Justice Department Will Seek Death Penalty For Dylann Roof

The Department of Justice announced it will seek the death penalty against Dylann Roof, the alleged white supremacist charged with murdering nine black church parishioners in South Carolina in 2015.

“Following the department’s rigorous review process to thoroughly consider all relevant factual and legal issues, I have determined that the Justice Department will seek the death penalty,” Attorney General Loretta Lynch said in a statement May 24. “The nature of the alleged crime and the resulting harm compelled this decision.”

On June 17, 2015, Roof allegedly killed nine African American churchgoers as they sat in a bible study class at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, SC. According to police reports, Roof was welcomed into the church when he arrived and sat with the parishioners for about an hour before taking a gun out of his fanny pack and opening fire.

“The parishioners had bibles. Dylann Roof had his 45 caliber glock pistol and eight magazines loaded with hollow point bullets,” Lynch previously said when announcing the federal indictment against Roof on July 22, 2015.

Roof faces 33 charges, including murder and hate crimes at the federal level. He also faces murder charges at the state level. The 22-year-old man has pled not guilty to all charges.

Roof was known to his friends as a person with white supremacist feelings and kept a website full of his racist rants and pro-confederacy photos.

At Roof’s bond hearing in June 2015, Felicia Sanders, the mother of 26-year old Tywanza Sanders, a poet who died after trying to save his aunt, spoke to Roof via closed circuit television.

“We welcomed you Wednesday night in our Bible study with open arms,” Sanders said, according to The New York Times. “You have killed some of the most beautifulest people that I know. 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.”

Sources: Department of Justice (2), The New York Times / Photo credit: Politico