Charleston Church Shooting Dylann Roof
Dylann Roof (Grace Beahm/The Post And Courier via AP, Pool, File)

By Michael Balsamo and James Martinez, AP

White supremacist mass murderer Dylann Roof staged a hunger strike this month while on federal death row, alleging in letters to The Associated Press that he’s been “targeted by staff,” “verbally harassed and abused without cause” and “treated disproportionately harsh.”

The 25-year-old Roof, who killed nine black church members during a Bible study in Charleston, South Carolina, in 2015, told the AP in a letter dated Feb. 13 that the staff at the federal prison in Terre Haute, Indiana, feel justified in their conduct “since I am hated by the general public.”

A person familiar with the matter said Roof had been on a hunger strike but was no longer on one, as of this week. The person couldn’t immediately provide specific details about the length of the hunger strike or whether medical staff needed to intervene. The person wasn’t authorized to discuss the matter publicly and spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity.

Roof wrote in his letter to the AP that he went on the hunger strike to protest the treatment he received from a Bureau of Prisons disciplinary hearing officer over earlier complaints that he was refused access to the law library and access to a copy machine to file legal papers.

Roof’s Feb. 13 letter indicated he was already “several days” into a hunger strike, and he wrote in a follow-up letter that the protest ended a day later after corrections officers forcibly tried to take his blood and insert an IV into his arm, causing him to briefly pass out.

“I feel confident I could have gone much, much longer without food,” Roof wrote in the Feb. 16 follow-up letter. “It’s just not worth being murdered over.”

The allegations could not immediately be verified and a spokeswoman for the Bureau of Prisons said the agency had no comment on Roof’s allegations, citing privacy concerns.

Roof’s lawyers said in a statement that they were “working with BOP to resolve the issues addressed in the letters.”

Roof’s lawyers filed an appeal to his federal convictions and death sentence last month, arguing that he was mentally ill when he represented himself at his capital trial.

In a 321-page legal brief, Roof’s lawyers asked a federal appeals court in Richmond, Virginia, to review 20 issues, including errors they say were made by the judge and prosecutors that “tainted” his sentencing.

One of their main arguments is that U.S. District Judge Richard Gergel should not have allowed Roof to represent himself during the penalty phase of his trial because he was a 22-year-old ninth-grade dropout “who believed his sentence didn’t matter because white nationalists would free him from prison after an impending race war.”

Roof is the first person to be ordered executed for a federal hate crime. Attorney General William Barr announced in July that the government would resume executions and scheduled five executions — though Roof is not included among that group — ending an informal moratorium on federal capital punishment as the issue receded from the public domain.

The Supreme Court has temporarily halted the executions after some of the chosen inmates challenged the new execution procedures in court.

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102 COMMENTS

  2. Perhaps a long walk in the woods on a work detail outside of the prison would help his state of mind? I’ll drive.

      • Better yet, take a hint from “The Good, The Bad and The Ugly” and let him do the work:

        “You see, in this world there’s two kinds of people, my friend: Those with loaded guns and those who dig. You dig.”

  3. This A-hole premeditated and ruthlessly killed innocent people with no regard to the consequences of his actions on his victims or families. He abused our rights as citizens and jeopardized those right for us all but his actions. This piece of human filth should already have met his day with justice.

    • “with no regard to the consequences of his actions”

      Sorry, have to disagree with you there. He did it specifically to cause consequences, and his stated desired consequences were to start a full-fledged race war in the US.

      He didn’t just randomly murder innocent people, he did so for pretty much the worst possible motivations, wanting to inspire death and murder across the entire country. He was very fully aware, and he did it specifically on purpose.

      So, yeah, no sympathy for that evil, evil, evil little bastard.

  4. He bought a Glock 41 because AR15s were too expensive.

    Glock 41 street price around 500.00
    Lower tier AR street price around 400.00

    • Well, a dude who busts in on a bunch of senior-citizen church ladies and blames them for the rape of white women obviously isn’t going to be the sharpest tool in the shed.

