Dylann Roof

blacbird · Dec 10, 2016

I'm rather surprised that no thread has yet been established here about the trial of Dylann Storm Roof for the murders of nine black churchgoers in South Carolina, which is now underway. So I'll start one.

A bunch of new details have emerged in the first days of the trial, including writings of Roof and release of his confession for the murders. His defense attorneys aren't even trying to get him acquitted, just flailing around in hopes of getting him off death row. And that's their job, and nobody should fault them for doing that. It's the way our criminal justice system works, and everybody should be glad it works that way.

But this guy is a big symptom of a behind-the-wallboard attitude that still exists in this nation. This innocent-looking "kid" (yeah, he's chronologically an adult, but could pass for fifteen) with the bowl haircut has, for whatever reason, become a complete unrepentant racist monster. There's no question he'll be convicted, the only issue is the sentence. Frankly (and it's hard for me to say this) I think right now he should not get the death penalty. He needs to be locked away in maximum security at a Fed Supermax, for as long as he lives.

I didn't link anything, because the meagerest amount of searching for a major news site, or for his name, will get you all you need to know. I'm just appalled that my country has generated people like this.

caw

Filigree · Dec 10, 2016

I'm only against the death penalty in his case, in that death penalty cases tend to cost a lot more than just incarcerating them, and drag on at great cost and trauma to the taxpayers and the victims' families. If it were my call, I'd shoot him myself, tomorrow, and count it a net gain for humanity. But I'm not in law enforcement or the justice system, so it's not my call.

I do find it telling, that he chose a historic black church rather than a drug dealers' corner to shoot up, because the drug dealers 'might fight back'. He couldn't sneak off to Syria and Iraq to fight Daesh, no.

CWatts · Dec 10, 2016

blacbird said:
But this guy is a big symptom of a behind-the-wallboard attitude that still exists in this nation. This innocent-looking "kid" (yeah, he's chronologically an adult, but could pass for fifteen) with the bowl haircut has, for whatever reason, become a complete unrepentant racist monster. There's no question he'll be convicted, the only issue is the sentence. Frankly (and it's hard for me to say this) I think right now he should not get the death penalty. He needs to be locked away in maximum security at a Fed Supermax, for as long as he lives.

I didn't link anything, because the meagerest amount of searching for a major news site, or for his name, will get you all you need to know. I'm just appalled that my country has generated people like this.

I'm appalled too. As much as I'd personally like to push him down a garbage chute straight to Hell, I don't want to give the bigots a 'martyr'. I hope he lives long enough to realise what a monster he is and that it breaks him.

Something's unfathomably wrong with our society though when Dylann Roof is alive and well after murdering 9 people in a church, and Sandra Bland and Philandro Castile (among countless others) are dead over traffic violations.

rugcat · Dec 10, 2016

I saw a little of the police interview with him, but I couldn't bear to watch it for long. But his complete lack of not only remorse, but affect was chilling. Is he mentally ill? I don't think so, but he's not normal, that's for sure. Or maybe he is, or at least what has become normal these days, and there are more like him out there.

I understand rage, even if it comes from delusional beliefs. But he seems just . . .empty. It's simply incomprehensible.

nighttimer · Dec 11, 2016

blacbird said:
I'm rather surprised that no thread has yet been established here about the trial of Dylann Storm Roof for the murders of nine black churchgoers in South Carolina, which is now underway. So I'll start one.

There was a thread about the church massacre, but it was locked.

blacbird said:
A bunch of new details have emerged in the first days of the trial, including writings of Roof and release of his confession for the murders. His defense attorneys aren't even trying to get him acquitted, just flailing around in hopes of getting him off death row. And that's their job, and nobody should fault them for doing that. It's the way our criminal justice system works, and everybody should be glad it works that way.

But this guy is a big symptom of a behind-the-wallboard attitude that still exists in this nation. This innocent-looking "kid" (yeah, he's chronologically an adult, but could pass for fifteen) with the bowl haircut has, for whatever reason, become a complete unrepentant racist monster. There's no question he'll be convicted, the only issue is the sentence. Frankly (and it's hard for me to say this) I think right now he should not get the death penalty. He needs to be locked away in maximum security at a Fed Supermax, for as long as he lives.

I didn't link anything, because the meagerest amount of searching for a major news site, or for his name, will get you all you need to know. I'm just appalled that my country has generated people like this.

caw

Appalled, yes. Surprised, no. This country has always generated monsters like Dylan Roof.

Felicia Sanders lost her 26-year-old son Tywanza Sanders in the assault, and described the moment she saw 22-year-old Dylann Roof open fire on her bible study class at the Mother Emanuel church in Charleston, during an attack prosecutors argue was planned months in advance and motivated by violent racism.

