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Dylann Roof

Wikipedia

Dylann Storm Roof (born April 3, 1994) is an American suspected of perpetrating the June 17, 2015 Charleston church shooting. During a prayer service at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church, Roof is alleged to have killed nine African Americans, including senior pastor and state senator Clementa C. Pinckney, and injured one other person.

After several people identified Roof as the main suspect, he became the center of a manhunt that ended the morning after the shooting with his arrest in Shelby, North Carolina. He later confessed that he committed the shooting in hopes of igniting a race war.

Three days after the shooting, a website titled The Last Rhodesian was discovered and later confirmed by officials to be owned by Roof. The website contained photos of Roof posing with symbols of white supremacy and neo-Nazism, along with a manifesto in which he outlined his views towards blacks, among other peoples. He also claimed in the manifesto to have developed his white supremacist views following research on the 2012 shooting of Trayvon Martin and "black-on-white crime".

Roof has been charged with nine counts of murder, three counts of attempted murder, and possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony. He also faces federal hate crime charges, for which he faces the death penalty. His trial in state court will start on January 17, 2017.

Personal background

Dylann Roof was born in Columbia, South Carolina, to Franklin Bennett (called Bennett) Roof, a carpenter, and Amelia "Amy" Cowles, a bartender. Both were divorced but temporarily reconciled at the time of his birth.

When Roof was five, his father married Paige Mann (née Hastings) in November 1999, but they divorced after ten years of marriage. Bennett Roof was allegedly verbally and physically abusive towards Mann.

The family mostly lived in South Carolina, though from about 2005 to 2008, they temporarily moved to the Florida Keys. There is no information about Roof attending local schools there.

According to a 2009 affidavit filed for Mann's divorce, Roof exhibited signs of obsessive–compulsive disorder as he grew up, obsessing over germs and insisting on having his hair cut in a certain style. When he was in middle school, he exhibited an interest in smoking marijuana, having once been caught spending money on it.

In nine years, Roof attended at least seven schools in two South Carolina counties, including White Knoll High School in Lexington, in which he repeated the ninth grade, finishing it in another school. He apparently stopped attending classes in 2010 and, according to his family, dropped out of school and spent his time alternating between playing video games and taking drugs, such as Suboxone. He was on the rolls of a local Lutheran congregation.

Prior to the attack, Roof was living alternately in Bennett's and Cowles' homes in downtown Columbia and Hopkins, respectively, but was mostly raised by his stepmother Mann. In the past several weeks preceding the attack, Roof had also been occasionally living in the home of an old friend from middle school and the latter's mother, two brothers, and girlfriend. He allegedly spent his time using drugs and getting drunk. He had been working as a landscaper at the behest of his father, but quit the job prior to the shooting.

His maternal uncle, Carson Cowles, said that he expressed concern about the social withdrawal of his then-nineteen-year-old nephew, because "he still didn't have a job, a driver's license or anything like that and he just stayed in his room a lot of the time." Cowles said he tried to mentor Roof, but was rejected and they drifted apart. According to Mann, Roof cut off all contact with her after her divorce from his father. When his sister planned to be married, he did not respond to her invitation to the event.

A former high school classmate said that despite Roof's racist comments, some of his friends in school were black.

Earlier contacts with police

Roof had a prior police record consisting of two arrests, both made in the months preceding the attack. On March 2, 2015, he was questioned about a February 28 incident at the Columbiana Centre in Columbia, in which he entered the mall wearing all-black clothing and asked employees unsettling questions.

During the questioning, authorities found a bottle of what was later admitted to be Suboxone, a narcotic used either for treating opiate addictions or as a recreational drug; Roof was arrested for a misdemeanor charge of drug possession. He was subsequently banned from the Columbiana Centre for a year. After he was arrested again on April 26 for trespassing on the mall grounds, the ban was extended for three additional years.

According to James Comey, Roof's March arrest was written as a felony, which would have required an inquiry into the charge during a background check examination. However, it was legally a misdemeanor charge and was incorrectly written as a felony at first due to a data entry error made by a jail clerk. Despite this, Roof would not have been able to legally purchase firearms under a law that barred "unlawful user[s] of or addicted to any controlled substance" from owning firearms.

On March 13, 2015, Roof was investigated for loitering in his parked car near a park in downtown Columbia. He had been recognized by an off-duty police officer who investigated his March 2 questioning; the officer then called a colleague to investigate. A police officer conducted a search of his vehicle and found a forearm grip for an AR-15 semiautomatic rifle and six unloaded magazines, all capable of holding 40 rounds. When asked about it, Roof informed the officer that he wanted to purchase an AR-15, but did not have enough money to do so. He was not charged, as it was not illegal in South Carolina to possess a firearm grip.

Charleston church shooting

On the evening of June 17, 2015, a mass shooting took place at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in downtown Charleston, South Carolina, United States. During a routine Bible study at the church, a white man about 21 years old, later identified as Roof, opened fire with a handgun, killing nine people. Roof was unemployed and living in largely African-American Eastover at the time of the attack.

Suspected motivation

According to a childhood friend, Roof went on a rant about the shooting of Trayvon Martin and the 2015 Baltimore protests that were sparked by the death of Freddie Gray while Gray was in police custody. He also often claimed that "blacks were taking over the world". Roof reportedly told friends and neighbors of his plans to kill people, including a plot to attack the College of Charleston, but his claims were not taken seriously.

One image from his Facebook page showed him wearing a jacket decorated with two obsolete flags used as emblems among American white supremacist movements, those of Rhodesia (present-day Zimbabwe) and apartheid-era South Africa. Another online photo showed Roof sitting on the hood of his car with an ornamental license plate with a Confederate flag on it. According to his roommate, Roof expressed his support of racial segregation in the United States and had intended to start a civil war.

One of the friends who briefly hid Roof's gun away from him said, "I don't think the church was his primary target because he told us he was going for the school. But I think he couldn't get into the school because of the security ... so I think he just settled for the church." An African-American friend of his said that he never witnessed Roof expressing any racial prejudice, but also said that a week before the shooting, Roof had confided in him that he would commit a shooting at the college.

Website and manifesto

On June 20, a website that had been registered to a "Dylann Roof" on February 9, 2015, lastrhodesian.com was discovered. Though the identity of the domain's owner was intentionally masked the day after it was registered, law enforcement officials confirmed Roof as the owner.

