Families of Charleston Church Shootings Offer Forgiveness in Court
CHARLESTON, SC – June 22, 2015 (Gephardt Daily) The families of the victims in last weeks church killings in South Carolina were in court Friday to speak to Dylann Roof, the accused killer and tell him they forgive him.
“I forgive you, you took something very precious from me, I will never talk to her ever again, I will never be able to hold her ever again, but I forgive you.” These words, along with the statements from several others where what Roof heard from the families of those he allegedly gunned down in their own church.
The families are asking for Roof to “repent, confess and to give his life to the one who matters most, Christ.”
Police said Roof attended a Bible study at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church for about an hour before opening fire at 9 p.m., telling the group he was there “to kill black people,” adding “you rape our women and you’re taking over our country. And you have to go.”
NBC News reported that Roof “almost didn’t go through with it because everyone was so nice to him.” Instead, he decided he had to “go through with his mission.”
Roof was captured in Shelby, N.C., about a three-hour drive from the church. An alert florist on her way to work spotted Roof’s black car and followed it for about 30 miles before police arrived.
Roof’s friends said he wanted to start a race war, adding he would often talk about “Southern pride.”
“It was just jokes he would make, racist jokes,” former high school classmate John Mullins said.
Roof, 21, will be charged with nine counts of murder and possession of a firearm during the commission of a violent crime, police said on Twitter.
In South Carolina, where a murder conviction carries the death penalty. The Charleston police are calling the shooting a hate crime. The Justice Department is reviewing the possibility. South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley said the state “absolutely will want him to have the death penalty.”
“This is the worst hate that I’ve seen — and that the country has seen — in a long time,” Haley said. “We will fight this, and we will fight this as hard as we can.”
Among those killed in the shootings was South Carolina state Sen. Clementa Pickney, 41, who was also a pastor at the church. The other victims were identified as Cynthia Hurd, 54; Tywanza Sanders, 26; Myra Thompson, 59; Ethel Lance, 70; Susie Jackson, 87; and the reverends DePayne Middleton Doctor, 49; Sharonda Singleton, 45; and Daniel Simmons Sr., 74.
Roof was being kept in protective custody at the jail, away from the other inmates, on suicide watch.
