{"id":18737,"date":"2017-01-05T05:18:44","date_gmt":"2017-01-05T05:18:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/?p=18737"},"modified":"2017-01-05T05:18:44","modified_gmt":"2017-01-05T05:18:44","slug":"church-shooter-dylann-roof-showed-no-remorse-in-writings-while-in-jail","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/news\/church-shooter-dylann-roof-showed-no-remorse-in-writings-while-in-jail.html","title":{"rendered":"Church shooter Dylann Roof showed no remorse in writings while in jail"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Church shooter Dylann Roof showed no remorse in writings while in jail<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/h2>\n

Church shooter Dylann Roof showed no remorse in writings while in jail:-<\/strong> In the weeks after his attack on black parishioners at a Charleston church, Dylann Roof reflected on the shootings as he sat in the county jail.<\/span><\/p>\n

He was not sorry, the admitted white supremacist wrote on lined paper.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI would like to make it crystal clear I do not regret what I did. I am not sorry. I have not shed a tear for the innocent people I killed,\u201d he wrote, and later continued, \u201cI have shed a tear of self-pity for myself. I feel pity that I had to do what I did in the first place.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Officials found the writings in Roof\u2019s jail cell six weeks after his rampage at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, prosecutors told a jury Wednesday in an opening statement of the trial\u2019s sentencing phase.<\/span><\/p>\n

For that lack of remorse, for his racially charged motive, for the impact it had on families, Roof deserves the death penalty, Nathan Williams, an assistant U.S. attorney, told the panel during his 30-minute address.<\/span><\/p>\n

Dylann Roof ruled competent for sentencing phase<\/span>
\n In his own opening statement, one that lasted less than three minutes, Roof offered no direct response to the prosecutor. The only remorse he hinted at was regret that his former defense team twice asked the court to evaluate his competency.<\/span><\/p>\n

Roof, 22, said after the shootings that he had intended to start a race war. He chose to serve as his own attorney to keep his team of lawyers, now relegated to the role of standby counselors, from presenting a defense based on mental health.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cBut it\u2019s not because I have a mental illness that I don’t want you to know about. It isn’t because I’m trying to keep a secret from you,\u201d Roof told the jurors. \u201cEventually those will become part of the public record. In that respect, my self-representation accomplishes nothing. So you could say what’s the point? The point is that I’m not going to lie to you, either myself or through anyone else.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

He asked jurors to forget anything his attorney told them earlier, a reference to David Bruck\u2019s attempts during last month\u2019s guilt phase to signal to jurors that Roof suffers from an undisclosed mental defect.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI know none of it is worth remembering anyway,\u201d Roof said.<\/span><\/p>\n

And aside from occasionally offering a \u201cno objection\u201d as prosecutors submitted new evidence or \u201cno questions\u201d when invited to cross examine witnesses, Roof said almost nothing, though he did offer one objection, which was sustained.<\/span><\/p>\n

The government began its witnesses \u2014 a list that could number near 40 in coming days \u2014 with Jennifer Pinckney, the widow of Mother Emanuel\u2019s leader, the Rev. Clementa Pinckney.<\/span><\/p>\n

For an hour and a half, Assistant U.S. Attorney Jay Richardson led the mother of two young girls through a picture of an idyllic family life that began with a marriage in 1999 and soon was populated by vacations in Seattle or Salt Lake City and comfortable evenings at home.<\/span><\/p>\n

The dedicated father coaxed his girls to take piano lessons by stirring a passion for music, helped them on school projects and read to them in story times that in one moment ended with daughters tumbled against dad, all of them asleep on the couch, books on their chests.<\/span><\/p>\n

That picturesque life ended on June 17, 2015, when Roof joined the small gathering of parishioners at Mother Emanuel, waiting until the group bowed their heads in prayer. As they did, Roof pulled a Glock .45 from a utility pouch and took aim at the Rev. Pinckney, the man who welcomed the stranger to the Bible study and offered a seat next to him.<\/span><\/p>\n

After his death, several coworkers told Jennifer Pinckney, a media specialist at a Columbia elementary school, they did not know her husband was a state senator.<\/span><\/p>\n

