Roof Indicted for Federal Hate Crimes

He pulled out a 45-caliber glock pistol, loaded with hollow point bullets, and began firing at people reading their Bibles.

Dylann Roof, the alleged killer of nine people in a black church. He now faces federal hate crimes charges.

By Frederick H. Lowe
Special to the Outlook from Trice Edney News Wire

White terrorist Dylann Storm Roof, who killed nine African-American men and women during Bible study at an historic Black church in Charleston, S.C., has been indicted by a federal grand jury for hate crimes, U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch recently announced.
The grand jury returned a 33-count indictment against Roof, charging him with federal hate crimes and firearms charges for killing and attempting to kill Black parishioners at Mother Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church on June 17.
South Carolina does not have a hate crimes law. Roof, who confessed to the slaughter, is charged with nine counts of murder in South Carolina.
Roof sat in the Bible study for an hour before pulling out a 45-caliber glock pistol with eight magazines fully loaded with hollow point bullets. He began firing, killing and wounding parishioners because they were Black and because he wanted to interfere with the exercise of their religion, Lynch said.
“The federal indictment returned today charging Roof with nine murders and three attempted murders under the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Hate Crimes Prevention Act,” Lynch said. “This federal hate crime law prohibits using a dangerous weapon to cause bodily injury, or attempting to do so, on the basis of color. The Shepard Byrd Act was enacted specifically to vindicate the unique harms caused by racially motivated violence.”
Lynch said Roof’s goal was to increase racial tensions nationwide and seek retribution for perceived wrongs he believed African Americans had committed against White people.
He faces either life in prison or death.