Suspected shooter faces families
CHARLESTON, S.C. — Felecia Sanders survived the attack on her Bible study group by pretending to be dead, but lost her son Tywanza.
On Friday, she came face to face with the alleged shooter as she had the night of the slaughter.
“We welcomed you Wednesday night in our Bible study with open arms,” Sanders told Dylann Storm Roof, who appeared via video conference for a bond hearing. “You have killed some of the most beautifulest people that I know. Every fiber in my body hurts ... and I’ll never be the same.”
“Tywanza was my hero.”
And then Sanders did something remarkable: She forgave the young man who has been charged with nine counts of murder for the bloody attack at the historic Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church.
“As we said in Bible study, we enjoyed you, but may God have mercy on you,” she said.
Sanders was one of several family members of victims to be given a chance to address the court during Roof’s bond hearing. Others also forgave him. They advised him to repent for his sins, and asked for God’s mercy on his soul. One even told Roof to repent and confess, and “you’ll be OK.”
Hours after the bond hearing, thousands of people filled a basketball arena for a community vigil for the victims. Those in attendance were white and black, young and old.
“When I was a child, we still had Jim Crow segregation and I’m so thankful that it’s so hard for my children to believe that this area was so segregated,” said Lynda Scharborough, a white woman who brought her 5-year-old grandson to the vigil. She explained what happened at the church to her grandchild, in part because his summer camp across the street was closed for the week after the shooting.
“So he knows that bad part and we wanted him to see the good part, that everybody can come together even when something so horrible happens,” Scharborough said.
A few rows away, Stella Mazyck, who is black, balanced her 4-year-old granddaughter Zarhiauna on her knee. Mazyck, 67, came with her children and grandchildren to “spread a little love.”
“My job is I feel is that I need to show a good example for them because they are my next generation,” Mazyck said.
The victims included the Rev. Clementa Pinckney, a state senator who doubled as the church’s lead pastor, and eight others who played multiple roles in their families and communities: ministers and coaches, teachers and a librarian, counselors and choir singers and the elderly sexton who made sure the church was kept clean.
A police affidavit released Friday accused Roof of shooting all nine multiple times, and making a “racially inflammatory statement” as he stood over an unidentified survivor.
The families are determined not to respond in kind, said Alana Simmons, who lost her grandfather, the Rev. Daniel Simmons.
“Although my grandfather and the other victims died at the hands of hate, this is proof — everyone’s plea for your soul is proof they lived in love and their legacies will live in love, so hate won’t win,” she said.
