The man accused of killing nine inside a black church wore pro-apartheid flags, held ‘strong conservative beliefs,’ and made a ‘lot of racist jokes.’
Police said they have arrested Dylann Storm Roof, the suspected killer of nine people at an historic black church in Charleston. Roof, 21, is from Lexington, South Carolina and was taken into custody in Shelby County, North Carolina. At a press conference, police chief Greg Mullen said a citizen’s tip led police to his car. He would not comment on whether weapons were found in the vehicle, but said Roof was “cooperative.”
Let’s start by observing that whoever the sick bastard who committed this crime turns out to be, he deserves the last full measure of punishment South Carolina can mete out. And let’s also observe that there’s absolutely nothing “conservative” about murder, racial hatred or pro-apartheid political leanings — if a young moron like this can be said to have political leanings instead of inchoate emotions.
A sparse Facebook page shows an image of Roof in a jacket with the flags of apartheid-era South Africa and Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). Another Facebook photo of Roof sitting on the roof of his car shows a vanity license plate with a Confederate flag on it. Charleston police say the license plate is LGF 300.
Roof’s father gave him a .45-caliber pistol for his birthday, according to uncle Charles Cowles. The uncle said he recognized Roof from the police photo and “described him as quiet and soft-spoken,” according to Reuters.
Why anyone would give a .45 to a kid who looks like the one in the photo above is beyond me. He reminds me of the Connecticut shooter, Adam Lanza:
Other details, not exactly characteristic of “conservatives”:
John Mullins, who went to high school with Roof, told The Daily Beast that he remembers him as being “kind of wild.”
“He used drugs heavily a lot,” Mullins said. “It obviously harder than marijuana. He was like a pill popper, from what I understood. Like Xanax, and stuff like that.”
White Knoll High School had a mix of black and white students. Mullins says they occasionally mixed, and the school had “a lot of preps, a little bit of gang members, and a lot of outcasts.” But Roof wasn’t one of the outcasts, Mullins said.
Watch the media have a field day with this one. No matter how unequivocally real conservatives condemn the culprit.
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