#CharlestonShooting
 

South Carolina Jail Arrest Records Search

Suspect in Charleston shooting.

Some of the things I'm hearing from on the ground are horrifying. If this stuff is true, the "hate crime" angle is going to be extremely strong.

His name is now all over social media and has been for close to half an hour, verified by the FBI as the suspect. Meanwhile, right now, some CNN talking head is breaking down the picture and saying that the combination of the haircut and the car could help the authorities figure out who he is.

10:31am: CNN announces the name.

I don't understand why calling it a hate crime even matters. He massacred 9 people in cold blood after sitting at the prayer meeting. How is that not hate?

Adds to the punishment, I think. But in this case, that probably doesn't matter.

That said, to ignore that portion of it would be to ignore how volatile a situation this is going to be.

That's what I meant. You can only execute him once.

I'm not usually for the death penalty, but these kinds of things make me doubt that stance sometimes.

Oh, that. Sorry. I'm guessing he's going to off himself or be killed by police.

Honestly, I'm much more concerned about the long-term impact. At a time when racial stuff in this country is perhaps as tense as it has been at any time since the 60s, an overtly race-based mass murder of black people is....I don't even know what to say.

Those pictures, wow.

Def a scary looking white dude.

Yeah, you're probably right. He's going to check out and leave everyone else to pick up the pieces.

(That was in response to Ben's last post)

i don't think it'll change anything. but time will tell.

Reports are that he has been caught.

I'm happy for the families. Maybe someday they'll get closure now.

Hopefully he gets the Braveheart treatment.

He's white, so this will be "an isolated incident" right?

Let's be honest, this is not only a hate crime, but terrorism. The guy was definitely a white supremacist. Absolutely horrible stuff.

And, no doubt, he will be considered "mentally ill".

He's got quite the cheery facebook profile photo:

https://www.facebook.com/people/Dyla...00009674437955

No way. He sat there for an hour in front of those poor people and then executed them.

There is no way he gets that to stick.

There's pictures of him wearing a jacket with Apartheid South Africa and Rhodesian flags on it, and a car with a CSA license plate. I doubt the mental illness excuse is going to stick on this one

Anyone who decides to do something like this has to be batshit crazy in some way.

Well, he already got caught alive so at least he doesn't have the "menacing threat to the general public" thing going for him.

HAHAHAHAHAHA!

Riiiight, because of the enormous long term impact after that big school shooting in...um...somewhere in New Hampshire? Vermont?

Or even the long term impact when that black kid was shot by the white cop in, um, well, pick any city, really, you'll probably be right.

When are we, as a society, going to get it through our heads that *there is no long term impact* to gun violence, whether it be racially motivated, mental-illness related, asshoile cop related, or otherwise.

Anyone that does that is mentally ill.

The problem I have with mental illness is that it really applies to anybody who commits these types of crimes. I realize there is a legal definition of "insane", which is not necessarily the same diagnosis from a mental health professional, but to me its immaterial for the purpose of whether they go to prison or whether they go to a mental health hospital.

The purpose of prison is to remove people from society so they can do no more harm. Part of prison should include mental health treatment, as an assumed need for any prisoner, and naturally some will require more depth of treatment than others.

No long-term impact of those events? That's so demonstrably false that I shouldn't bother replying. Perhaps not the long-term impact that YOU wanted to have seen. But all of those events most certainly had long-term impacts.

See, I fully believe the people doing stuff like this were looking to self destruct and bring attention to themselves(which is why I hate his name and picture everywhere), for a variety of reasons. None of those reasons are hate or anything the media will be reporting on. The "hate" is just something the scumbag used as an excuse to justify actions caused by unrelated mental issues.

Now don't get me wrong, he knew who he was, what he was doing and whether it was right or wrong. Put him down. I don't believe his hate of a race is what drove him to kill.

The death penalty would be far too kind for this person, not that he deserves to be called a person.

The term "mentally ill" probably applies to all of us in some way. He decided to shoot innocent strangers. I don't care why he made that decision. I don't want him free to make that decision again, ever. Freedom is for people who don't shoot innocent strangers.

Seems odd that a alledged kkk/racist person would have several friends of different races as facebook friends..

I thought the same thing.

I honestly can't believe people have latched onto this like it means something.

Why not? It means something to me. I don't have any friends on fb that I don't like. If I was a racist, I wouldn't have people of the race I don't like as friends. Why would I think it would be any different for this dude?

Because Facebook friends aren't real friends to the vast majority of users.

It is common for a racist to claim "But I have a friend that is X, so I can't possibly be racist!". To them, the people that they directly know are fine, it is those 'others' they have a problem with.

I'm with spleen.. i have had friend requests from people i knew from school/life/etc that i could not stand.. i usually ignore them entirely.. But i have outright declined a few..

This is the first sign of someone who is racist and just doesn't know it..

It's usually followed up with "i don't mean to offend anyone, but"

Seems odder to me that we have to shoot or choke or break the necks of all these black kids for low-penalty crimes, but a white spree killing suspect we can bring in just fine without pulling the trigger.

What makes folks think this guy is racist other than he killed 9 black people?

A lot of people collect random facebook friends from high school, or accept whoever sends them a request. If you do that in South Carolina, you're going to have a lot of black facebook friends.

He wasn't necessarily an organized white supremacist who held official positions in racist organizations and outwardly shared those views through school. Just looking at how young he is and what little we know, I'm guessing his societal views were a little more volatile and unpredictable. He could have thought a few black guys in his school were cool a few months ago but wanted to murder all black people on the planet yesterday. So I wouldn't except a 45-year old KKK grand dragon or whatever to have black facebook friends, but a weirdo racist 21-year-old, sure.

The jacket with Apartheid flags is a good sign, I think.

While I think I lean toward your general point, you have to admit, that's a pretty compelling point for the other side.

True. After all, what are the odds that he randomly chose to shoot and kill people and 9 of them in a row happened to be black just randomly?

Maybe that witnesses are saying he said "You rape our women. You're taking over our country. You have to go." But I'm sure there are two sides to every story.

So, was one of the victims the person that cut his hair? Because if not, then frankly, dude was fighting the wrong war.

Yeah, this is racist

Hold on, I suppose the apartheid confederate license plate guy could also have been talking about Christians, the real persecuted group in this country. Until we get clarification, it's just a "he said, she said" thing and we ALWAYS have to hear both sides to every story.

There are some folks claiming just that, because it happened at a church it was really "an assault on religious liberty".

So other than the custom made jacket with flags of apartheid regimes, the fact that he specifically said he was there to kill black people and those new comments, do we have any actual evidence he was racist?

I wish people (not you) would shut the fuck up about pushing their own agendas and just quietly reflect on the fact that 9 people are dead for absolutely no reason.

They're not dead for "no reason", they're dead because they were black and a single individual thought they should die. Our broad-based support for an armed citizenry makes it trivial for any individual to determine the right of any other individual to live, and he judged them wanting. You can't argue against his motives.

EDIT: Of, course, yes, you can argue with his motives. That's sarcasm. But the facts are that more or less by definition, any gun owner is a law-abiding responsible one, until they do something like this. And then they're "mentally ill". And that isn't going to change. I don't know how you do it, but we've just got to get through to people that guns are not a negotiation tactic in a disagreement - that if you have a beef with someone, it is improper etiquette to kill them.

Well, actually they're dead because he thought they should die.

Supposition is that his motive was race. But we don't really know anything except that he did the act and he is clearly certifiable.