      • I’d be using a DeWalt 20V cordless drill on him! We can start with a .040 drill bit under the knee cap and go on from there. I’m curious! We can finish up with a 1″ hole saw on his skull. That should have him softened up enough not to be worrying about his treatment in prison.

        • good for you, that’s your first win here!
          i care, pinky swear. as opposed to eye care, conjunctivitis.

  5. A hunger strike….That’s funny! The only purpose that would serve is to save the taxpayers millions & justice would be served. The unions should intervene & let him strike……

    • He looks like he could go a few more weeks on his hunger strike. Or the prisons are feeding him too much and not enough exercise.

      • Check out the facial expression on the black guy behind him. IF looks could kill. Sure would be a great time and money saver.

  6. Doper. Retard. Piece of shit.

    He is not in the class of men with Bobby Sands or Frank Stagg, who died in service of their country as a protest to the crown- an Evil Empire.

    I suppose he goes to go on bread water and twinkies.

  7. A much more enjoyable headline… “Mass Murder Dylan Roof Struck for Several Days for Mentioning Hunger.” Can we expedite this process and fry this fucking worm? Why is he still breathing?

  8. The other inmates and the goons all need to read a book on etiquette! Bernie needs to do something to stop prisoners from being verbally harassed!

    • He never will. All he wants to do is take away the guns that we law abiding citizens have that we use to protect ourselves. Then where would we be.

      • we’d be defenseless, at the mercy of Bernie and the rest of the democrap clowns. I’d just like to know who taught this little coward such hatred.

        • He went to school, and stayed in school as long as possible to avoid the draft, and probably scrounged up a copy of Mao’s little red book while there.

      • Yeah, he left out that you have to be a NON WHITE cop killer to get the candle light vigils and liberal groups inundating the governor with calls for a pardon and the ACLU filing suits on your behalf. Geez. Some people’s kids.

    • Funny, Eric Frein gets no such treatment. Then again the media deliberately ignored his communist tendencies. I guess Lefty’s just can’t do wrong, otherwise they’re not “real” lefties.

  11. Hurry up and get’er done. Yes… Black lives matter you little bastard and this is just one more opportunity for law abiding people to prove it, that doesn’t involve pandering to the left.

  12. I am very much pro-death penalty(especially in ILLinois!) but it seems to me this evil punk would already be dead if put in a regular cell. With Bubba as a cellmate. Mating…

  13. “I feel confident I could have gone much, much longer without food,” Roof wrote in the Feb. 16 follow-up letter.

    Prove it.

  14. It is bad enough, it is evil enough that he killed people for his sick dream of starting a race war. But the evil is amplified to a much higher level when you realize he spent time with his victims.

    Those church folk greeted him with warmth and caring and open hearts. With not a care of racial differences, they showed him only kindness and support.

    To burst in upon innocent people and gun them down is evil, yes. But to first spend time in friendship, to experience first the goodness of these people you despise before attacking them, this level of evil deserves a higher level retribution.

    If the prison staff were rude to him, this is nothing in the face of his evil. Were the to treat him with brutality, preventing his death so let to maintain his suffering longer, this would be acceptable too.

    Next time he goes on a hunger strike, I say we help him in his plan to slowly starve himself to death,

    • Just like a socialist in this country. They live here. Work and prosper here. Their kids play with our kids. And yet they actively strive to ruin our country.

      • Why aren’t you protesting the Governement murdering this innocent young man? Seriously why would we keep this evil POS around? What is that going to help? He needs to go straight to hell. People like you should be footing the bill for this guys incarceration as well as explaining to the victims family why he is not dead. He would of been executed minutes after the verdict in my world.

        • Your world only exists in your head. Just like roofs world. The rest of us will have to stumble along in the real world.

      • Yes, and they expect to be some of the ones in power, the elite. You see, in the final analysis it’s really always about power.

    • Any bets there are former slave overseers in his family line (I won’t say tree because his doesn’t fork) who enjoyed their extra privileges?

  15. Kill the prick.
    Eye for a eye.
    Worked in the old days, should work even better now.
    There is a way to appease the climate SJW’s, less animals mean less carbon footprint, right???

