North Myrtle Beach officer’s proactive patrolling leads to shooting, kidnapping arrest

NORTH MYRTLE BEACH, S.C. (WMBF) – The North Myrtle Beach Police Department is praising one of its own for her quick thinking when it came to taking a shooting and kidnapping suspect into custody.

The department said in the early morning hours of Sunday, May 28, Officer Wallace was patrolling Highway 17 in North Myrtle when she saw a white Jeep go through a red light.

Police said she pulled the Jeep over and saw a female driver and a male passenger, and she noticed the woman appeared distressed.

“While the male passenger wasn’t looking at the driver, the female silently mouthed ‘Help Me’ repeatedly,” the department posted on its Facebook page.

Wallace noticed the driver’s message and removed the man from the Jeep and put him in the back seat of her patrol car.

When she went back to the Jeep, the department said the driver told Wallace that the passenger had just shot someone.

Moments later a “Be On The Lookout alert” for the Jeep went across the police radio.

The passenger, identified as Collins Bates, was then arrested.

A Horry County police report stated that he shot someone outside of The Waterway House along North Kings Highway and then forced the woman to drive him away from the scene.

“Due to Officer Wallace proactively patrolling the streets of North Myrtle Beach, even to the last 30 minutes of her shift, a suspect in a shooting was arrested,” the police department posted.

Bates faces several charges including attempted murder and kidnapping. He is being held at J. Reuben Long Detention Center under no bond.

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