BREAKING: Jury Finds Dylann Roof Guilty in Racially-Motivated Hate Crime Murders of Nine Black Church Members

White Supremacist Guilty on All Counts

A jury has just found Dylann Roof guilty in the murders of nine Black churchgoers who were attending bible study group at a Charleston, South Carolina church, Emanuel AME. The jury took just two hours to return a guilty verdict. 

Sentencing, which could include the death penalty, will commence January 3.

Roof was charged with 33 crimes, Including 12 hate crimes. He was found guilty of all 33.

“After he killed (the Rev.) Clementa Pinckney, he did not stop. He embraced that hatred, and he executed eight more people,” A federal prosecutor told jurors Thursday, The State reports.

Roof, too, is charged with discharging a gun while committing a crime. And he is charged with obstruction of the exercise of religion, because he killed “people as they were praying,” Williams said.

The killings shook South Carolina and the nation because they happened in a church, because Roof’s white supremacist motivations were so blatant and because survivors were so quick to express forgiveness.

“These nine people exemplified a goodness that was greater than this message of hate,” Williams told jurors, urging them to find Roof guilty. 

That federal prosecutor, Assistant U.S. Attorney Nathan Williams, “said hatred had no place in the sanctuary of Emanuel, but Roof brought it just the same,” The Post & Courier reports. “He turned his .45-caliber Glock pistol on innocents and peppered them with a barrage of bullets when they were at their most defenseless, their eyes shut for closing prayer, he said.”

“In that moment, a man of immense hatred walked that room shooting person after person after person, stopping only so he could reload more magazines and kill more people,” Williams told the jury, his voice growing louder. “It was an act of tremendous cowardice, shooting people as they have their eyes closed in prayer, shooting them on the ground” and as they cowered under tables.

 

This is a breaking news and developing story. Details may change. This story will be updated, and NCRM will likely publish follow-up stories on this news. Stay tuned and refresh for updates.