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Wolf
Roof Confesses, Wanted to start Race War; NAACP Leaders Calls Church Massacre Hate Crime, Act of Racial Terrorism; Shooting Raises Confederate Flag Controversy. Aired 1:30-2p ET
Aired June 19, 2015 - 13:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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[13:31:51] WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome back to our viewers in the United States and around the world. I'm Wolf Blitzer, reporting from Washington.
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BLITZER: Officials now say he confessed to the crime, said he wanted to start a race war here in the United States. Here are some of the latest developments on the church massacre in Charleston, South Carolina. Law enforcement officials tell CNN Dylann Roof admit he is opened fires on worshippers at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church. A bond hearing for Roof is scheduled about 30 minutes from now. Police say he has been charged with nine counts of murder and possession of a firearm during the commission of a violent crime.
CNN's Evan Perez has learned new details about the gun used in the shooting. Law enforcement officials tell CNN Roof purchased the weapon at a Charleston gun store in April.
The confessed gunman's twisted motive to start a so-called race war in the United States seems to have had an opposite effect. The tragedy has united people in Charleston and indeed around the country in grief, in sadness, but also there's a spirit of hope and resilience. Still, the shooting once again highlights lingering racial tensions and divisions in the United States.
TV comedian Jon Stewart dispensed with his usual jokes to discuss the issue on "The Daily Show."
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JON STEWART, HOST, THE DAILY SHOW: I honestly have nothing, other than just sadness, once again, that we have to peer into the abyss of the depraved violence we do to each other in the nexus of just a gaping racial wound that will not heal, yet we pretend doesn't exist. And I'm confident, though, that by acknowledging it, by staring into that and seeing it for what it is we still won't do jack (EXPLETIVE DELETED). (END VIDEO CLIP)
BLITZER: Joining us from Charleston is the NAACP president, Cornell Brooks.
Cornell, thanks very much for joining us. Thanks also for your powerful words in the last hour, which our viewers here in United States and around the world watched.
You've called this church massacre a hate crime, an act of racial terrorism. In your words, why do you think it's important, first of all, to label it an act of racial terrorism?
CORNELL WILLIAM BROOKS, PRESIDENT, NAACP: Well, Wolf, first of all, again, let me extend my condolences and prayers on behalf of the entire NAACP family to the family of Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church. We call it an act of racial terrorism and a hate crime because the impulse and the inspiration for this crime was racial animus, hatred. The pastor was asked for by name. The church is embossed, emblazoned with "Emanuel Baptist Church." The shooter said he had to do this, he came to kill black people. The point here is it is a hate crime in which not merely African-Americans are victims, America is a victim because we, our values were the subject of this crime. This was a crime that occurred in moments but be clear, the crime in a sense was planned, formed, over some longer period of time in some atmosphere of racial animus. And so this is a hate crime. Let's be clear. This is not merely a mass shooting but some deranged gunman. This was a shooting inside of a church in which African-Americans were targeted and a crime in which all of America was hit. That's what it is and we can't deny it.
[13:35:50] BLITZER: Cornell, we're decades after the civil rights movement, as all of us know. We now have an African-American president in the White House. The first family in the White House, African-American, and an African-American attorney general, secretary of Homeland Security, but we still have major problems involving race in this country. What's it going to take to fix it?
BROOKS: Well, what it will take is for us to make a serious and ongoing long-standing commitment to address this form of bias. That means a number of things. One, fundamentally, morally speaking, we have to address the atmosphere in which this crime was created. We have a young man wearing not the flag of south Africa under Nelson Mandela but the flag of apartheid, south Africa, and the flag of Rhodesia wearing a -- I should say driving a car with a Confederate Flag emblem on it. The point being here this crime was birthed in racial animus. We have to address that. I believe now is the time for us to look at the tools that the Justice Department has in terms of addressing crimes like this. Three, we have to organize at the ground and grass-roots level to respond to challenges like this. We're looking to our churches, our houses of faith and the local NAACP to respond after the crisis. We have to engage our houses of faith and participate in the local newspaper before the crisis. Lastly, let's be clear here. This is a moment of moral awakening. The president has set a strong tone, so has the attorney general, so have clergy leaders across the country but let's not respond with hand- wringing and tears only. Let's respond with a sense of resolve and determination that this kind of thing cannot happen again. You cannot target parishioners, students of scripture in a church because they're African-American. That is unacceptable. It's morally incomprehensible and runs roughshod over our values.
BLITZER: Cornell, I want you to stand by. I want to continue this conversation.
