A 34-year-old Columbia man has agreed to plead guilty to committing a hate crime after firing a gun at his neighbor in July 2025.
Jonathan Felkel drove into a gated Richland County community where he and Jarvis McKenzie lived. Felkel fired a gun toward McKenzie and shouted, "You better keep running, boy!" McKenzie is Black.
Felkel agreed to plead guilty to violating McKenzie's housing rights. The federal charge stemmed from a law that criminalizes the use of force or threatened force to injure, intimidate or interfere with a person's housing rights based on race. Felkel was taken into custody a week after the shooting and indicted by a federal grand jury in Dec. 2025.
He faces a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison, a fine up to $250,000 and a term of supervised release to follow any term of imprisonment, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of South Carolina.
Felkel initially pleaded not guilty, but the office said Felkel will enter a change of plea in federal court. A date for that move has not yet been decided.
The July act made Felkel the first person charged with Richland County's hate crime ordinance. South Carolina is one of two states in the country without a statewide hate crime law, and so municipalities are on their own for the creation of such rules.
Attorney General and gubernatorial candidate Alan Wilson released an opinion statement Nov. 2025 that questioned the legality of locally created hate crime ordinances. Still, Wilson said, "only a court may determine the legality of such an ordinance," in the opening paragraph of the letter.
In a December press conference, McKenzie's lawyer Tyler Bailey said he was thankful for the moves made by law enforcement up to that point. He wanted to see the state more involved.
"There's still one missing person, or party, from this conversation, which is the state" he said in the conference. "I think this reiterates the need that there need to be a statewide hate crime bill."
