Relatives of some of the nine black people gunned down while they studied the Bible at a historic South Carolina church offered tearful words of forgiveness on Friday to the 21-year-old white man charged with murdering their loved ones.
Dylann Roof, who sat for an hour with parishioners at the nearly 200-year-old Emanuel African Methodist Church before opening fire, stood quietly as he appeared in court via a video feed.
Dressed in a black-and-white prison uniform and flanked by two guards in body armor, Roof had no reaction as a judge ordered him held without bail.
ADVERTISEMENT
“May God have mercy on your soul,” said Felicia Sanders, whose 26-year-old son, Tywanza Sanders, was the youngest person to die in Wednesday’s rampage. “You have killed some of the most beautiful people that I know. Every fiber in my body hurts.”
Roof looked down occasionally and showed no emotion as Ms. Sanders and four other family members spoke of how he had been welcomed to the church by the nine people he has been charged with murdering.
The attack at the church nicknamed “Mother Emanuel” for its key role in African-American history came in a year that has seen waves of protest across the United States over police killings of unarmed black men.
ADVERTISEMENT
The U.S. Justice Department is investigating the attack as both a hate crime and potential act of terrorism, spokeswoman Emily Pierce said on Friday.
Racism a blight: Obama Also, President Barack Obama told U.S. Mayors on Friday that racism remains a “blight” that the United States has to “combat together.” Mr. Obama also reiterated his support for gun control legislation, saying tragedies like the one in South Carolina call for a response beyond grief. Roof could be sentenced to death if he is convicted and South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley, a Republican, urged prosecutors to seek capital punishment. Still, family members offered words of mercy during the brief court appearance.
“I acknowledge that I am very angry,” said Bethane Middleton Brown, who said her slain sister, Middleton Doctor, would have urged love. “She taught me that we are the family that love built,” Middleton Brown said. “We have no room for hating, so we have to forgive.”