‘GOD FORGIVE YOU, AND I FORGIVE YOU’
Victims’ relatives call for mercy in S.C. shooting
— In a display CHARLESTON, S.C. of grief and forgiveness, relatives of people killed in a shooting at a storied black church here addressed the suspect in court Friday, one after another offering an emotional mix of blessings and pleas for peace.
“We welcomed you Wednesday night in our B ible study with open arms,” Felecia Sanders told Dylann Roof, the suspect in a mass shooting that officials have called racially motivated.She was in the church when the gunman fatally shot nine people, including her son, Tywanza.
Sanders survived by pretending to be dead.
“You have killed some of the most beautiful people that I know,” she said. “Every fiber in my body hurts,and I’ll never be the same.T ywanza Sanders was my son,but T ywanza was my hero.”
B ut like some of the others,she added,“M ay G od have mercy on you.”
Nadine Collier,the daughter of another victim,Ethel Lance,her voice choked with sobs, said: “I will never talk to her ever again.I will never be able to hold her again.B ut I forgive you. A nd have mercy on your soul.You hurt me.You hurt a lot of people,but G od forgive you,and I forgive you.”
T he comments in court seemed in keeping with a spirit evident on the streets of Charleston, where people built a memorial and thousands attended a vigil to repudiate the attack on one of the nation’s most important A frican-A merican sanctuaries.
R oof’s family released a statement Friday saying that “words cannot express our shock,grief, and disbelief as to what happened that night” but gave no insight into the defendant’s state of mind or racial views.
R oof,21,who is white, was charged Friday with nine counts of murder and one count of criminal possession of a firearm during the commission of a violent crime.A ll of the victims in the shooting at the historic Emanuel A frican M ethodist Episcopal Church were black.
Law enforcement officials said that after he was arrested T hursday, he said he had just done something big in Charleston,and the .45-caliber pistol believed to have been used in the shooting was recovered from his car.
T he Charleston Police D epartment had circulated images of a suspect, taken by a security camera at the church,and it was members of R oof’s own family who named him as the man in the pictures,according to the arrest warrant,which was released Friday.
“T he father and uncle of the defendant contacted CPD and positively identified the defendant and his vehicle as those they saw in the photographs,” the warrant said.
In R oof’s first,brief court hearing,M agistrate James B .G osnell Jr.set bail at $ 1 million on the gun charge but said he did not have the authority to set bail on the murder charges,which would be handled by the state’s Circuit Court.T he defendant watched impassively on a video link from a nearby jail,flanked by two guards,as the judge invited victims’ relatives to speak.
“I’m a work in progress,and I acknowledge that I’m very angry,” said B ethane M iddletonB rown,sister of one of the dead,the R ev.D ePayne M iddleton-D octor.“She taught me we are the family that love built.We have no room for hate.We have to forgive.”
R oof spoke only when questioned by the magistrate,confirming his address in the town of Eastover,giving his age and stating that he is unemployed.
A growing number of officials,including G ov. Nikki R .H aley and Sen. Lindsey G raham,R -S.C., called the mass killing a hate crime,with the governor and others calling for the death penalty.It remained to be seen whether state or federal prosecutors would pursue hate crime charges.
“It’s certainly a hate crime,” G raham told WCB D ,the local NB C television station,on Friday.“T hese people would not be dead today if they weren’t black.”
Law enforcement officials said R oof told officers that he hoped to start a race war.
President B arack O bama on Friday reiterated his call for new gun controls,speaking at a U.S.Conference of M ayors meeting in San Francisco,saying that a shift in public opinion was needed to force Congress to act.
Witnesses said the gunman walked into the church and joined a B ible study session,sitting next to the pastor,the R ev.Clementa C.Pinckney,who was also a state senator.First the gunman listened,witnesses said,then he argued,and eventually he began ranting against black people, and after nearly an hour there,he stood,drew a gun and fired.