Suspect feared 'blacks were taking over the world'

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20 Jun 2015, 12:00 am

An acquaintance of the man accused of a shooting massacre inside a historic black church in Charleston, South Carolina, says Dylann Storm Roof had complained that “blacks were taking over the world”. He was later charged with nine murders.Joey Meek, a former friend who reconnected with Roof a few weeks ago, said that while they got drunk on vodka, Roof declared that “someone needed to do something about it for the white race”. Roof is accused of fatally shooting nine people during a Bible study at The Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston on Wednesday night, ripping out a piece of South Carolina’s civic heart and adding to the ever-growing list of America’s racial casualties.

Police captured Roof in Shelby, North Carolina, after a motorist spotted him at a traffic light on his way to work. Roof was back in Charleston on Thursday night with a bond hearing pending, authorities said.Charleston officials announced a prayer vigil for Friday evening. The city’s mayor described the shooting at the church as an act of “pure, pure concentrated evil”.The victims included a State senator who was also the Church’s Minister, three other pastors, a regional library manager, a high school coach and speech therapist, a Government administrator, a college enrollment counselor and a recent college graduate.

President Barack Obama called the tragedy yet another example of damage caused by guns in America.

NAACP president and CEO Cornell William Brooks said, “There is no greater coward than a criminal who enters a house of God and slaughters innocent people.” Others bemoaned the loss to a church that has served as a bastion of black power for 200 years, despite efforts by white supremacists to wipe it out.

“Of all cities, in Charleston, to have a horrible hateful person go into the church and kill people there to pray and worship with each other is something that is beyond any comprehension and is not explained,” said mayor Joseph P Riley Jr. “We are going to put our arms around that church and that church family,” he added.