"We feel like we need a new police chief in Charleston," Elder James Johnson said at a press conference Monday afternoon outside the Charleston Police Department.

"I want to send a message to Mayor (Joe) Riley that this will not end. We will do whatever it takes to get Greenberg out of office," Johnson said.

Johnson, chairman of the local Rainbow/PUSH's action committee, said Greenberg went too far in his comment last week regarding the problem of black males killing other black males. In addition to Johnson, several family members of victims killed in black-on-black crimes appeared at the press conference and said Greenberg's comment was insensitive.

"I was going through the healing process, and he opened up the wounds again," said Betty Gregorie, whose two sons were shot to death in Charleston in separate incidents in 1998 and 2001.

Vanessa Halyard, whose 23-year-old son, William Halyard, was shot dead at South Carolina State University in Orangeburg in 1998, said a man of Greenberg's position should never have made the comments that he did.

"When you're a professional, you need to use tact in what you say," Halyard said. "If his comment was taken out of context, as Mayor Riley says, then Chief Greenberg needs to set the record straight."

Greenberg has been taking heat for remarks he made to a Post and Courier reporter during an interview for a Jan. 4 story about murders in the Lowcountry in 2003. Greenberg, who is black, was quoted as saying, "I refuse to take responsibility every time one black son of a bitch kills another. I have no control over that. There are social factors much more powerful than anything we can concoct in the Charleston Police Department."

Greenberg has not apologized, and Riley has defended him. The local NAACP chapter also has called for Greenberg's resignation, and three Charleston city councilmen have asked the chief to apologize.

Greenberg is in Budapest, Hungary, this week teaching principles of community law enforcement to Hungarian policemen, said police spokesman Charles Francis.

Riley could not be reached for comment Monday, but the mayor praised Greenberg during his inaugural address earlier in the day, saying that Greenberg was the "best police chief in America. ... He has a fine heart and a strong will."

Riley issued a statement last week saying he thought Greenberg "was expressing his frustration about the elusive solution for this tragic problem."

Carl Mitchell, whose 19-year-old son, Rayshard Mitchell, was gunned down Aug. 21 on James Island, said Greenberg's comment about black-on-black crime went too far. Stephanie Mitchell wept as she clutched a photo of their son.

"My wife is not a 'b' and my son was not a son of a 'b,' " Carl Mitchell said.

For (Greenberg) to apologize to us, I wouldn't accept it," he said. "I know in his heart he wouldn't mean it."

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