Had they known, they would have addressed him differently, they said. He wouldn\u2019t have wanted that, the widow responded.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cHe did not want his family in the media eye,\u201d Pinckney said in court.<\/span><\/p>\n

They have ended up there.<\/span><\/p>\n

That night, with the group in the fellowship hall, Jennifer Pinckney and the couple\u2019s youngest daughter, 6-year-old Malana, were at an adjacent pastor\u2019s study when the mother heard pops.<\/span><\/p>\n

She thought at first it might be a faulty generator, and cracked open the door before realizing the cracks were gunshots. She locked the door and moved her daughter back to a connected secretary\u2019s office, locking that door as well.<\/span><\/p>\n

In Roof’s self-defense, a constitutional quandary<\/span>
\n Pinckney sat with her daughter under a desk, and as a child she has earlier described as rambunctious, sometimes challenging, questioned the gunfire, the mother\u2019s words turned sharp in a tone she had never used with the girl.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI just told her, \u2018Shut up. Don\u2019t say anything. You have to be quiet.\u2019”<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cMama, is daddy going to die?\u201d Malana said.<\/span><\/p>\n

There, under the desk, she put her hand over the girl\u2019s mouth. Malana, shaking slightly, raised her own palm to her mother\u2019s lips, mimicking the gesture of silence.<\/span><\/p>\n

At one point, a bullet came through the office, and soon the gunfire neared. Pinckney heard a grunting sound. She wondered if it was her husband.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI heard Mr. Roof say, \u2018I\u2019m not crazy. I had to do this,\u2019\u201d Pinckney told the jury. And then he tried the door, sending a chill over her. But he did not enter and seemed to move away.<\/span><\/p>\n

For Roof counsel, a life\u2019s work fighting the death penalty<\/span>
\n Earlier, Pinckney had tried to call out from the secretary\u2019s phone, but in the darkness could not see the numbers, and she feared the shooter had already heard its loud tone. She needed to leave her child to get to her husband\u2019s phone, in the pastor\u2019s study.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIf he gets in this room, you do not come from under this desk regardless of what happens to mama,\u201d Pinckney said to the child. She told Malana she loved her, told her to tell her older sister the same.<\/span><\/p>\n

But she returned, and a 911 dispatcher told her to stay under the desk until police arrived.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI just want to know if my husband\u2019s been killed,\u201d Pinckney whispered.<\/span><\/p>\n

When police arrived, an officer gathered Malana, making a game of telling the child to shut her eyes tight and bury her head against the officer\u2019s collarbone, that she might be carried through the bloodshed.<\/span><\/p>\n

That night, the widow told her girls that daddy was killed, but would always be with them, that they would always talk about daddy.<\/span><\/p>\n

Had that doorknob turned, her 11-year-old might have also lost her mother and older sister, Pinckney told jurors.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt wasn\u2019t my time or my daughter\u2019s time,\u201d Pinckney said when a prosecutor asked her why she believed she survived. \u201cGod is a just God and I don\u2019t see God taking both parents from two small kids.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The afternoon ended with Rev. Anthony Thompson, married 16 years to 59-year-old Rev. Myra Thompson, who was leading the Bible study for the first time that evening.<\/span><\/p>\n

Thompson described his wife leaving the house to lead the Bible study, missing their typical goodbye kiss. A phone call came later, saying there was a shooting at the church and Thompson made his way past law enforcement officers, before someone stopped him near the church door.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI need to go in there, you need to let me go right now,\u201d Thompson said, and when he could not get an answer asked, \u201cIs she suffering or is she gone?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cHe said, \u2018I don\u2019t know.\u2019\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI just lost it,\u201d he said. \u201cFor the first time I lost control. I never lost control about anything. My world was gone, just gone. I just didn\u2019t know what to do,\u201d he said, breaking into tears. \u201cI still don\u2019t know what to do.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Source:-\u00a0http:\/\/www.usatoday.com\/story\/news\/nation-now\/2017\/01\/04\/church-shooter-dylann-roof-showed-no-remorse-writings-while-jail\/96172486\/<\/span><\/div>\n

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