The site included a cache of photos of Roof posing with a handgun and a Confederate Battle Flag, as well as with the widely-recognized Nazi code numbers 88 (an abbreviation for the salute "Heil Hitler!") and 1488, written in sand.

Roof was also seen spitting on and burning an American flag. While some photographs seemed to show Roof at home in his room, others were taken on an apparent tour of slavery-related North and South Carolina historical sites, including Sullivan's Island, the largest slave disembarkation port in North America, four former plantations, two cemeteries (one for white Confederate soldiers, the other for slaves), and the Museum and Library of Confederate History in Greenville. Roof is believed to have taken self-portraits using a timer, and his visits were not remembered by staff members working at the sites.

The website also contained an unsigned, 2,444-word manifesto apparently authored by Roof, in which he outlined his opinions, all methodically broken into the following sections: "Blacks", "Jews", "Hispanics", "East Asians", "Patriotism", and "An Explanation":

I have no choice. I am not in the position to, alone, go into the ghetto and fight. I chose Charleston because it is most historic city in my state, and at one time had the highest ratio of blacks to Whites in the country. We have no skinheads, no real KKK, no one doing anything but talking on the internet. Well someone has to have the bravery to take it to the real world, and I guess that has to be me.

The manifesto states that its author was "truly awakened" by coverage of the shooting of Trayvon Martin:

I read the Wikipedia article and right away I was unable to understand what the big deal was. It was obvious that Zimmerman was in the right. But more importantly this prompted me to type in the words "black on White crime" into Google, and I have never been the same since that day. The first website I came to was the Council of Conservative Citizens. There were pages upon pages of these brutal black on White murders. I was in disbelief. At this moment I realized that something was very wrong. How could the news be blowing up the Trayvon Martin case while hundreds of these black on White murders got ignored?

The manifesto also mentioned as another source of influence the Northwest Front, a Seattle-based white supremacist organization infamous for its participation in the 1979 Greensboro massacre.

According to web server logs, Roof's website was last modified at 4:44 p.m. on June 17, when Roof noted, "[A]t the time of writing I am in a great hurry."

Weapon purchase and FBI lapse

Roof personally purchased the gun used in the shooting from a retail gun store in Charleston, using money given to him on his birthday. The Washington Post reported on July 10, 2015, that FBI Director James Comey said that Roof "was able to purchase the gun used in the attack only because of lapses in the FBI's background-check system".

One week prior to the shooting, two of his friends tried to hide the gun after Roof claimed he was going to kill people. However, they returned it to him after the girlfriend of one of the friends, whose trailer they hid the gun in, pointed out he was on probation and needed to have the gun out of his possession.

Prior to the shooting

FBI analysis of Roof's seized cellphone and computer found that he was in online communication with other white supremacists, according to unnamed officials. Although Roof's contacts did not appear to have encouraged the massacre, the investigation was said to have widened to also include other persons of interest.

Reaction by white supremacists

Although the Council of Conservative Citizens took down its website on June 20 in the immediate wake of negative publicity, its president, Earl Holt, stated that the organization was "hardly responsible" for Roof's actions. However, the organization also issued a statement saying that Roof had some "legitimate grievances" against black people and that the group's website "accurately and honestly report[s] black-on-white violent crime". Harold Covington, the founder of the Northwest Front, also condemned Roof's actions, but called the attack "a preview of coming attractions".

Through analysis of his manifesto, the Southern Poverty Law Center alleged that Roof was a reader and commenter on The Daily Stormer, a white nationalist news website. Its editor Andrew Anglin "repudiated Roof's crime and publicly disavowed violence, while endorsing many of Roof's views." He claimed that while he would have sympathy with a white man shooting criminals, killing innocents including elderly women was "a completely insane act".

Manhunt and capture

The attack was treated as a hate crime by police, and officials from the FBI were called in to assist in the investigation and manhunt.

At 10:44 a.m., on the morning after the attack, Roof was captured in a traffic stop in Shelby, North Carolina, approximately 245 miles (394 km) from the shooting scene. A .45-caliber pistol was found in the car during the arrest, though it was not immediately clear if it was the same one used in the attack. Police received a tip-off from a driver, Debbie Dills, from Gastonia, North Carolina.

She recognized Roof driving his car, a black Hyundai Elantra with South Carolina license plates and a three-flag "Confederate States of America" bumper decoration, on U.S. Route 74, recalling security camera images taken at the church and distributed to the media. She later recalled, "I got closer and saw that haircut. I was nervous. I had the worst feeling. Is that him or not him?" She called her employer, who contacted local police, and then tailed the suspect's car for 35 miles (56 km) until she was certain authorities were moving in for an arrest.

His older half-sister also reported him to the police after seeing his photo on the news.

Roof was arrested and was interrogated by the FBI. He stated that he had been traveling to Nashville, Tennessee, when he was arrested in Shelby. Police in Shelby deferred his questioning to the FBI.[63] An unidentified source said interrogations with Roof after his arrest determined he had been planning the attack for around six months, researched Emanuel AME Church, and targeted it because of its role in African-American history.

Legal proceedings

Pre-trial court proceedings

Roof waived his extradition rights and was flown to Sheriff Al Cannon Detention Center in North Charleston on the evening of June 18. At the jail, his cell-block neighbor was Michael Slager, the former North Charleston officer charged with first-degree murder in the wake of his shooting of Walter Scott.

Roof confessed to committing the Charleston attack with the intention of starting a race war, and reportedly told investigators he almost did not go through with his mission because members of the church study group had been so nice to him.

On June 19, Roof was charged with nine counts of murder and one count of possession of a firearm during the commission of a violent crime. He first appeared in Charleston County court by video conference at a bond hearing later that day. At the hearing, shooting survivors and relatives of five of the victims spoke to Roof directly, saying that they were "praying for his soul" and forgave him. Governor Nikki Haley has called for prosecutors to seek the death penalty for Roof.

The judge, Charleston County chief magistrate James "Skip" Gosnell, Jr., caused controversy at the bond hearing with his statement that, alongside the dead victims and their families, "there are victims on this young man's side of the family […] Nobody would have ever thrown them into the whirlwind of events that they are being thrown into." Gosnell then set a $1 million bond for the weapons possession charge and no bail on the nine counts of murder.