There's a lot more to discuss specific steps that all of us as Americans need to think about right now, need to do to fix this problem here in the United States. Much more with Cornell William Brooks, the president and CEO of the NAACP when we come back.
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[13:41:55] BLITZER: The American flag at half-staff at the South Carolina capital, as is the South Carolina state flag. But even after a mass killing at the hands of a white supremacist who wanted to start a race war in the United States, the Confederate Flag on the grounds of the state capital, that Confederate Flag is still flying high nearby. It's been a source of major controversy for the state.
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UNIDENTIFIED CNN CORRESPONDENT: Is it time to stop flying the Confederate Flag?
SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM, (R), SOUTH CAROLINA: Well, at the end of the day, it's time for people in South Carolina -- to revisit that decision, would be fine with me. But this is part of who we are, the flag represents to some people a Civil War and that was the symbol of one side to others. It's a racist symbol. And it's been used by people, it's been used in a racist way.
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BLITZER: Cornell William Brooks is still with us. He's the president and CEO of the NAACP.
What do you make of what you hear from those like Senator Lindsey Graham and others who say it's part of the American history, that Confederate Flag, and a lot of families, especially in the south and South Carolina they have great grandparents who were part of that history, why not let it fly?
BROOKS: Well, here's what I would say. Let me note that flying the Confederate Flag at half mast is a full blown contradiction. The flag needs to come down. Like the Senator, I grew up in South Carolina. I'm from here and that flag represents bias, bigotry and a long tradition of exclusion. There are a great many people who trace their lineage to the civil war, to the confederacy. That's a matter of the family album. It's not a matter of a flag flying in our state capital that represents exclusion. So to companies all across the country who want to locate in a state that's welcoming, that flag does not suggest will come. There's another flag that flies atop the dome of the capital, the American flag, the red, white, and blue flag, that's the flag we should be waving. That's the flag we should be celebrating. Not a flag that represents exclusion.
BLITZER: So you don't even want the Confederate Flag on the state grounds to be flying at half-staff right now?
BROOKS: Not at all. Not at all. The Confederate Flag is alienating and exclusionary and hateful for not only people in the state of South Carolina but all across the country. It should not be flying whatsoever. Our South Carolina state conference of the NAACP for years, for years has been pressing for businesses to boycott the state, for tourists to boycott the state. So we're at a point now where people on the left side of the aisle, right side of the aisle, Democrats, Republicans, really have to ask themselves, when we have a shooter who has the flag of Rhodesia and the emblem of the Confederate Flag as symbols of his mind set, and this shooter walks into our churches, assassinates nine people as they study God's scripture, is that the flag we need to be waving? Is that the flag that's representative and emblematic and illustrative of our values? I think not.
[13:45:13] BLITZER: Cornell, for a lot of people the massacre in Charleston brought back memories of the 1963 church bombing that killed four little girls in Birmingham, Alabama. We're showing our viewers some video from those awful days in 1963. The fact that, as you point out, a church once again the target of this senseless, racist act, it's so poignant, and it's hard to believe that there are haters that not only spew words like this but actually are willing to go out and kill people.
BROOKS: So, Wolf, as an administer in the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church, I taught Wednesday night Bible study for years and it is a tradition in such a Bible study to welcome a stranger in. So this young man has undoubtedly the hand of fellowship as well as an open Bible and brought to the table for discussion and teaching in terms of the scripture. The fact that he would put down a Bible and take up a gun to kill nine people is incomprehensible and it evokes the tragedy of the bombing of the church in Birmingham in that in that instance African-Americans were targeted. Here African-Americans were targeted. But be clear as I've said time and time again. Our values were victimized. That's not who we are as a country. So this invokes an ugly racial past but I'll note here in the same way the that the little girls lost their lives in the 16th street church in Birmingham, in the same way that that inspired the civil rights movement, in a similar fashion, be clear, people will be inspired and motivated and become more determined to bring about racial healing in this country. So you'll see more people in church on Sunday. More people in Wednesday night Bible study than before this event happened. I believe that's who we are as a country. We're not going to be intimidated by this kind of racist ideology, no matter how it's put forth, even at the point of a gun. That's simply not who we are as a country.
BLITZER: Cornell William Brooks is president and CEO of the NAACP.
Cornell, thanks for joining us.
BROOKS: Thank you, Wolf. BLITZER: Up next, we'll have more on a symbol of hate or a symbol of
history. More discussion on whether that Confederate Flag should be taken down and abandoned. Our own Danny Cevallos has some serious thoughts on what's going on.
