Dylann Roof, the then-21-year-old White supremacist who shot and killed nine Black people during a Bible study at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina, on July 17, 2015, was just sentenced to death.
Twelve jurors found Roof guilty on 33 federal charges, including hate crimes, on December 15. NPR reports that those same people unanimously decided today that he should face the death penalty for his crimes. Roof spewed racial hate online, confessed to the shooting shortly after his arrest and wrote in during his pre-trial incarceration that he was not apologetic for targeting the Black parishioners. Per USA Today: “I would like to make it crystal clear I do not regret what I did. I am not sorry. I have not shed a tear for the innocent people I killed.”
Roof is the first person in United States history to receive a death sentence for committing a federal hate crime. The New York Times reports that the federal government has not carried out an execution since 2003.
Twitter reactions to the sentence range from jubilant to thoughtful:
Killing Dylann Roof won’t do anything to rid our country of white supremacy. It’s in our bones, it’s in our soil, it’s in the White House.
— Clint Smith (@ClintSmithIII) January 10, 2017
When you’re against the death penalty but can’t muster the energy to argue why Dylann Roof shouldn’t be executed. pic.twitter.com/XLVwuw7mdL
— Chinua AcheBae (@SorahyaM) January 10, 2017
I don’t feel a single OUNCE of compassion or sympathy for Dylann Roof. I don’t understand why anyone would. I hope he rots in hell.
— @MADBLACKTHOT (@MADBLACKTHOT) January 10, 20172
Dylann Roof got sentenced to death.
Damn lucky him.
— Derrière Connoisseur (@BardockObama) January 10, 2017
When we talk about the legacy of the Confederate Flag please always remember to mention Dylann Roof.
— Akilah Hughes (@AkilahObviously) January 10, 2017
You could execute Dylann Roof a million times and it won’t ever repair the damage he wrought on those people and that place.
— Joel D. Anderson (@byjoelanderson) January 10, 2017