On July 7, Roof was indicted on three new charges of attempted murder, one for each person who survived the shooting. A temporary gag order was issued by a judge on July 14 following the appearance of a letter purportedly written by Roof on an online auction site.

Seven groups, including news media outlets, families of the slain victims, and church officials, called for easing some restrictions placed by the gag order, particularly 9-1-1 calls. Portions of the gag order were lifted on October 14, allowing for the release of 9-1-1 call transcripts and other documents, but the order remained in place for graphic crime scene photos and videos, as well as audio for the 9-1-1 calls.

State trial

On July 16, Roof's trial in state court was scheduled by Circuit Court Judge J.C. Nicholson to start on July 11, 2016. On July 20, Roof was ordered to provide handwriting samples to investigators. The order explained that following his arrest in Shelby, notes and lists were found written on his hand and at other locations; that the handwriting samples were needed to determine if the handwriting matched.

On September 3, state prosecutor Scarlett Wilson said that she intended to seek the death penalty for Roof because more than two people were killed in the shooting and others' lives were put at risk.

On September 16, Roof said through his attorney that he was willing to plead guilty to the state charges in exchange for a sentence of life in prison without parole.

Roof reappeared in state court on October 23, 2015, at 2:00 p.m. and is scheduled to reappear on February 5, 2016, at 9:00 a.m., before Nicholson.

Jury selection for the state trial will start on June 28, 2016. The state trial will begin on January 17, 2017.

Federal trial

On July 22, it was announced that Roof will face a total of 33 federal charges. They include nine counts of using a firearm to commit murder and 24 civil rights violations (12 hate crime charges and 12 counts of violating a person's freedom of religion), with 18 of the charges carrying the federal death penalty.

Roof reappeared in court on July 31, after a hearing scheduled for July 27 was delayed. He pleaded not guilty to the federal charges against him at the behest of his lawyer David Bruck. Roof wanted to plead guilty, but Bruck stated he was not willing to advise a guilty plea until the government indicated whether it wanted to seek the death penalty. Roof's attorneys filed motions in federal court seeking access to his statements to police, physical evidence, and summaries of people expected to testify.

On October 1, the trial was pushed back to at least January 2016 to give prosecutors and Roof's attorneys more time to prepare. On December 1, the trial was postponed again to an unknown date. He reappeared in federal court on February 11, 2016.

 

Charleston church shooting

The Charleston church shooting (also known as the Charleston church massacre) was a mass shooting that took place at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in downtown Charleston, South Carolina, United States, on the evening of June 17, 2015.

During a prayer service, nine people were killed by a gunman, including the senior pastor, state senator Clementa C. Pinckney; a tenth victim survived. The morning after the attack, police arrested a suspect, later identified as 21-year-old Dylann Roof, in Shelby, North Carolina. Roof later confessed that he committed the shooting in hopes of igniting a race war.

The United States Department of Justice investigated whether the shooting was a hate crime or an act of domestic terrorism, eventually indicting Roof on 33 federal hate crime charges. Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church is one of the United States' oldest black churches and has long been a site for community organization around civil rights.

Roof is to be indicted on federal hate crime charges, and has been charged with nine counts of murder by the State of South Carolina. If convicted, he could face a sentence of death or thirty years to life in prison.

A website apparently published by Roof included a manifesto detailing his beliefs on race, as well as several photographs showing him posing with emblems associated with white supremacy. Roof's photos of the Confederate battle flag triggered debate on its modern display.

Background

The 200-year-old church has played an important role in the history of South Carolina, including the slavery era, the 1960s Civil Rights Movement, and the Black Lives Matter movement in the 2010s. The church was founded in 1816 and it is the oldest African Methodist Episcopal Church in the South, often referred to as "Mother Emanuel".

It is the oldest historically black congregation south of Baltimore. When one of the church's co-founders, Denmark Vesey, was suspected of planning a slave rebellion in Charleston in 1822, 35 people, including Vesey, were hanged and the church was burned down.

Charleston citizens accepted the claim that a slave rebellion was to begin at the stroke of midnight on June 16, 1822, and to erupt the following day; the shooting in 2015 occurred on the 193rd anniversary of the thwarted uprising.

The rebuilt church was formally shuttered with other all-black congregations by the city in 1834, meeting in secret until 1865 when it was formally reorganized, acquired the name Emanuel ("God with us"), and rebuilt upon a design by Denmark Vesey's son. That structure was badly damaged in the 1886 Charleston earthquake. The current building dates from 1891.

The church's senior pastor, the Rev. Clementa C. Pinckney, had held rallies after the shooting of Walter Scott by a white police officer on April 4, 2015, in nearby North Charleston, and as a state senator, he pushed for legislation requiring police to wear body cameras. Several observers noted a similarity between the massacre at Emanuel AME and the 1963 bombing of a politically active African-American church in Birmingham, Alabama, where the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) killed four black girls and injured fourteen others, an attack that galvanized the 1960s Civil Rights Movement.

A number of scholars, journalists, activists and politicians have emphasized the need to understand the attack in the broader context of racism in the United States, rather than seeing it as an isolated event of racially motivated violence.

In 1996, Congress passed the Church Arson Prevention Act, making it a federal crime to damage religious property because of its "racial or ethnic character", in response to a spate of 154 suspicious church burnings since 1991. More recent arson attacks against black churches included a black church in Massachusetts that was burned down the day after President Barack Obama was inaugurated in 2009.

Shooting

At around 9:05 p.m. EDT on Wednesday, June 17, 2015, the Charleston Police Department began receiving calls of a shooting at Emanuel AME Church. A man described as white, with sandy-blond hair, around 21 years old and 5 feet 9 inches (175 cm) in height, wearing a gray sweatshirt and jeans, opened fire with a Glock 41 .45-caliber handgun on a group of people inside the church at a Bible study attended by Pinckney. The shooter then fled the scene.

He had been carrying eight magazines holding hollow-point bullets. This was the largest mass shooting at an American place of worship, alongside a 1991 attack at a Buddhist temple in Waddell, Arizona.

During the hour preceding the attack, 13 people including the shooter participated in the Bible study. According to the accounts of people who talked to survivors, the shooter asked for Pinckney and sat down next to him, initially listening to others during the study. He started to disagree when they began discussing Scripture.