    • I’d be down for a grisly public hanging, ripped in half by large machines, being thrown into an arena with lions or any number of interesting methods. I mean, if it saves just one………….

      • A traditional short drop hanging. While wearing white and no hood.

        Pictures of him slowly choking to death while his bladder and bowels evacuate should be a healthy deterrent.

        • fine optics there, permanently deterred.
          someone here mentioned scaphism a while back.
          here it might be appropriate.

  17. Maybe we can have a TTAG shooting get together – with Roof as the target. We can save the taxpayers money and have a good time getting rid of some scum.
    Oh yes – there will be lunch and only he will go hungry.

  18. This POS is a text book example in making a case for expedited fast track executions. Once found guilty, the last thing anyone would hear about Roof would be a loud *POP* outside the back of the courthouse.

  19. Tainted his sentencing?? He MURDERED people in a church during bible study!!!! I view that as tainting it towards EXECUTING HIS STUPID ASS!!

    Everyone here who would volunteer to push the button marked “EXECUTE” raise their hands!

  20. If this shitbird thinks he’s got it rough with a little verbal harrassment in federal prison, maybe the Bureau of Prisons should arrange to loan him to Parris Island for a couple of weeks. Put him in correctional custody and let a few DIs test his stress levels. Then this delicate piece of whale dung would learn what verbal harrassment truly is. The DIs would have fun and the other prisoners in CC could arrange a blanket party for him. He’d be clamoring to get back to federal prison. Yeah, I know it’s just a fantasy…fun to think about. But the Marine Corps has enough problems with all the mama’s boys that are sent to boot camp by failed parents who want the Corps to belatedly make their son a man.

  21. Funny how all the anti-death penalty shills on here are suddenly singing a different tune because the person being executed is someone they don’t like.

    • I’m still opposed to the death penalty. It gives .gov, which I don’t trust, too much opportunity for abuse.

      In the case of a creature like roof I would put him in a bare concrete cell with a 24/7 light. A drain hole in the center of the cell. No bunk, tv, radio, no contact with the outside world. Twice a day he gets an MRE slid through a slot in the door. If for any reason a CO has to open the solid cell door he gets a blast of cs and the fire hose.

      And it would be a felony conviction for anyone to mention his name in the news or on the radio or on the internet.

      • You need to pay for it and you need to explain to the victims why this POS is still alive. Also if he hurts another person you need to be held liable for the results. When you are willing to do that then and only then will I even consider the death penalty off the table. BTW he was convicted by a jury of his peers, not the Governement. But keep repeating the lie.

        • A government prosecutor sought that death penalty. A government judge ordered that he be executed as punishment for the conviction. A government employee will carry out said sentence, after his appeals are exhausted.

          Since the prosecutor initiates this entire process, that seats the power of execution firmly within the grasp of the government and time and time again, we have found prosecutors to be less than ethical, especially in regard to the most serious cases. A win-at-all-costs attitude leads to many mistakes.

          I support the principle of the death penalty but our justice system is most certainly not up to the task of implementing it with fairness and impartiality. If it was, the Innocence Project would not exist.

    • I don’t think anyone “deserves” the death penalty. I believe even people as terrible as him are making decisions that are ultimately a result of their genetics and upbringing, neither of which they are ultimately responsible for.
      He should be incarcerated as a practical necessity for the safety of society.
      I’m open to arguments for the death penalty if it was shown to be an effective deterrent or if it was a practical necessity, but not because anyone deserves it.

      • In relatively few cases when guilt is overwhelming as in this particular case, the death penalty is appropriate. This was a heinous crime.

        If someone is intent on what this individual wanted, a race war, someone who believes they will be a “martyr ” for their cause, the death penalty would not serve as a deterrent. Very few people are deterred by the expected punishments of crimes. They hope to get away with it and face no penalty.

        It does not have to be a deterrent, it only has to be just and fair and reserved for the most despicable of human waste.

        What the death penalty does deter is repeated offenses. Hard to commit another crime when you are dead.

    • I’m very pro death penalty. I think he aught to be hung, drawn, and quartered. But… in this instance I think the best justice would be to Let all the homeboys in open pop rape him to death.

