Eight People Shot in Black Church in Charleston, South Carolina

[Anonymous]

What I fail to see is this was deemed a hate crime last night early on yet the DC family murders weren't. Why is that ?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:And now I'm crying: http://www.buzzfeed.com/jessicasimeone/these-are-the-victims-of-the-charleston-church-shooting?bffb&utm_term=4ldqpgp#.ngl7O62gx7

Oh damn! now i am crying! Thanks for sharing ...

Couldn't get through the first victim. Oh that picture with her son (?) in his cap and gown... I noped out, I'm a whimp.

At least you looked and empathized; I just can't. Those poor people! Their families! This is just horrible. And while at a bible study? Again, I can't think of a legal punishment fitting to how horribly awful this racially prejudiced attack was.

Life in prison.

3 meals a day, an hour of exercise, basic medical care and access to legal counsel.

Thats it.

[jsteele]

Anonymous wrote:What I fail to see is this was deemed a hate crime last night early on yet the DC family murders weren't. Why is that ?

I am not sure anyone has made the case that Wint was motivated by hate. Roof told the folks in the church he was going to kill them because they were black. Wint was able to obtain $40,000. Roof didn't take a dime.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What I fail to see is this was deemed a hate crime last night early on yet the DC family murders weren't. Why is that ?

Please read the Hate Crime legislation.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: Dylann Roof, a 21-year-old from Eastover, S.C., was arrested during a traffic stop in Shelby, N.C., just after 11 a.m. and taken into custody.

GIMMIE MY $5!!!!

If a non-white man was suspected of flicking a rubber band at a cashier in McDonald's 10 officers would have pulled him over and emptied their clips in his ass lol. Unbelievable.

Hey there Einstein, you forgot to include this part: "Charleston Police Chief Greg Mullen said authorities were given a tip by a citizen, which lead to the capture. The suspect was in the vehicle and was cooperative, he said. Mullen also said officials believe Roof acted alone."

You mean, he didn't charge the police, or try to steal their weapons? That guy--while a horrible killer--must be truly smart.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What I fail to see is this was deemed a hate crime last night early on yet the DC family murders weren't. Why is that ?

Because that was a home invasion.

A hate crime has to be motivated by dislike of a certain race/gender/orientation. Not just black on white, male on female, gay on straight. If that were the case you could find a hate crime in just about anything.

This young man wanted to kill black people because he hates black people. That is a hate crime.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:And now I'm crying: http://www.buzzfeed.com/jessicasimeone/these-are-the-victims-of-the-charleston-church-shooting?bffb&utm_term=4ldqpgp#.ngl7O62gx7

Oh damn! now i am crying! Thanks for sharing ...

Couldn't get through the first victim. Oh that picture with her son (?) in his cap and gown... I noped out, I'm a whimp.

When mothers are killed, it destroys a family".... Sad

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What I fail to see is this was deemed a hate crime last night early on yet the DC family murders weren't. Why is that ?

Because Roof said, before shooting his victims, that he was doing it because they were black.

[Anonymous]

jsteele wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What I fail to see is this was deemed a hate crime last night early on yet the DC family murders weren't. Why is that ?

I am not sure anyone has made the case that Wint was motivated by hate. Roof told the folks in the church he was going to kill them because they were black. Wint was able to obtain $40,000. Roof didn't take a dime.

That's too easy, Mr. Steele. Wint didn't have to torture and/or light a child on fire to get the $40,000. There was apparently way more cruelty involved in the Wint case than can plausibly be explained by purely financial motivations. While the Wint case continues to have a lot of open questions, this is exactly the kind of inference I think is to some extent intellectually dishonest. All the term "hate crime" does is try to make certain crimes sound worse because of extraneous political considerations. I'm not sure there is any meaningful way to say which case was worse; obviously more were killed in the church shooting, but I suspect the Wint victims suffered far more over the length of their ordeal. I think it is foolish to try to get into such comparisons, and the hate crime concept does so for no good reason, in my estimation.

Having said that, there is zero doubt that the church shooting was a racist incident. I mean, the guy actually said as much.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

jsteele wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What I fail to see is this was deemed a hate crime last night early on yet the DC family murders weren't. Why is that ?

I am not sure anyone has made the case that Wint was motivated by hate. Roof told the folks in the church he was going to kill them because they were black. Wint was able to obtain $40,000. Roof didn't take a dime.

That's too easy, Mr. Steele. Wint didn't have to torture and/or light a child on fire to get the $40,000. There was apparently way more cruelty involved in the Wint case than can plausibly be explained by purely financial motivations. While the Wint case continues to have a lot of open questions, this is exactly the kind of inference I think is to some extent intellectually dishonest. All the term "hate crime" does is try to make certain crimes sound worse because of extraneous political considerations. I'm not sure there is any meaningful way to say which case was worse; obviously more were killed in the church shooting, but I suspect the Wint victims suffered far more over the length of their ordeal. I think it is foolish to try to get into such comparisons, and the hate crime concept does so for no good reason, in my estimation.

Having said that, there is zero doubt that the church shooting was a racist incident. I mean, the guy actually said as much.