Eventually, after waiting for the other participants to begin praying, he stood up and pulled a gun from a fanny pack, aiming it at 87-year-old Susie Jackson. Jackson's nephew, 26-year-old Tywanza Sanders, tried to talk him down and asked him why he was attacking churchgoers. The shooter responded, "I have to do it. You rape our women and you're taking over our country. And you have to go."

When he expressed his intention to shoot everyone, Sanders dove in front of Jackson and was shot first. The suspect then shot the other victims, all the while shouting racial epithets. He also reportedly said, "Y'all want something to pray about? I'll give you something to pray about." He reloaded his gun five times. Sanders' mother and his five-year-old niece, both attending the study, survived the shooting by pretending to be dead.

Dot Scott, president of the local branch of the NAACP, said she had heard from victims' relatives that the shooter spared one woman (Sanders' mother) so she could, according to him, tell other people what happened. He asked her, "Did I shoot you?" She replied, "No." Then, he said, "Good, 'cause we need someone to survive, because I'm gonna shoot myself, and you'll be the only survivor."

According to the son of one of the victims, who spoke to that survivor, the shooter allegedly turned the gun to his own head and pulled the trigger, but only then discovered he was out of ammunition. Before leaving the church, he reportedly "uttered a racially inflammatory statement" over the victims' bodies. The entire shooting lasted for approximately six minutes.

Several hours later, a bomb threat was called into the Courtyard by Marriott hotel on Calhoun Street, complicating the investigation and prompting an evacuation of the immediate area.

Victims

The dead, six women and three men, were all African American. Eight died at the scene; the ninth, Daniel Simmons, died at MUSC Medical Center. They were all killed by multiple gunshots fired at close range.

One unidentified person was wounded but survived. Five individuals survived the shooting unharmed, including Felicia Sanders, mother of slain victim Tywanza Sanders, and her five-year-old granddaughter, along with Polly Sheppard, a Bible study member. Pinckney's wife and daughter were also inside the building during the shooting.

Those killed were identified as:

• Cynthia Marie Graham Hurd (54) – Bible study member and manager for the Charleston County Public Library system; sister of Malcolm Graham.

• Susie Jackson (87) – a Bible study and church choir member.

• Ethel Lee Lance (70) – the church's sexton.

• Depayne Middleton-Doctor (49) – a pastor who was also employed as a school administrator and admissions coordinator at Southern Wesleyan University.

• Clementa C. Pinckney (41) – the church's pastor and a South Carolina state senator.

• Tywanza Sanders (26) – a Bible study member; grandnephew of Susie Jackson.

• Daniel Simmons (74) – a pastor who also served at Greater Zion AME Church in Awendaw.

• Sharonda Coleman-Singleton (45) – a pastor; also a speech therapist and track coach at Goose Creek High School.

• Myra Thompson (59) – a Bible study teacher.

Suspect

Dylann Storm Roof was named by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) as the suspected killer after his father and uncle contacted police to positively identify him upon seeing security photos of him in the news. Roof was born in Columbia, South Carolina, and was living in largely African-American Eastover at the time of the attack. Roof had a prior police record consisting of two arrests, both made in the months preceding the attack.

According to FBI Director James Comey, a police report detailing Roof's admission to a narcotics offense should have prevented him from purchasing the weapon used in the shooting, but an administrative error within the National Instant Criminal Background Check System kept Roof's admission (though not the arrest itself) from appearing on his mandatory background check.

One image from his Facebook page depicts Roof wearing a jacket decorated with two emblems that are popular among American white supremacists: the flags of the former Rhodesia (now known as Zimbabwe) and apartheid-era South Africa. Roof reportedly told friends and neighbors of his plans to kill people, including a plot to attack the College of Charleston, but his claims were not taken seriously.

On June 20, a website was discovered called The Last Rhodesian (www.lastrhodesian.com); it had been registered to a "Dylann Roof" on February 9, 2015. The website included what appeared to be an unsigned manifesto containing Roof's opinions of "Blacks", "Jews", "Hispanics" and "East Asians", as well a cache of photos, including an image of Roof posing with a handgun and a Confederate Battle Flag.

In this manifesto, Roof says he became "racially aware" as a result of the 2012 shooting of Trayvon Martin, writing that because he kept hearing people talk about the incident, he "decided to look him up" and read the Wikipedia article about it. He concluded that George Zimmerman had been in the right, and he was unable to comprehend why the case had gained national attention.

He then searched for "black on White [sic] crime" on Google and found the website of the Council of Conservative Citizens, where he read "pages upon pages" of cases involving black people murdering white people. Roof then writes he has "never been the same since that day".

According to web server logs, Roof's website was last modified at 4:44 p.m. on June 17, the day of the shooting, when Roof noted, "[A]t the time of writing I am in a great hurry."

An unidentified source said interrogations with Roof after his arrest determined he had been planning the attack for around six months, researched Emanuel AME Church, and targeted it because of its role in African-American history.

One of the friends who briefly hid Roof's gun from him said, "I don't think the church was his primary target because he told us he was going for the school. But I think he couldn't get into the school because of the security ... so I think he just settled for the church."

Roof's cellphone and computer were seized and subjected to FBI analysis. According to unnamed officials, he was in online communication with other white supremacists, and although they did not appear to have encouraged the massacre, the investigation was said to have widened to include other persons of interest.

Manhunt and capture

The attack was treated as a hate crime by police, and officials from the FBI were called in to assist in the investigation and manhunt.

At 10:44 a.m., on the morning after the attack, Roof was captured in a traffic stop in Shelby, North Carolina, approximately 245 miles (394 km) from the shooting scene. A .45-caliber pistol was found in the car during the arrest, though it was not immediately clear if it was the same one used in the attack.

Police received a tip-off from a woman who recognized Roof driving his car, a black Hyundai Elantra with South Carolina license plates and a three-flag "Confederate States of America" bumper decoration, on U.S. Route 74, recalling security camera images taken at the church and distributed to the media.

She later recalled, "I got closer and saw that haircut. I was nervous. I had the worst feeling. Is that him or not him?" She called her employer, who contacted local police, and then tailed the suspect's car for 35 miles (56 km) until she was certain authorities were moving in for an arrest.