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[13:50:07] BLITZER: Before the break, we were discussing the Confederate Flag, a major controversy right now especially in South Carolina.
CNN legal analyst, Danny Cevallos, is joining us.
Danny, you've written an op-ed on this topic for CNN.com, and I encourage our viewers to read it. But you say it's time for this flag to come down completely. Explain your thoughts.
DANNY CEVALLOS, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Wolf, the government has free speech rights. The government can free speak, and not only can it speak, it can espouse any particular program that it likes. So because this flag was erected as a result of a work of the legislature, it appears that it is existence on the capitol grounds is at least lawful. But that doesn't necessarily mean that it is right. So in a case like this where there's so much evidence that the Confederate Flag stands not for independence, not rebellion or southern pride but more about slavery, the government should take this flag down.
BLITZER: You heard Cornell William Brooks, president of the NAACP, said a few minutes ago he doesn't want this Confederate flag on the grounds to be flying at half-staff as a symbol of mourning. He wants it to go away completely. Do you agree with him?
CEVALLOS: First, he can't fly it at half mass. It's not designed that way. It's not a traditional flag. It appears more like a work of art that was commissioned and authorized by the legislature. From what I understand, you're not even able to fly it at half-mass because it doesn't have a pulley system. The options are either take it down by work of the legislature or leave it up. And if those are the choices, it seems to me the general consensus is, it should probably come down.
BLITZER: What do you say to the defenders of that flag?
CEVALLOS: Well, there are people who say that the flag -- and I confess, I thought it had a dual role, one that represented independence and rebellion and the scourge of slavery. If the government is going to speak, it should choose symbols that the citizens as a whole will agree upon. This just isn't one of those symbols.
BLITZER: Danny Cevallos is our CNN legal analyst. He's got an important article at CNN.com, an op-ed, I recommend our viewers to go ahead and read it.
Danny, thanks for joining us. CEVALLOS: Thank you.
BLITZER: That's it for me. I'll be back later today at 5:00 p.m. eastern in "The Situation Room."
Dylann Roof, accused of the AME Church massacre, is expected in court in just a few minutes. CNN's special live coverage will continue right after a quick break.
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ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.
[13:52:00] ANA CABRERA, CNN ANCHOR: Hello and thank you for joining us on this Friday. I'm Ana Cabrera, with CNN's breaking news in Charleston, South Carolina.
We will be going there live shortly where the community is in mourning after this man who will face a bond hearing at any moment now committed one of the most violent and cowardly killings in recent history. And we'll bring you his first court appearance as soon as that gets under way.
Now, we're told by authorities that Dylann Roof admitted that he killed nine people with a handgun that he says he bought himself and then killed nine innocent people. But why? Apparently, this ninth- grade dropout wanted to start a race war. That's the explanation he gave to investigators. And we're told that during the massacre, as one man pleaded with his life. Roof said the following words, he said, "No, you've raped our women and you are taking over the country. I have to do what I have to do." His goal, to kill black people.
His roommate telling "ABC News" Roof was, quote, "big into segregation."
And now the national president of the NAACP stepping in front of the cameras today with this to say.
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BROOKS: We've seen people come all across the country because they care and because they love and because they refuse to allow this one racist murderer in our midst to define our values. This was an act of racial terrorism and must be treated as such.
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CABRERA: I want to bring in CNN's Martin Savidge who is outside the jail this afternoon.
Roof is appearing video link, we're told. Why is that? Is that for his safety?
MARTIN SAVIDGE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Security reasons. That's the way they do it with all of the suspects who are appearing at this particular bond hearing, a video link. We've been watching the family members. Many of them plan to be
inside the courtroom. It's expected at some point the judge will give them an opportunity to speak and, no doubt, it is going to be an incredibly powerful moment when that happens.
In fact, much of this courtroom is likely to be taken up by victim family members. There's an overflow section where people want to watch and see what happens here and it's going to be allowed that a camera is inside so the public can see it as well.
This is a standard proceeding and bond is likely to be denied essentially because the judge in this case, the magistrate, doesn't have an authority to set bond when it comes to a crime as serious as murder. Remember, there are nine counts of murder now against Dylann Roof. So we know the outcome, we just don't know what's going to take place inside, given all the grief all this community is feeling. And many are focused on this courtroom now -- Ana?
CABRERA: And speaking of that grief, we understand there will be a vigil this evening for the nine worshippers who were killed in that Bible study class. What more can you tell us about that?
SAVIDGE: This is going to be the chance for the community outpouring.
