Accused church shooter Dylann Roof was sent back to jail today under $1 million bond, his reputed actions recounted in a courtroom filled with weeping friends and relatives of nine victims gunned down during Bible study.
Roof made the appearance in video; he was off site, ringed by police officers. He remained motionless, his face not changing expression, as officials read off his alleged crimes at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church.
A judge did not set bond for the nine killings with which he’s charged. Roof, he noted, also is charged with the use of a weapon in the commission of a crime.
“For that, young man, I’m setting your bond at $1 million,” the judge said.
The judge’s decision capped a half-hour hearing in which relatives and friends of the victims talked of loss, the power of love, the strength of family.
“We are the family that love built,” said one woman, who identified herself as a sister of Cynthia Herd, one of the nine slain. “We won’t allow hate to win.”
Roof, authorities have said, hoped the church massacre would trigger a racial war.
That won’t happen in Charleston, predicted State Rep. Leon Stavrinakis, a Charleston Democrat.
“It’s a city that has great character and has overcome difficult things in the past and is accustomed to being great,” he said. “It’s in our psyche as Charlestonians to be great.”
His city, he said, will emerge from this tragedy – but not without scars.
“We can’t erase it from our history now,” he said. “It happened.”
The hearing was the latest event to unfold in a tragedy whose repercussions are spreading across the state and nation.
Atlanta reacted with prayer and action.
An organization calling itself the Atlanta Revolution Club said it would be at the Five Points MARTA station at 4 p.m. The purpose of the gathering: to decry white-supremacy groups.
“With everything that happened in South Carolina, we’re calling out white supremacy,” said club member Jack Turner.
Big Bethel A.M.E. scheduled a “unity and healing” vigil for 6:30 p.m. The church is located at 220 Auburn Ave. NE in Atlanta.
Also on Friday, St. Philip AME near Decatur has scheduled a “prayer for Charleston.” It begins at 7 p.m. at the church, 240 Candler Road SE.
A march is scheduled to take place at the same hour in downtown Atlanta. Called a “remembrance march,” the procession is supposed to wend from the Capitol to Big Bethel AME.
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