Legal proceedings

Roof waived his extradition rights and was flown to Sheriff Al Cannon Detention Center in North Charleston on the evening of June 18. At the jail, his cell-block neighbor was Michael Slager, the former North Charleston police officer charged with murder after he shot Walter Scott.

According to unconfirmed reports, Roof confessed to committing the attack and said his purpose was to start a race war. He reportedly told investigators he almost did not go through with his mission because members of the church study group had been so nice to him.

On June 19, Roof was charged with nine counts of murder and one count of possession of a firearm during the commission of a violent crime. He first appeared in Charleston County court via videoconference at a bond hearing later that day. At the hearing, shooting survivors and relatives of five of the victims spoke to Roof directly, saying that they were "praying for his soul" and forgave him.

The judge, Charleston County chief magistrate James "Skip" Gosnell, Jr., caused controversy at the bond hearing with his statement that, alongside the dead victims and their families, "there are victims on this young man's side of the family [...] Nobody would have ever thrown them into the whirlwind of events that they are being thrown into."

In 2005, the South Carolina Supreme Court reprimanded Gosnell for using a racial slur while on the bench in 2003. Gosnell set a $1 million bond for the weapons possession charge and no bail on the nine counts of murder.

Governor Nikki Haley has called on prosecutors to seek the death penalty against Roof.

On July 7, Roof was indicted on the nine murder charges and the weapons charge, as well three new charges of attempted murder, one for each person who survived the shooting. His state trial is scheduled to start on January 17, 2017. He also faces federal hate crime charges, including nine counts of using a firearm to commit murder and 24 civil rights violations (12 hate crime charges and 12 counts of violating a person's freedom of religion), with 18 of the charges carrying the federal death penalty.

On July 31, Roof pleaded not guilty to the federal charges against him on the advice of his lawyer David Bruck. Bruck earlier said Roof wanted to plead guilty, but he couldn't advise it without knowing the government's intentions.

On September 3, Ninth Circuit solicitor (district attorney) Scarlett Wilson announced that she intended to seek the federal death penalty against Roof, with the decision being made since more than two people were killed in the shooting and others' lives were put at risk.

On September 16, Roof said through his attorney that he was willing to plead guilty in exchange for a sentence of life in prison without parole. On October 1, the federal trial was pushed back to at least January 2016 to give prosecutors and Roof's attorneys more time to prepare.

On December 1, the trial was postponed again to an unknown date. He and Joey Meek, accused of misprision of felony and lying to investigators about Roof's plans, will reappear in federal court on February 11, 2016, while their lawyers hold a bar meeting with prosecutors to discuss their cases. Jury selection will start on January 17, 2017.

Aftermath

Context of racism

Heidi Beirich, the director of the Intelligence Project for the Southern Poverty Law Center, a non-profit that maintains an online list of its designated American hate groups, said the gunman's reported self-declared motivation reflected a major topic on white supremacist websites, which are preoccupied with the idea that "whites are being hugely victimized by blacks and no one is paying attention."

In particular, the shooter's reported claim that "you rape our women" ties into a long history of violence against blacks in the name of white womanhood; Beirich said, "[Black men sexually assaulting white women] is probably the oldest racist trope we have in the U.S." According to her, it was a particularly effective trope because of the way white femininity has historically been viewed and positioned.

Lisa Lindquist-Dorr, associate professor at the University of Alabama, explained the myth of black rapists that dominated white, Southern culture, saying, "Sexual access to women is a trophy of power, white women embodied virtue and morality, they signified whiteness and white superiority, so sexual access to white women was possessing the ultimate privilege that white men held. It makes women trophies to be traded among men."

Jamelle Bouie itemized for Slate, "Make any list of anti-black terrorism in the United States, and you'll also have a list of attacks justified by the specter of black rape." The Tulsa race riot of 1921, the Rosewood massacre of 1923, and the murder of 14-year-old Emmett Till in 1955 were cited as examples.

Beirich said it was unclear at that point in the investigation whether the suspect had any connection to hate groups, but such groups have been growing over the past decade, and "for several years South Carolina has been the place with the highest density of hate groups."

Memorials

At Morris Brown African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, numerous people of different races and religions attended a ceremony commemorating the victims and proclaimed that the attack would not divide the community. Another such ceremony occurred at the TD Arena in the College of Charleston. On June 21, four days after the shooting, Emanuel AME Church reopened for its Sunday worship service. The Rev. Dr. Norvel Goff Sr., Presiding Elder of Emanuel AME Church, delivered the sermon.

On June 25, 2015, at Emanuel AME Church, funerals were held for victims Ethel Lance and Sharonda Coleman-Singleton and attended by several political figures and civil rights leaders. Clementa Pinckney's funeral was held in the basketball arena of the College of Charleston on June 26, 2015, with President Barack Obama delivering the eulogy. Earlier, Pinckney's body lay in state in the South Carolina statehouse. This was followed by the funerals of Tywanza Sanders, Susie Jackson, and Cynthia Graham Hurd the next day.

Hurd's family announced that they are establishing the Cynthia Graham Hurd Fund for Reading and Literacy organization in her memory; it is expected to give children easier access to books. By July 2, the last of the victims, Daniel Simmons, was buried.

Community response

There has been some criticism aimed towards the community's forgiveness to Roof.

The Black Lives Matter movement has protested the shooting.

Questions were raised about the security of black churches (as well as churches in general) and their long-standing practice of welcoming anyone willing to pray. Roof, a stranger to churchgoers, was easily able to enter Emanuel AME Church with no questions being asked.

In the weeks after the shooting, AME Church leaders distributed a document titled "12 Considerations for Congregational Security", which recommended creating security plans and teams for black churches, improving communications, developing relationships with local law enforcement, and securing and monitoring all entrances and exits to churches. Some churches considered implementing armed security and metal detectors, but conversation for these steps have currently not gained traction.

Other investigations

The FBI is investigating possible church arson after several black churches burned down in one week's time following the shooting. On July 3, Time reported that the investigation concluded the fires were unrelated.

The FBI is undergoing a 30-day review to examine the lapses in the background-check system that allowed the suspected shooter to legally purchase the gun used in the shooting. According to James Comey, Roof had been arrested in March on a felony drug charge, which would have required an inquiry into the charge during the background check examination. However, he was actually arrested on a misdemeanor drug charge, which was incorrectly written as a felony at first due to a data entry error made by a jail clerk.

