Death penalty sought in church attack
Suspect motivated by race, feds say
COLUMBIA, S.C. — Federal prosecutors said Tuesday they’ll seek the death penalty against accused Charleston church killer Dylann Roof.
“Dylann Storm Roof has expressed hatred and contempt towards African-Americans, as well as other groups, and his animosity towards AfricanAmericans played a role in the murders charged in (July’s) indictment,” the notice said.
Roof, 22, who is from Columbia, is white. The nine victims were black, as are the three survivors.
“Roof targeted men and women participating in a Bible-study group at the Emanuel AME Church in order to magnify the societal impact of the offenses,” the notice said.
David Bruck, one of Roof’s lawyers, declined to comment on the government decision.
In what appeared to be a new government allegation, Tuesday’s notice also said that in preparing for June’s mass killings at a black church, Roof “attempted to incite violent action by others.”
Other factors contributing to the government’s decision, the notice said, to seek the death penalty are that Roof intended to kill more than one person “in a single criminal episode,” that he acted “after substantial planning and premeditation” and that among his victims were three people in their 70s and 80s, people “particularly vulnerable due to old age.”
Federal charges in the case accuse Roof of driving to Charleston, sitting through a Wednesday night Bible study gathering, then shooting and killing nine parishioners. He is an avowed white supremacist who has published his extremist racial views on the Internet, according to his federal indictment. In his Internet manifesto, Roof said he hoped to start a race war.
Among the victims was the late state Sen. Clementa Pinckney, pastor of Mother Emanuel, so called because it is the oldest AME church in the South, founded in 1816, and one of the largest black congregations south of Baltimore.
The killings, which have been recognized as one of the more notorious mass killings in recent American history, sparked nationwide outrage and led to the lowering of the Confederate flag in front of South Carolina’s State House in Columbia.