Sigh... The murder of people for racist reasons is a separate issue and that is why we draw these distinctions. It has nothing to do with who suffers more or which crime is more heinous. It is the about the motivations behind the crime and the fact that black people were singled out as targets of violence. Unfortunately, this kind of thing can spark copycat crimes. There are MANY reasons to be upset about hate crimes and it is not just the fact that people were killed. Have you taken American history 101? Geez.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Looks like a fake nose in addition to a wig. I hope people don't fall for any insanity bullshit - this was obviously premeditated and the killer wants to get away with it.

Crazy people can be intelligent and excellent planners. Mental illness is just not the irrational, mumbling homeless people you see wondering the D.C. streets.
Mental illness is an insidious, awful thing that is manifested in myriad ways.

Crazy comes in degrees. I am sure most people have some degree of crazy. Stop making excuses for this criminal. He wasn't too crazy to not know what he was doing was wrong. He disguised himself and possibly wore body armor to protect himself.

Not PP, but how is saying he's crazy an excuse? There is no excuse. But to perpetrate something like this, you must have issues. You just have to. Doesn't mean you are incapable of planning and executing the plan.

Thanks - I am the one to whom pp was responding. I don't understand when people say calling someone crazy is excusing their actions. That is dumb as hell. Crazy or sane, if you are dangerous you need to be locked up somewhere. How is that excusing anything? This right here is how and why we have broken mental health system in this country, we think identifying and understanding mental illness is excusing it. Stupid.

If you want people to accept mental illness as an excuse, then you have to accept it for all groups of people. It is always an excuse for whites, but other racial groups are automatically assumed criminal without any regards to their mental state. Now, that's dumb as hell.

More than one person told you that mental illness is not an excuse. Yet you continue to pander about your own delusions. Can't you read?

Then stop using it as an excuse, reason, or validation. He is a mass murderer. A thug. A criminal. A monster. There are plenty of people with mental illnesses of varying degrees and they are not murderes, thugs, monsters.

Yes. You can rightfully call him all of these things. Why does it bother you so much that he also is clearly mentally ill?

It doesn't. He may or not be. What bothers me is that when the murderer is white, that is the immediate go to, as if white people would never kill unless affected by mental illness. What bothers me is the hypocrisy so many of you display.

But we're not talking about any kind of killing. There is such a thing as a rational killing and this is not it. Oddly, most (not all, but most) recent mass murderers and serial killers in this country are white males. Of course they're mentally ill. WHO THE F*CK WOULD DO THAT IF THEY WEREN'T? Would anyone question that Jeffrey Dahmer was mentally ill? Of course not. He freaking ATE people! That's doesn't mean he wasn't a monster. Why can't I say this f*cked up individual was an evil monster and also acknowledge that he is mentally ill? Psychopathy is a mental illness, is it not? I would say the same about the beltway snipers. How does that make me a hypocrite?

What you are failing to see is that the other poster is saying the the usual/general go to narrative when there is an alleged black perpetrator is that the black perpetrator is a "thug","animal", "evil". And this is the language that is used to describe an array of black male alleged perpetrators whether they are alleged to have committed a mass killing or playing with a toy gun in the park.
The go-to for alleged black killers is that they are evil and less than human, they are not described with adjectives that suggest that they are humans with mental defects. It is another manifestation of institutionalized and often unacknowledged racism in this society.
Get it?
That does not mean that this young guy is not crazy. Dude can be crazy and there can also be racism in our society.

I completely get that, but I, as an individual, am not and would not use "thug" or "animal" to describe a black perpetrator if he shot up a church full of white people. I would say that person is mentally ill. So when I say that the perpetrator is mentally ill, regardless of his race, I am not "excusing" anything and I certainly don't believe I am a hypocrite. I believe race relations in this country are terrible. I believe black lives matter. I believe the way we recognize and treat mental illness in this country needs to be examined. I believe this man should in no way have had access to a firearm. I believe this was an evil act, I believe the perp was a racist terrorist, AND I believe he was mentally ill. Why can't we as individuals have a conversation about all those factors, which all are clearly at play, without someone calling me a hypocrite because some other white people that I don't agree with would have called him a thug if the races were switched in this scenario?

I am the pp to whom you are responding. I don't think u are a hypocrite, I was just trying to explain. I think the other poster is upset and scared and angry. Black folks don't have it easy these days, we can't even go to church.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

jsteele wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What I fail to see is this was deemed a hate crime last night early on yet the DC family murders weren't. Why is that ?

I am not sure anyone has made the case that Wint was motivated by hate. Roof told the folks in the church he was going to kill them because they were black. Wint was able to obtain $40,000. Roof didn't take a dime.

That's too easy, Mr. Steele. Wint didn't have to torture and/or light a child on fire to get the $40,000. There was apparently way more cruelty involved in the Wint case than can plausibly be explained by purely financial motivations. While the Wint case continues to have a lot of open questions, this is exactly the kind of inference I think is to some extent intellectually dishonest. All the term "hate crime" does is try to make certain crimes sound worse because of extraneous political considerations. I'm not sure there is any meaningful way to say which case was worse; obviously more were killed in the church shooting, but I suspect the Wint victims suffered far more over the length of their ordeal. I think it is foolish to try to get into such comparisons, and the hate crime concept does so for no good reason, in my estimation.

