Suspect Arrested for Killing 9 People at Charleston Church

U.S. police arrested a young white man in connection with the murder of 9 people, including the pastor of an old African American church in downtown Charleston, on Thursday, June 18. According to the Associated Press, the Charleston police chief stated that the 21-year-old man named Dylann Storm Roof was in the church for about an hour before killing 6 women and 3 men worshippers. He did not resist during his arrest. Loretta Lynch, the U.S. Attorney General, commented on the incident, saying, "Such actions have no place in our country or in any civilized society." She added that the U.S. Department of Justice has initiated a case regarding a hate crime related to this incident. Reports indicate that one of the suspect's childhood friends recognized him after seeing images captured by security cameras that were broadcast on television and informed the FBI. The mother of the suspect's old friend stated, "Dylan was a very calm and friendly teenager, and I really don't understand what was going on in his mind that led him to commit such an act." Dylann Storm Roof had previously been convicted of two drug-related offenses and trespassing, serving some time in prison. He had a Confederate flag on his car license plate, a symbol of the Southern states during the American Civil War, and in a photo on his Facebook page, he can be seen with the flags of two failed racist regimes in Africa, namely Rhodesia and apartheid South Africa, sewn onto his clothing. The Associated Press notes that this armed attack has revived painful memories of similar attacks in past decades. In the 1960s, many churches used by African Americans to organize the civil rights movement were bombed, and in the 1990s, several of them in Southern states were set on fire and shot at. The church attacked by the white man was founded in 1816 and has a bitter history. Its founder was hanged after attempting to organize a slave rebellion in 1822, and white planters burned the church. Until the Civil War, the church's followers secretly gathered for prayer services. A Democratic member of the House of Representatives from the state where the shooting occurred stated, "This shooting is a warning that there is a serious problem in our society. There is no racial problem in our country; the problem is guns, and urgent action must be taken in this regard." The mayor of Charleston also described the shooting as "an abhorrent act by a person filled with hatred and a warped mind." The Associated Press recalls that two months before this shooting, an unarmed black man named Walter Scott was shot dead by a white police officer in the northern neighborhoods of Charleston. This incident led to widespread protests and heightened racial tensions in the city. The police officer has been arrested for murder, and state lawmakers quickly passed a law requiring all police officers to wear body cameras. Christopher Casson, a civil rights activist in Charleston, believes that the motive for this bloody shooting was racial hatred. He stated that even before the police shooting of a black man two months ago, he and a group of other civil rights activists had met with police commanders and local officials to reduce racial tensions in the area.