GREENWOOD, S.C. — Greenwood teenager Calvin Lamont Parker Jr. would have turned 20 on Tuesday. Instead, his face looked down from a digital roadside sign in Greenville from morning to midnight, paired with a plea for young people to put down their guns.
Parker was 17 and about to start his senior year at Greenwood High School when he was shot and killed at Ware Shoals Dragway during a motorcycle rally on May 11, 2024.
The Laurens County Sheriff’s Office arrested Kendrick Beanard Makins of Greenwood a week after the shooting, picking him up in Abbeville County. He was 18 then. He faces a murder charge, along with counts of aggravated breach of peace and having a weapon during a violent crime. Sheriff Don Reynolds credited SLED along with his own investigators and deputies for the arrest and said Parker’s family is in the sheriff’s prayers.
No trial date has been set. The case falls to the 8th Circuit Solicitor’s Office, which had not responded to a request for an update on the case by Tuesday.
The tribute ran at 1414 E. Washington St. The sponsor was Put the Guns Down Now Young People. Jack Logan started the anti-violence group, which puts the faces of young victims on roadside signs to make other teens think twice before reaching for a weapon.
Logan said the group has now arranged 21 such signs in South Carolina and beyond. Greenville was the only Upstate city where he could find a digital board, he said, and he would like to add standard signs in Greenwood and Laurens counties as the case moves toward trial.
Logan said he reached out to Parker’s mother before the sign went up, and the family told him they were thankful their son had not been forgotten.
Logan said the message is aimed at violence, not at gun owners, and that parents carry a duty to teach children how to handle firearms safely. Over the past 15 years, he said, the group has handed out close to 50,000 gun locks.
Section: More Greenwood SC crime news
Filed under: Greenwood SC Public Safety News