Sanders told the court that Roof opened fire on the group as they closed their eyes to pray at the end of the class, and first shot the church’s pastor and state senator Clementa Pinckney, who had invited the visitor to sit next to him.

“I screamed, ‘He has a gun.’ By then he had already shot Rev Pinckney,” Sanders said through tears. “I said: ‘Everybody get under the table.’ That’s when he started shooting up the room.”
Sanders said Roof then gunned down the Rev Daniel Simmons, who had run towards Pinckney shouting: “Let me check on my pastor, I need to check on my pastor.”

“Then Rev Simmons got shot,” she said.

The survivor told the court she had hidden under a table in the church’s basement and played dead, clutching her 11-year-old granddaughter, who had also been present at the class, to her chest.

“She was saying: ‘Granny, I’m so scared.’ I said: ‘Just be quiet.’ I said: ‘Just play dead. Play dead.’ And so I muzzled her face to my body, I muzzled her face to my body so tight that I thought I suffocated her because I didn’t want her to make a sound.”

On the witness stand, Felicia Sanders described Roof as "evil, evil, evil as can be" and concluded, "There's no place on Earth for him other than the pit of Hell." Roof's mother sobbed through the testimony, said she was sorry, collapsed and was taken to the hospital after possibly suffering a heart attack. After Sanders' emotional testimony, the defense asked for a mistrial which the judge denied.

Meh. Save it for the years of appeals. :e2shrug:

Locking up or executing Roof will change nothing. The racism he nursed on like mother's milk is still as pervasive and poisonous as ever. There are more little monsters just like him plotting and arming themselves for their next act of bloody evil.

By the time little Dylan Roof rides the lightning I'll be a much older man than I am now. Makes no never mind. I'll still hate him as much then as I do now.

rugcat · Dec 15, 2016

The jury has returned a guilty verdict.

No surprise there, but I can't give you any more information. I started watching and they put up the pictures of the victims. This is so heartbreaking and mind-boggling I can't even watch it.

William Haskins · Dec 15, 2016

In the next phase of the trial, scheduled to begin in January, jurors will weigh whether Roof, 22, should be sentenced to death or spend the rest of his life in prison.

http://www.cnn.com/2016/12/15/us/dylann-roof-murder-trial/index.html

Maryn · Dec 15, 2016

And on this day, I saw no less than twenty overtly racist questions at a Q&A website which is poorly (or un-?) moderated while the ownership change happens, ongoing for months now.

It's scary, the amount of hate people amass and the impunity with which they can spill it, and have it reinforced by like-minded people, online.

Maryn, who disavows the humanity of such people

blacbird · Dec 15, 2016

I may have missed it, but I haven't seen much in the way of stories about the background of Dylann Roof. Commonly, when atrocities like this are committed, we get interviews with acquaintances, info about school and childhood background, etc. This kind of material was rife with the ultra-private Ted Kaczynski was captured. But I just haven't come across much of it on this mophead.

Although that could be because I'm really not looking at much more than the headlines about the case, because it's just so damn depressing. The trial was almost a non-story from the outset, little more than a formal recognition of the obvious factual reality.

caw

cmhbob · Dec 15, 2016

I think we'll see that next month, in the punishment portion of the trial, where they try to keep him off of Death Row.

nighttimer · Dec 15, 2016

cmhbob said:
I think we'll see that next month, in the punishment portion of the trial, where they try to keep him off of Death Row.

I wish Dylan Roof nothing but excruciating pain, unbearable agony and endless misery. Whether that comes by way of execution or life in prison without the possibility of parole, either way works for me.

For what he's done to the living survivors as well as the martyred dead, he deserves no mercy. White supremacy is evil. White supremacy kills.

Vince524 · Dec 15, 2016

The should kill him in a very horrible fashion, then bring him back to life using painful methods. And then do it again.

9 times over.

Let the last one keep.

cmhbob · Dec 15, 2016

These two articles were both very powerful to me. I don't know if I could forgive someone something like this. I hope I never have to.

A year later, families of the Charleston shooting victims still wrestle with forgiveness.

Hatred and Forgiveness in Charleston

blacbird · Dec 15, 2016

It's also worth remembering that this is a Fed trial. The state of South Carolina also has him lined up on murder charges, and can bring him to trial after the Feds are finished.

caw

Tim Archer · Dec 18, 2016

blacbird said:
I may have missed it, but I haven't seen much in the way of stories about the background of Dylann Roof.
caw

He's Lutheran, I know that much. I only know because my mother belongs to a conservative branch of Lutheranism and Roof's church, the ELCA, is more traditionally liberal, though in South Carolina not by much. A bunch of Lutherans were crowing on Facebook on how this is what happens in a 'liberal environment.' I couldn't resist taking a shot advocating for banning Lutherans from entering the US until we can better filter out the terrorists. Didn't go over well.

