via Associated
Victims’ Families Address Dylann Roof
Family members of those killed Wednesday at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, S.C., addressed the shooting suspect, Dylann Roof, in court.
By Associated Press on June 19, 2015. Photo by Pool photo.
CHARLESTON, S.C. — One by one, they looked to the screen in a corner of the courtroom on Friday, into the expressionless face of the young man charged with making them motherless, snuffing out the life of a promising son, taking away a loving wife for good, bringing a grandmother’s life to a horrific end. And they answered him with forgiveness.
“You took something very precious away from me,” said Nadine Collier, daughter of 70-year-old Ethel Lance, her voice rising in anguish. “I will never talk to her ever again. I will never be able to hold her again. But I forgive you. And have mercy on your soul.”
The occasion was a bond hearing, the first court appearance of the suspect, Dylann Roof, for the murders, thought to be racially motivated, of nine black men and women during Bible study at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church on Wednesday night.
It was as if the Bible study had never ended as one after another, victims’ family members offered lessons in forgiveness, testaments to a faith that is not compromised by violence or grief. They urged him to repent, confess his sins and turn to God.
“We welcomed you Wednesday night in our Bible study with open arms,” said Felicia Sanders, the mother of 26-year old Tywanza Sanders, a poet who died after trying to save his aunt, who was also killed.
“You have killed some of the most beautifulest people that I know,” she said in a quavering voice. “Every fiber in my body hurts, and I will never be the same. Tywanza Sanders is my son, but Tywanza was my hero. Tywanza was my hero. But as we say in Bible study, we enjoyed you. But may God have mercy on you.”
The statements offered a moment of grace in a day when new details emerged about a massacre that has stunned the nation, echoing a long history of racial violence.
“All the victims were hit multiple times,” the Charleston Police Department wrote in an arrest warrant released Friday. The gunman walked in wearing a fanny pack, the statement said, and sat with the group talking Scripture for nearly an hour before he drew a gun and began firing — and on his way out, stood over a surviving witness “and uttered a racially inflammatory statement.”
After the police released security camera images of the suspect outside the church, Mr. Roof’s father and an uncle contacted the Charleston police and positively identified the defendant and his vehicle as those they saw in the photographs, the warrant revealed.
Charleston’s Shifting Population
The racial makeup of Charleston shifted drastically over the last three decades. In 1980, blacks made up nearly half of the city’s population. Today the city is two-thirds white. The Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal church is located in a predominantly white area of the city’s downtown peninsula.
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