Feds: Church Shooting Suspect Dylann Roof 'Self-Radicalized' Pre-Attack

[Eugene]

Source: Associated Press

Feds: Church Shooting Suspect 'Self-Radicalized' Pre-Attack

By MEG KINNARD, ASSOCIATED PRESS COLUMBIA, S.C. — Aug 22, 2016, 8:13 PM ET

Authorities say a white man charged with the shooting deaths of nine black churchgoers in Charleston "self-radicalized" in the months before the shootings and grew more entrenched in his beliefs in white supremacy.

The information was filed Monday as part of a listing of more than a dozen expert witnesses that prosecutors intend to call in Dylann Roof's federal death penalty trial later this year.

The 22-year-old Roof is charged in the June 2015 deaths of nine black parishioners at Emanuel AME Church.

Authorities have long said they believed Roof was the author of an online manifesto in which he embraced Confederate symbols and talked about white supremacy. Handwriting analysis experts are expected to testify that he wrote another similar document in jail.

http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/attorney-objects-closed-hearing-church-shooting-case-41569475

[Mc Mike]

1. Oh. It wasn't his interactions with the Council of Conservative Citizens. He was in a vacuum, a

bubble.

And he sewed his own yellow & green teabag flag, and stars and bars, and rhodesian flags. He didn't buy them from some particular vendor.

Thanks for the updated info, Eugene. Recced. I don't buy what they're trying to sell, but I appreciate hearing their pitch.

[davidn3600]

2. What they mean is that no direct group helped him carry out the attack

People can get influence anywhere. I remember one case where a guy went on a killing spree because he thought he was in the Matrix. He had apparently just seen the movie. Is the movie to blame for that killing spree? No. Of course not. The guy was psycho and could have been set off by anything.

The question concerning Roof is was he already radicalized and then he sought out those symbols and hate groups, or did the hate groups turn him into a killer? According to the Feds, he became radicalized on his own and then gravitated to the hate rhetoric.

It's sort of like the debate with violent video games. Are the video games making people violent? Or is it that already violent people gravitate to violent video games?

[Mc Mike]

3. I remember how quick the repug pols were to return the CCC donations right after the shooting.

That group was saying the same things he was saying. He got all his nifty paraphenilia somewhere, and his weapon and ammo source -- could have been family, just like his political 'insights' could have been, though if they can't prove anything against his family, I don't want his family convicted -- but the hardware could have come from another source as well.

I don't buy the 'lone wolf' story, it's a bs concept and excuse for a terrorism charge. Yeah, he's insane, but politically insane. At a certain point, stochastic incitement sometimes goes beyond 'we hope some lone wolf out there hears this and is armed' to 'we have a lone wolf who comes and gets ammo and rhodesian flag patches here, and contributes to our rightwing website. Let's talk to him about the good work'.

They aren't making a case, they can't make a case, whatever. He doesn't seem to be a lone unaided nut.