The mistake was noticed by the jail two days after the arrest, but the change was not made. The FBI agent conducting the background check examination then called the wrong agency while making the inquiry of the drug charge, due to having limited information on law enforcement agencies in Lexington County. This subsequently allowed Roof to make the purchase. However, despite the misdemeanor charge, he still would not have been able to purchase the gun under a law that barred "unlawful user[s] of or addicted to any controlled substance" from owning firearms. Several bills aiming to fix this loophole were proposed, and South Carolina legislation planned to discuss the loophole in 2016.

On September 17, one of the friends who briefly hid Roof's gun away from him was arrested, reportedly for lying to federal authorities during their investigation and failing to report a crime. The next day, he pleaded not guilty to one count of making false statements to federal investigators and one count of concealing knowledge about a crime. He faces a maximum of nine years in prison and a $500,000 fine. According to legal experts, prosecutors possibly intend to use the prospect of federal charges against him as leverage for testifying against Roof. He will reappear in federal court alongside Roof on February 11, 2016.

Reactions

Officials

Charleston Mayor Joseph P. Riley, Jr. denounced the attack and said, "Of all cities, in Charleston, to have a horrible hateful person go into the church and kill people there to pray and worship with each other is something that is beyond any comprehension and is not explained. We are going to put our arms around that church and that church family."

South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley said, "While we do not yet know all of the details, we do know that we'll never understand what motivates anyone to enter one of our places of worship and take the life of another. Please join us in lifting up the victims and their families with our love and prayers."

President Barack Obama said in Charleston on June 18, "Once again, innocent people were killed in part because someone who wanted to inflict harm had no trouble getting their hands on a gun...We as a country will have to reckon with the fact that this type of mass violence does not happen in other advanced countries."

At a Washington press conference later that day, he said, "Michelle and I know several members of Emanuel AME Church. We knew their pastor, Reverend Clementa Pinckney, who, along with eight others, gathered in prayer and fellowship and was murdered last night. And to say our thoughts and prayers are with them and their families, and their community, doesn’t say enough to convey the heartache and the sadness and the anger that we feel."

On June 19, the United States Department of Justice fast-tracked a Crime Victim Assistance Formula Grant of $29 million to the South Carolina government. Some of the money will be allocated to the survivors.

Families

After Roof's appearance at his bond hearing, his family issued a statement, expressing their shock and grief at his actions. Following the funerals of several of the victims in the shooting, they issued a second statement, expressing their condolences to the victims' families and announcing the temporary postponement of comments out of respect for them. During the bond hearing, several family members of the victims told Roof that they forgave him.

Local community

The local community surrounding Charleston held prayer vigils and fundraisers. A mass unity rally was also held on the Arthur Ravenel Bridge on the evening of June 21. Organizers of the rally claimed there were up to 20,000 supporters in the rally. Tens of thousands of individuals crossed from the Mount Pleasant side of the bridge to the downtown Charleston side, carrying supportive signs and flags. Dozens of boats joined in the procession as well.

Religious community

The World Methodist Council, an association of worldwide churches in the Methodist tradition, of which the AME Church is a part, said it "urges prayer and support for the victims' families and those members of Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church who have been so gravely affected by this crime motivated by hate."

The President and Vice-President of the British Methodist Conference, also a member of the World Methodist Council, sent a letter of solidarity to the African Methodist Episcopal Church, saying, "The hearts of the members of the Methodist Church of Great Britain go out to the families and friends of those killed; to the Church; and to the wider communities in Charleston."

The Council of Bishops of The United Methodist Church, also a member of the World Methodist Council and in full communion with the African Methodist Episcopal Church, called on its members "to support the victims of this and all acts of violence, to work to end racism and hatred, to seek peace with justice, and to live the prayer that our Lord gave us, that God's 'kingdom come, [and] will be done, on earth as it is in heaven'."

The Christian Methodist Episcopal Church, also a member of the World Methodist Council and in full communion with the African Methodist Episcopal Church, shared its support with the presiding bishop, stating, "let us join with the AMEs in prayer for the healing of the families touched by this tragedy – the families of the victims and the family of the perpetrator."

The Rev. Olav Fykse Tveit, general secretary of the World Council of Churches, stated, "We offer our prayers for healing to the wounded and traumatized, and solidarity and accompaniment to our sisters and brothers in the African Methodist Episcopal Church." Archbishop Joseph Edward Kurtz, the president of U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, made similar remarks.

Various national Jewish organizations, including the American Jewish Committee, Union for Reform Judaism, Jewish Federations of North America, Anti-Defamation League, and Orthodox Union issued statements deploring the attack and expressing deep grief and horror. The Rabbinical Assembly, in its own statement, quoted Leviticus, saying, "'Do not stand idly by the blood of your neighbor.' Hateful, violent acts such as this have no place in our society, in a country known for its diversity and blending of various cultures."

Many national Muslim organizations and individual imams, such as Council on American–Islamic Relations, Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), and Islamic Circle of North America issued statements condemning the attack and offering sympathy for the victims. In a joint statement, CAIR and Muslim leaders in Baltimore quoted the Quran, saying, "The Qur'an, the Muslim holy book, says: 'He who takes one life, it is as if he has slain all of mankind. And he who saves one life, it is as if he has saved all of mankind.'"

Muslim and Jewish religious organizations have raised several hundred thousand dollars to help rebuild black churches that were burned down in the weeks after the shooting.

Others

At least eighteen candidates and prospective candidates for the 2016 U.S. presidential election expressed reactions through various media and addresses. According to NPR, Democrats and Republicans candidates found different ways to address the incident, with Democrats seeing race and gun control as central issues, while Republicans pointing to mental illness and referring to it as tragic but random act. Most Republican candidates eventually acknowledged that race was a motivating factor for the shooting.

According to the Christian Science Monitor, the shooting became a precarious subject for Republican presidential contenders, in particular in regard of the racial motivations behind it, as South Carolina holds primaries and the state's political importance have resulted in some candidates "skirting around the clear racial motivations behind the attack".

The night following the attack, Jon Stewart delivered a monologue on The Daily Show discussing the tragic nature of the news, condemning the attacks as well as the media's response to it. Stewart argued that in response to Islamic terrorism, politicians declare they will do "whatever we can" to make America safe, even justifying torture, but respond to this mass shooting with "what are you gonna do, crazy is as crazy does".

