by Alex Fontana
The facts about Dylann "Storm(front)" Roof speak for themselves:
At twenty-one years old, introverted, withdrawn, a loner and a drug user, looking like an emaciated Macaulay Culkin, Roof had exhibited deviant social behaviour and was twice arrested, once for trespassing and once for a drug charge (Buprenorphine was the drug listed in some accounts). Roof came from a broken family; he was unemployed, and probably from a low-socioeconomic background. He seemed to lack a proper support network and social circle – which caused him to feel isolated, hopeless, lonely, frustrated, and daunted by an uncertain future.
From the testimony of friends and survivors of his homicidal "lashing out" at an AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina, and from other sources of information – including photographs of him wearing apartheid era patches – Roof apparently espoused ‘white supremacist ideology.’ Reportedly he told one of the survivors, “I have to do it. You rape our women and you’re taking over the country.”