Having said that, there is zero doubt that the church shooting was a racist incident. I mean, the guy actually said as much.

Sigh... The murder of people for racist reasons is a separate issue and that is why we draw these distinctions. It has nothing to do with who suffers more or which crime is more heinous. It is the about the motivations behind the crime and the fact that black people were singled out as targets of violence. Unfortunately, this kind of thing can spark copycat crimes. There are MANY reasons to be upset about hate crimes and it is not just the fact that people were killed. Have you taken American history 101? Geez.

Sigh. Do you know how hate crimes laws work? They enhance the sentence beyond what is normally available for a specific criminal act. By definition, they reflect a judgment that hate crimes are more "heinous" than otherwise identical crimes committed for other reasons. That's the whole point of them. You are being intellectually dishonest to deny that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

jsteele wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What I fail to see is this was deemed a hate crime last night early on yet the DC family murders weren't. Why is that ?

I am not sure anyone has made the case that Wint was motivated by hate. Roof told the folks in the church he was going to kill them because they were black. Wint was able to obtain $40,000. Roof didn't take a dime.

That's too easy, Mr. Steele. Wint didn't have to torture and/or light a child on fire to get the $40,000. There was apparently way more cruelty involved in the Wint case than can plausibly be explained by purely financial motivations. While the Wint case continues to have a lot of open questions, this is exactly the kind of inference I think is to some extent intellectually dishonest. All the term "hate crime" does is try to make certain crimes sound worse because of extraneous political considerations. I'm not sure there is any meaningful way to say which case was worse; obviously more were killed in the church shooting, but I suspect the Wint victims suffered far more over the length of their ordeal. I think it is foolish to try to get into such comparisons, and the hate crime concept does so for no good reason, in my estimation.

Having said that, there is zero doubt that the church shooting was a racist incident. I mean, the guy actually said as much.

Sigh... The murder of people for racist reasons is a separate issue and that is why we draw these distinctions. It has nothing to do with who suffers more or which crime is more heinous. It is the about the motivations behind the crime and the fact that black people were singled out as targets of violence. Unfortunately, this kind of thing can spark copycat crimes. There are MANY reasons to be upset about hate crimes and it is not just the fact that people were killed. Have you taken American history 101? Geez.

Sigh. Do you know how hate crimes laws work? They enhance the sentence beyond what is normally available for a specific criminal act. By definition, they reflect a judgment that hate crimes are more "heinous" than otherwise identical crimes committed for other reasons. That's the whole point of them. You are being intellectually dishonest to deny that.

Ok, buddy. We get that you do not feel concerned about the possible resurgence of this type of racially motivated crime and that you are unconcerned that the KKK and other white supremacists will be inspired to take up the cause of racist violence all over again. Some of us are concerned about this aspect of the crime. If you want to see it as equal to any other random murder, that is your choice.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Looks like a fake nose in addition to a wig. I hope people don't fall for any insanity bullshit - this was obviously premeditated and the killer wants to get away with it.

Crazy people can be intelligent and excellent planners. Mental illness is just not the irrational, mumbling homeless people you see wondering the D.C. streets.
Mental illness is an insidious, awful thing that is manifested in myriad ways.

Crazy comes in degrees. I am sure most people have some degree of crazy. Stop making excuses for this criminal. He wasn't too crazy to not know what he was doing was wrong. He disguised himself and possibly wore body armor to protect himself.

Not PP, but how is saying he's crazy an excuse? There is no excuse. But to perpetrate something like this, you must have issues. You just have to. Doesn't mean you are incapable of planning and executing the plan.

Thanks - I am the one to whom pp was responding. I don't understand when people say calling someone crazy is excusing their actions. That is dumb as hell. Crazy or sane, if you are dangerous you need to be locked up somewhere. How is that excusing anything? This right here is how and why we have broken mental health system in this country, we think identifying and understanding mental illness is excusing it. Stupid.

If you want people to accept mental illness as an excuse, then you have to accept it for all groups of people. It is always an excuse for whites, but other racial groups are automatically assumed criminal without any regards to their mental state. Now, that's dumb as hell.

Google "navy yard shooter mental illness". I think people label mass killings as mental illness when there are signs of mental illness.

As I sat on the Navy Yard with others waiting, waiting, and waiting for information, the first excuses/ explanations that came out of CNN, FOX, and others were work place violence shooting. Alexis mental illness did not come into question until later., upon further investigation. The difference is that DCUM posters were labeling this young white male mentally ill before acquiring any information. All DCUM posters had was a fuzzy face from a surveillance camera. And from there , they surmised mental illness based on nothing more.

Were there not early reports in the media that he was mentally ill?

[Anonymous]

I haven't read through this thread so I'm sure this has been discussed ad nauseaum, but I am so sickened that Roof's father apparently gave this psychopath a gun as a birthday present. Makes me ill.