The Council of Conservative Citizens, whose website Roof cited as a source for his radicalization, issued a statement on its website "unequivocally condemn[ing]" the attack, but that Roof has some "legitimate grievances" against black people. An additional statement from the group's president, Earl Holt III, disavowed responsibility for the crime and stated that the group's website "accurately and honestly report[s] black-on-white violent crime".

In an online forum, Charles Cotton, a lawyer in Houston and a national board member of the National Rifle Association, placed blame for the shooting on Pinckney for not allowing the churchgoers to hold concealed carry weapons inside the church.

In 2011, Pinckney had voted against legislation that would allow concealed handguns to be carried into public places. Cotton also criticized the effectiveness of gun-free zones, stating, "If we look at mass shootings that occur, most happen in gun-free zones." Cotton's comment has since been deleted from the online forum.

Following the shooting, Rhodesians Worldwide, an online magazine catering to the Rhodesian expatriate community, issued a brief statement condemning Roof's actions in response to his use of the Rhodesian flag. In a disclaimer, the online magazine pointed out that 80% of the Rhodesian Security Forces were black and stressed that the Rhodesian Bush War was a struggle against communism rather than a racial conflict.

Jerry Richardson, the owner of the NFL's Carolina Panthers, donated $100,000 to the Mother Emanuel Hope Fund set up by Mayor Riley, specifically calling for $10,000 to each of the families of the nine victims to cover their funeral expenses, and the remaining $10,000 to be delivered to the Emanuel AME Church itself.

Controversies

Confederate flag

On June 18, 2015, the day after the shooting, many flags, including those at the South Carolina State House, were flown at half-staff. The Confederate battle flag flying over the South Carolina Confederate Monument near the state house was not lowered, as South Carolina law prohibited alteration of the flag without the consent of two-thirds of the state legislature. Also, the flagpole lacked a pulley system, meaning the flag could not be flown at half-staff, only removed.

Flag removal from statehouse grounds

Calls to remove the Confederate flag from statehouse grounds, as well as debates over the context of its symbolic nature, were renewed after the attack by several prominent figures, including President Barack Obama, Mitt Romney, and Jeb Bush.

On June 20, several thousand people gathered in front of the South Carolina State House in protest. An online petition at MoveOn.org encouraging the flag's removal had received over 370,000 signatures by that time.

At a statehouse press conference on June 22, 2015, Governor Nikki Haley, flanked by elected officials of both parties, including U.S. Republican senators Lindsey Graham and Tim Scott, and former Republican Governor Mark Sanford, called for the flag to be removed by the state legislature, saying that while the flag was "an integral part of our past, it does not represent the future" of South Carolina.

Eulogizing the Rev. Clementa Pinckney on June 26, 2015, before 5,000 congregants at the College of Charleston, President Barack Obama acknowledged that the shooting had catalyzed a broad movement, backed by Republicans and Democrats, to remove the flag from official public display. "Blinded by hatred, [the gunman] failed to comprehend what Reverend Pinckney so well understood: the power of God's grace," Obama said. "By taking down that flag we express God's grace. But I don't think God wants us to stop there."

On July 6, 2015, the South Carolina Senate voted to remove the Confederate flag from display outside the South Carolina State House. Following 13 hours of debate, the vote in the House to remove it was passed by a two-thirds majority (94–20) on July 9. Governor Nikki Haley signed the bill on July 9. On July 10, the Confederate flag was taken down for the last time; it will be stored until it can later be shown in a museum.

Retailer bans

On June 23, 2015, retailers Wal-Mart, Amazon.com, Sears Holding Corporation (which owns Sears and Kmart), and eBay all announced plans to stop selling merchandise with the Confederate flag. Similarly, Warner Bros. announced that they were halting production of "General Lee" car toys, which prominently feature a Confederate flag on the roof.

Numerous other organizations, including flag manufacturers, also decided to stop profiting from the flag.

Other

In addition to the controversy regarding the Confederate flag's modern display, there have been considerations by institutions across the U.S. to remove the names of historic Confederate figures from schools, colleges, and streets. Campaigns to change the names were started in several cities.

In a national survey conducted in 2015, 57% of Americans opined that the Confederate flag represented Southern pride rather than racism. A previous poll in 2000 had a nearly identical result of 59%. However, poll results from only citizens living in the South yielded different results: 75% of whites described the flag as a symbol of pride, while 75% of blacks said the flag represented racism.

Earl Holt political donations

Earl Holt, the leader of the Council of Conservative Citizens, whose website Roof credited in his manifesto for shaping his views, gave more than $74,000 to Republican candidates and committees in recent years including campaign donations to 2016 presidential candidates Ted Cruz, Rick Santorum and Rand Paul, who have all condemned Roof's racially-based motives.

Following the shooting, and after a journalist contacted the campaigns with details about the donor's background, a spokesman for the Ted Cruz campaign said he would return an $8,500 donation to Holt; the campaign later said it would be donating $11,000 to the Mother Emanuel Hope Fund, to assist the victims' families.

The Rand Paul campaign said Holt's $2,250 donation would be given to the Fund, and Rick Santorum said his $1,500 donation from Holt would be donated to the same charity. Twelve other Republican office-holders also announced they would be returning or donating Holt's contributions.

"Terrorism" terminology

While some media professionals, politicians and law enforcement officials referred to the attack as domestic terrorism, others did not. This renewed a debate about the proper terminology to use when describing the shooting and other attacks.

On June 18, professor and terrorism expert Brian Phillips offered his definition of terrorism and said, "...[T]he massacre in Charleston, S.C. Wednesday was clearly a terrorist act." He based this conclusion on a racist political motivation that "seems likely" and his "intimidation of a wider audience" criterion was met when "...the shooter reportedly left one person alive to spread the message."

An article by CNN National Security Analyst Peter Bergen and David Sterman on June 19 says, "By any reasonable standard, this is terrorism, which is generally defined as an act of violence against civilians by individuals or organizations for political purposes. ... [D]eadly acts of terrorism by virulent racists and anti-government extremists have been more common in the United States than deadly acts of jihadist terrorism since 9/11."

Some publications and analysis of the event posit that these naming discrepancies reflect forms of denial or outright racism.

