We can stop calling the shooter in that horrific massacre at a Charleston, S.C., church an “alleged” perpetrator.
A jury today convicted the young man accused of killing nine parishioners on June 17, 2015.
Jurors heard the killer confess to the massacre. They heard testimony from others about how the young man prayed with the parishioners, read from Scripture with them … and then shot them to death in cold blood.
The killer, who is white, is a known racist. He’s a hater. The victims were black. He wrote in his diary that he had intended to provoke a race war.
What now?
The killer’s lawyer is known to be good at avoiding death sentences for his clients. That will be the lawyer’s task now that the killer has been convicted of this hideous hate crime.
Some of us out here oppose the death penalty. I’m one of them. This case will test my resolve, much like the Timothy McVeigh execution over his bombing of the Oklahoma City federal courthouse did.
I will remain opposed to killing someone as punishment. But I recognize it’s hard, given what this hate-filled young man has done.
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Just so you know, I am refusing to mention the shooter’s name. I did so early on when the case broke, but then decided “nope, I won’t give him any publicity.”
You know to whom I will refer.
May he rot in hell.