nowhere. I sit here at night listening to see if they are all asleep before I can sleep. I don’t know what they will do … I can’t help it. I am afraid. That man comes every day and stares in my window. Every day. They are watching me because I’m Black. I’m Black. That’s all I did wrong.”

City officials are aware of Gary’s situation, which escalated this month when police charged one of his neighbors with second-degree harassment. NAACP leaders are also following the case, and his plight was mentioned during a city podcast discussion about Myrtle Beach’s new hate intimidation ordinance.

His neighbors, all White, have denied racist intent. They have also said they aren’t targeting Gary but are simply upset about a lack of security at the resort and an increase in visitors on the property.

Videos posted on Facebook

The Wave Rider sits beside 16th Avenue South, sandwiched between Ocean Boulevard and Yaupon Drive. The L-shaped building was established in the 1950s as a motel with about 80 rooms, a pool and a shuffleboard court.

In 1996, the motel transitioned into a condominium complex with privately owned rooms. Some room owners live in the resort, some offer long-term rentals and some offer rooms to rent on a short-term basis through Airbnb and Vrbo.

Some of the Wave Rider homeowners also belong to a private Facebook page where they posted doorbell camera videos of Gary, his granddaughter Libby Pierce and others in the resort’s halls and stairwells. Many of the videos were topped with comments and accusations.

Mike Sims, the Facebook page administrator, is a 57-year-old White Navy veteran. He lives on the second floor around the way from Gary’s unit. Originally from Virginia, he moved from Arizona and has been a resort homeowner for about seven years.

Sims said he started the Facebook page to keep his neighbors informed and to foster a community-type atmosphere. He envisioned it announcing cookouts and cleanup days.

But Sims acknowledged the page became a place to share videos and comments about people in the common areas at the resort, as well as raise questions about the homeowners association.

Four days at the end of March marked a turning point for Gary. He said Sims crossed the line from private, virtual speculation to physical intimidation.

On March 23, Sims sat with his dog Hattie about 10 feet from Gary’s room. He stared at the door.

The next day, the Myrtle Beach Police Department received a call about suspected drug-related or prostitution activity in Gary’s room. Gary and his granddaughter, Pierce, were there when the police looked in his room and didn’t find cause to arrest anyone.

In the aftermath of the unfounded suspicions, the resort’s HOA notified residents that posting videos and accusations could lead to litigation. It said any harassment or defamation must stop.

That afternoon, Sims and Hattie returned to the retaining wall, feet from Gary’s patio. Pierce took photographs as Sims smiled, waved and shrugged, pointing his palms up.

Scared and frustrated, Gary filed for a restraining order against Sims.

Gary alleged he was a victim of intimidation as he made his case for the restraining order during an April 10 hearing before Horry County Magistrate Christopher Arakas.

“I feel unsafe,” Gary told the court. “There’s all these false allegations of being a drug dealer and all this mess here. It’s obnoxious. He’s doing that to try to intimidate me.”

Sims told the judge he had never met, spoken with or even seen Gary prior to the hearing. He saw his actions as appropriate.

“The area, I’m going to come out and say it, is a drug-infested area,” Sims said. “It’s a bad part of town and we do everything we can to protect our area.”

Sims said he assumes illegal activity is occurring when he sees numerous people coming and going from a particular room.

“There has never been anything as powerful as what goes on in his unit,” Sims testified, referring to Gary’s room, 114. “At the moment he moved in, our world changed.”

Sims acknowledged sitting on the retaining wall near Gary's home, but the judge denied the restraining order. Gary appealed the decision but that also failed.

Myrtle Beach police make arrest

Though a restraining order wasn't approved, Myrtle Beach police arrested Sims on July 19 on a charge of misdemeanor harassment.

An arrest warrant indicates police began a harassment investigation on June 17. It highlighted Sims' social media posts about trying to deter people from visiting Gary by sitting outside his home.

Sims said he was being framed.

“They’re trying to make me look like a racist and I'm harassing this man. I'm the one being harassed," he said. "They will not leave me alone since they got me arrested.”

During Gary's appeal hearing for a restraining order, Sims told the judge someone sent his mugshot to his employer and one of that company’s clients. He denied harassing Gary, insisting "I was arrested for nothing."

Myrtle Beach police have not charged Gary with any illegal activity at the Wave Rider. But the Wave Rider has been the site of several police investigations through the years, with the most serious being the slaying of Randy E. Banks in 2014. Banks was found shot to the death at the resort after opening his home to the man who killed him.

Some of the latest vitriol has been directed at ECHO, the housing organization that placed Gary at Wave Rider.

"It’s a damn halfway house," Sims wrote in a Facebook post. "The people staying here in their units are terrorizing us.”

Ken May, the director the city’s planning and zoning department, said ECHO clients are allowed to live in any unit within the city limits that is zoned for long-term rentals, including Wave Rider.

While Gary's situation isn't the norm in Myrtle Beach, those who turn to ECHO often face a stigma here, saidJoey Smoak, ECHO’s chief executive officer. He said he doesn't see as much resentment toward the homeless in Florence or Sumter.

“It's the mentality of, ‘That's a great idea. That's a great program but in not my backyard,’” he said. “I can't quite knock that down here in Myrtle Beach."

ECHO is a nonprofit that uses a variety of federal, state and local sources to address homelessness in 13 South Carolina counties and three North Carolina counties. He said ECHO visits its clients monthly to check on them and direct them to service agencies if help is needed.

In 2023, ECHO moved more than 650 people out of homelessness, prevented 1,926 evictions, housed more than 100 veterans and supported more than 300 getting away from domestic violence situations, Smoak said.

The unit Gary lives in is owned by Henry Rietveld of Canada. Randy Oparowski manages the unit for Rietveld and seven other units at the Wave Rider where ECHO clients live. He said Gary did not choose to live at the Wave Rider nor did he choose room 114.

“Anytime they identify the person as ECHO, it's just nonstop monitoring and harassment. But nothing like Eugene Gary,”Oparowski said. “This guy is just getting ground and pound.”