Speaking on June 19 at a press conference in Baltimore, FBI Director James Comey said that while his agency was investigating the shooting as a "hate crime", he did not consider it an "act of terrorism", citing the lack of political motivation for the suspect's actions. He said, "Terrorism is act of violence done or threatened in order to try to influence a public body or citizenry, so it's more of a political act, and again, based on what I know, I don't see this as a political act. Doesn't make it any less horrific, but terrorism has a definition under federal law."

Heidi Beirich, who leads the Intelligence Project of the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), pointed to the discovery of a website attributed to Roof, which featured a manifesto and sixty photos as an example of why federal agents "don't have themselves together on this issue".

The website began circulating on the Internet on June 20. Beirich said, "The way they found the website was that someone ran a domain tool reverse search on this guy's name... It wasn't rocket science, but where were the feds?"

On June 24, FBI spokesman Paul Bresson left open the possibility of terrorism charges, saying, "Any eventual federal charges will be determined by the facts at the conclusion of the investigation, and are not influenced by how the investigation is initially opened."

Ultimately, it is up to Department of Justice prosecutors to decide what federal charges to bring. A spokesperson for Attorney General Loretta Lynch said the Department of Justice was investigating the shooting as both "a hate crime and as an act of domestic terrorism."

 

Who is suspected Charleston shooter Dylann Roof?

By Tim Flach, Harrison Cahill and Sammy Fretwell -TheState.com

June 18, 2015

Dylann Storm Roof, the Columbia area resident suspected in the Charleston church killings, was an increasingly troubled youth who appeared isolated and adrift to friends.

Roof, 21, was described Thursday as a once non-threatening youngster who kept largely to himself. But his quiet manner and racial views changed as he grew older and left schools in the Red Bank area of Lexington County and the Shandon area of downtown Columbia.

His arrest in connection with the mass murder of nine African-Americans late Wednesday came after a brush with Midlands police in February.

That surprised some acquaintances but not others. He was arrested Thursday morning in Shelby, N.C., after an overnight regional manhunt.

Dalton Tyler, who described himself as Roof’s roommate, told ABC News that Roof was “planning something like that for six months.”

“He was big into segregation and other stuff,” Tyler said. “He said he wanted to start a civil war. He said he was going to do something like that and then kill himself.”

The gunman was quoted as saying before he fired in the church, “I have to do it. You rape our women and you’re taking over our country. And you have to go.”

Some who knew Roof as a youngster are surprised that he became enamored with racial separation.

“I never looked at him like he was trying to actually harm somebody,” said Caleb Brown, who attended elementary and middle school with Roof.

“He wasn’t a loner or anything. He was just an average kid in school. He would be the class clown for attention. There is nothing I could see that I would say straight-faced that there was something wrong with that kid.”

Roof went through a variety of family issues but never talked about them, Brown said.

“He wasn’t an expressively emotional person,” Brown said. “If there was anything wrong with him, I got the impression that he was the kind of person that suppresses any emotions.”

Roof didn’t join other students who went on to college and careers, and it’s unclear what his current address is.

He lived on and off with his father in Hopkins in lower Richland County, according to law enforcement officers. His grandfather is respected Columbia real estate lawyer Joseph Roof.

The suspect told police in February during his arrest for possession of illegal narcotics that “his parents were pressuring him to get a job,” according to a police incident report.

Roof is facing charges for drugs in Lexington County after being arrested Feb. 28 by Columbia police at Columbiana Centre mall, according to an arrest warrant.

He had a bottle containing what police believe to be unprescribed suboxone pills, the report said. Suboxone is commonly used to treat opiate addiction.

Police went to the mall after security officers there notified them that Roof was going into stores asking “out-of-the-ordinary questions” such as the number of employees and closing time, the incident report said.

During the conversation with authorities, Roof “was becoming more nervous-acting” before allowing a search in which the pills were found, it said. He was banned from the mall at the time.

His lawyer in that case, Kenneth Mathews, declined comment.

On April 26, Roof was charged with trespassing after he was found in the mall’s parking lot, and he received an additional three-year ban.

U.S. Attorney Loretta Lynch said Justice Department officials and the FBI are investigating the Charleston shootings as a hate crime.

The Anti-Defamation League said in a statement that there is little doubt a hate crime occurred. A photo of Roof on his Facebook page shows him wearing a jacket with two patches used by white supremacists in Africa, it said.

But Roof’s Facebook page shows African-American friends.

Brown, who is of mixed race, said Roof never overstepped racial boundaries with him.

“I’ll get into a fight if you call me something,” said Brown, a student at the University of Houston. “But Dylann never did that. He never overstepped his boundaries with me, and I have easy boundaries to step over.”

But Roof’s attitude changed recently, some friends said.

And, according to Reuters News Service, the suspect’s uncle, Carson Cowles, said Roof was given a .45-caliber pistol by his father as a 21st birthday present in April. Efforts by The State to reach Roof’s father and grandfather were unsuccessful.

Cowles said he recognized Roof in a photo released by police and described him as quiet and soft-spoken, according to Reuters.

Roof attended several schools in the Columbia area, including Hand Middle School, where classmate Chris Yogodzinski said he remembers the slightly-built Roof as an odd youth who didn’t appear to have many close friends.

“The whole world is going to be looking at his family who raised this monster,” Cowles, said Thursday, wiping away tears at his Gaston home. While Roof was quiet and “did stay a lot to himself,” Cowles said, his mother “never raised him to be like this.”

Even as he described Roof as a quiet young man who kept out of trouble, Cowles shook with anger at the thought that his nephew could have carried out the crime with which he is accused.

“I’d be the executioner myself if they would allow it,” he said.

Yogodzinski, a college student in Pennsylvania, said he attended sixth grade with Roof at Hand Middle.

“You never think someone you knew so long ago is going to pop up in the news in this kind of way,” Yogodzinski said. “I’m just shocked.”

Roof was a student in eighth grade at Carolina Springs Middle School and then ninth grade at White Knoll High School in Lexington County before leaving, officials at Lexington 1 said.

Other schools he attended include Rosewood Elementary, Hand Middle and Dreher High in Columbia – but he did not graduate from any Richland 1 high school, Richland 1 spokeswoman Karen York said.

Staff writer John Monk and The Washington Post contributed to this story.