At any rate, I hope he receives life in prison. I'm nominally against the death penalty because I don't believe the government will ever be competent enough to be entrusted with the power of life and death for its citizens. I won't shed any tears if he dies. But more to the point if he's given the death penalty the family and friends of his victims will have to face twenty years of anti-death penalty advocates humanizing Roof and painting him in a soft, compassionate light in order to get him off death row. I appreciate the work such advocates do, but sometimes I think their tactics cause undo pain and stress for living victims.

patskywriter · Dec 18, 2016

He’s “just another one.” No one I know even bothers to try to take any interest in his story, especially after learning about the lives he took.

nighttimer · Jan 10, 2017

It's death for the little darlin'.

Good.

William Haskins · Jan 10, 2017

Dylann Roof Is Sentenced to Death in Charleston Church Massacre

CHARLESTON, S.C. — Dylann S. Roof, the impenitent and inscrutable white supremacist who killed nine African-American churchgoers in a brazenly racial assault almost 19 months ago, shocking the world over the persistence of extremist hatred in dark corners of the American South, was condemned to death by a federal jury on Tuesday.

The jury of nine whites and three blacks, who last month found Mr. Roof guilty of 33 counts for the attack at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in downtown Charleston, S.C., returned their unanimous verdict after about three hours of deliberations in the penalty phase of a heart-rending and often legally confounding trial.

Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/10/us/dylann-roof-trial-charleston.html?

nighttimer said:
It's death for the little darlin'.

Good.

ditto.

Vince524 · Jan 10, 2017

I've never been against the death penalty on principle, only that there are times where there's still doubt as to the guilt.

There was none here and the only pity is that we can only kill him once.

blacbird · Jan 10, 2017

Roof didn't make any contest of either the guilty verdict or the death penalty decision. He'll now face trial in state court, with a death penalty conviction (almost a certainty, one would think) involved. Still, it will take years before the sentence is carried out, if it indeed is. Timothy McVeigh lingered for six years on Fed death row, even though he eschewed appeals that could have kept him alive probably to the present day.

Dylann Roof abdicated his responsibilities as a human being long before he committed the massacre. He seems comfortable with that abdication, and we should grant him his wish.

caw

Haggis · Jan 10, 2017

There was a time I believed in the death penalty. That time was a long time ago. It's clear the death penalty is not a preventative. It didn't stop Dylann Roof from killing those people at the Emmanuel AME Church in Charleston. Killing Dylann Roof will not prevent other such vile crimes. But I, as a member of society, refuse to be responsible for the execution of another human being. When he dies, and I have no doubt he will by execution, I will lose no sleep. But I think we as a country need better ways to deal with people like Roof.

cornflake · Jan 10, 2017

blacbird said:
Roof didn't make any contest of either the guilty verdict or the death penalty decision. He'll now face trial in state court, with a death penalty conviction (almost a certainty, one would think) involved. Still, it will take years before the sentence is carried out, if it indeed is. Timothy McVeigh lingered for six years on Fed death row, even though he eschewed appeals that could have kept him alive probably to the present day.

Dylann Roof abdicated his responsibilities as a human being long before he committed the massacre. He seems comfortable with that abdication, and we should grant him his wish.

caw

I doubt they'll bother with a state trial -- no reason to spend the $.

If they need to at some point, like if there's some appeal filed that overturns the fed verdict, they can always do it then.

Aside from the endless other problems with the death penalty, I don't see how this makes him anything but a martyr to the supremacist cause.

blacbird · Jan 10, 2017

cornflake said:
I doubt they'll bother with a state trial -- no reason to spend the $.

I think otherwise. They will proceed with it, as a matter of politically necessary theater, if nothing else. The Feds very rarely put people to death, even when that's the original sentence. Not so much with death-penalty states, and there is a hell of a lot of public pressure to put Roof away, for keeps.

caw

cornflake · Jan 10, 2017

I'd bet, but it seems crass. I don't mean it in a HAH, or crass way, just I think they won't, you think they will, we'll have to see way.

blacbird · Jan 11, 2017

cornflake said:
I'd bet, but it seems crass. I don't mean it in a HAH, or crass way, just I think they won't, you think they will, we'll have to see way.

Oh, go ahead, be crass. Here's the bet: The state decides not to try him, I'll beta-read anything you want to send me. Thay do decide to try him, you reciprocate. That's either a win-win or a lose-lose, depending on perspective.

caw

Dylann Roof

Mildly Disturbing

down the rabbit hole of research...

Lost in the Fog

No Gods No Masters

Lost in the Fog

poet

At Sea

Did...did I do that?

No Gods No Masters

Are you gonna finish that bacon?

Did...did I do that?

No Gods No Masters

poet

Are you gonna finish that bacon?

Evil, undead Chihuahua

practical experience, FTW

practical experience, FTW