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Richmond Free Press
December 15-17, 2016
News
Painful testimony from 72-year-old survivor of S.C. church massacre By Harriet McLeod Reuters
CHARLESTON, S.C. A 72-year-old retired nurse recounted for jurors on Wednesday how she cowered under a table while Dylann Roof killed nine of her fellow worshippers at a historic black church but spared her so she could tell the story of what he had done. Polly Sheppard was the last person to testify for the prosecution at Mr. Roof’s federal hate crimes trial in Charleston, S.C. After she detailed the bloodshed at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in June 2015, Mr. Roof told the judge he did not want to testify and the defense rested its case without calling any witnesses. Lawyers are set to give their closing arguments Thursday. There is little doubt about Mr. Roof’s guilt. The 22-year-old, a self-described white supremacist, confessed to the crime in a videotaped interview and has offered to plead guilty if prosecutors halt their quest for a death sentence. Federal prosecutors refused, however, and the penalty phase of Mr. Roof’s trial will get under way in January if he is convicted of federal hate crimes resulting in death, obstruction of religion and firearms violations. Ms. Sheppard’s eyewitness account added to the chilling testimony and evidence jurors will consider. While she was on the stand, jurors heard the tape of her pleading with emergency dispatchers for help after the shootings. “Please come,” she said, describing how a white gunman had shot the church’s pastor, the Rev. Clementa Pinckney who also served in the South Carolina Senate, and others attending a Bible study. Ms. Sheppard, a member of the church’s trustee board, was composed while testifying how Mr. Roof opened fire after parishioners had closed their eyes in prayer. She said she thought the sound was something electrical until she heard Felicia Sanders screaming, “He’s shooting everybody, Miss Polly!” Ms. Sheppard dived under a table and prayed aloud as the shots rang out, she testified. Mr. Roof told her to shut up. “Have I shot you yet?” Ms. Sheppard said he asked her. When she responded no, Ms. Sheppard said Mr. Roof told her, “I’m not going to. I’m going to leave you here to tell the story.” Ms. Sanders, 59, and a young girl at the church meeting also survived. Ms. Sanders was the first prosecution witness. Jurors earlier on Wednesday heard a grim accounting of the multiple gunshot wounds suffered by the dead. Susie Jackson, the oldest victim at 87, was hit at least 10 times, a forensic pathologist testified. Rev. Pinckney died from five gunshots. In testimony earlier in the week, jurors learned that investigators found handwritten lists of mostly African-American parishes around South Carolina during a search of Mr. Roof’s car. Mr. Roof confessed he targeted the historic Mother Emanuel A.M.E. Church because he knew black people would be gathered there. The significance of the other churches was not explained at the trial. State crime scene investigator Brittany Burke testified that the lists included other African Methodist Episcopal churches, a predominantly black Baptist church and a black Roman Catholic
church in Charleston. By law, Shooter’s Choice was allowed to Mr. Roof noted the addresses, phone numsell the gun to Mr. Roof after three days if a bers and hours for churches elsewhere in the background check had not come back with state as well, Ms. Burke said. information disallowing the purchase. Jurors also heard excerpts from Mr. Roof’s On June 29, 2015, 12 days after the masonline manifesto, where he criticized minorisacre, the store received notification of Mr. ties and Jews. Roof being ineligible to buy the weapon, Mr. Two months before the shooting, Mr. Roof Thrailkill said. purchased a pistol and stockpiled ammuniMr. Roof told police after an arrest at a tion, a South Carolina gun store manager mall in February 2015 that he used narcottestified. ics, an admission that should have led to the Security video showed Mr. Roof shopping gun sale being blocked, FBI Director James and filling out a background check form at Comey has said. Shooter’s Choice in West Columbia on April “How many times do you receive a denial 11, 2015. of the sale of a gun after the gun has been He returned on April 16 to pick up the used in a crime?” Assistant U.S. Attorney .45-caliber Glock, which he is accused of Jay Richardson asked Mr. Thrailkill on using in the shooting, and to buy five magaMonday. Ms. Sheppard zines, each capable of holding 13 rounds, “Never,” Mr. Thrailkill testified. store manager Ronnie Thrailkill testified. Mr. Roof returned Mr. Roof also faces a death sentence if found guilty of murder on April 27 for additional magazines. charges in state court. That trial is slated for next year.
Attorney general: Hate crimes tear at the fabric of our communities Free Press wire report
STERLING Hate crimes tear at the fabric of American communities and represent a stain on the country’s soul, U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch said at a mosque and Muslim community center on Monday. The nation’s top law enforcement officer spoke at the All Dulles Area Muslim Society Center as law enforcement across the country confronts a spike in hate crimes targeting Muslims. Her speech at an interfaith gathering in the waning weeks of the Obama administration was intended to reaffirm the U.S. Justice Department’s commitment to safeguarding civil rights and protecting racial and religious minorities. But she also acknowledged concerns from minorities that divisive rhetoric and a new administration could lead to an erosion of some of the progress she said had been made in the last eight years. Recently released FBI statistics show that the number of hate crimes targeting Muslims that were reported to law enforcement rose by 67 percent in 2015. That’s the largest number since the year of the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks.
Overall, hate crimes rose by 6 percent last year. Many hate crimes go unreported. “Behind every number is a person,” Ms. Lynch said. “Behind every statistic is someone whose rights have been violated. Ms. Lynch Behind the pages of the reports lie communities who are now more afraid than before and more afraid than any American should ever feel.” Hate crimes, she said, should be of concern to every American. They tear at the “fabric of our communities. They also stain our dearest ideals; they stain our nation’s very soul.” The FBI and Justice Department are responsible for investigating and prosecuting hate crimes under federal law. A Connecticut man who fired a rifle at a mosque and a North Carolina man who ripped off a woman’s hijab on an airplane are among those convicted of hate crimes in recent months. Ms. Lynch traveled Tuesday to New
York City for a discussion with lesbian, gay and transgender youths at Harvey Milk High School. She also visited the Stonewall Inn and the new Stonewall National Monument, the site of a 1969 clash that sparked the gay rights movement. Ms. Lynch, who this year sued the state of North Carolina over a bathroom bill the administration said discriminated against transgender individuals, said a “pernicious thread” connects hate crimes, regardless of the target. She linked an assault on a transgender man to violence against a woman wearing a hijab and to the June 2015 slaying of nine African-American men and women at a church bible study in Charleston, S.C. In an apparent reference to the incoming administration of President-elect Donald Trump, Ms. Lynch said she was aware of the anxiety that the Justice Department’s civil rights work might slide backward. She acknowledged a trend of divisive rhetoric has made people concerned they could be in danger based on where they pray or what they look like. But she said the work would continue. “Is it going to be hard?” she asked. “Yes, it’s always been hard.”
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