  23. I never understood the logic of a hunger strike:
    Prisoner: I hate you and I am going to starve myself to death.
    Me: Okay (eats prisoners french fries).

  24. That’s too bad he is starving himself… Yawnnnnnnnnnn. I have to go do a #2 now and go shooting. Please advise after he is dead so I don’t worry anymore about him… 🤣😂🍺🍺💥🎶🎸🇺🇸🇺🇸👍

  25. I agree with everyone here, but I do wish that the judge in the original case had not honored his wish to represent himself. It only guarantees that the appeals will go on and on forever. Not that it would have helped him; not a lawyer on earth that could have changed the outcome.

  26. I’m glad he went on a hunger strike… hopefully it saved the taxpayers some money on the cost of his food.

    Now only if he would go on an oxygen strike…

  27. I’ve read all comments in this thread to the time of this comment. Not a single word of support for roof or his actions.

    miner49er/vlad will show up claiming we all backed roofs actions in 3..2…1..

    • Nope he is going around the country to all of the Bernie rallies following his favorite communist.

    • TTAG did honor Dylan roof’s wishes by publishing his crazy, racist manifesto:

      The Truth About Guns › charles…Web resultsCharleston Church Attacker Dylann Roof’s Manifesto – The Truth About Guns

      • Nothing wrong with showing his manifesto. As long as we can see for ourselves what he wrote no one can tell us any different.

        We can show our children what is wrong with those things and teach them how to avoid people who echo those same thoughts. We must not shelter people from the evil thoughts of people like this, let it out in the sun so it can be disinfected.

        • Exactly. The public deserves to know whatever they want.

          I just knew Miner would try something tho… he tries so hard. Pretty sure he’s from r/SocialistRA.

  29. If he’s not physically diseased,open him up sans anesthesia and use him for organ transplants,put remains in a rendering plant or on open ground for the cultures and flies

  31. Hey there Dylann buddy, look out your window. Can you see all those white nationalists coming to spring out you yet?

  34. I don’t much care if he had to eat his own $#!t. He showed little care about the people he murdered, the American or the Confederate flag for that matter (I was born in Virginia, I have kin that died for both). He gave the anti-gun idiots one more reason to try to take them away from everyone else.

    He should be an organ donor on death row. I realize that sounds a bit harsh, but if you do the crime, you pay the cost. When more people pay the full cost for their crimes, maybe people who commit those crimes will decide its not worth it. (Tomorrow we need the left kidney…so some productive person in society can live longer.)

    Amen to Ark. Hang ’em high, harvest the useable organs and turn the rest into fertilizer.

    • they just need to make a mistake and let a prisoner take care of him already. Or just find an area with no surveillance and say he attacked a corrections officer, and the corrections officer accidentally stepped on his throat.

  36. Why is this punk getting air time? I had long forgotten about him until SOMEONE AT TTAG HAD TO REMIND ME HE EXISTS. Hes been found guilty and sentenced to death, wait for bulk garbage day and throw him in with the rest.

  37. “treated disproportionately harsh.”

    HOW? The only way this shitbird would be treated “disproportionately” harsh would be if he’s treated worse than child molesters, the only thing I can think of worst that someone like him.

  38. I don’t know why we care about hunger strikes or suicide watches. If someone wants to off himself, it saves on appeals costs and opens up a cell for somebody else to use. It’s a win-win-win in my book. It’s not like they’re withholding food or sending him on his own to the yard with a bunch of United Blood Nation members.

  40. We could help him along with this and just stop giving him food until he shrivels up and dies. I’m sure history will note his heroism.

    • not a victim… our justice system just caters to inhumane people by treating them humanely for the sake pretending it’s the moral thing to do. Don’t for one second believe that a single corrections office has any empathy for a single person of roof’s caliber. Willing to bet this coward has been slipped a razor a thousand times by now, and he can’t do it. That is why he didn’t off himself after his rampage. He is a coward.

  42. “I feel confident I could have gone longer without food”

    Okay, bet. Show me what you got kiddo. I’ll check back in a month *Slams door

    “…Just not worth being murdered over…”

    Did he just… I can’t even…

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