Accused Emanuel AME shooter Dylann Roof was assaulted by an inmate inside the Charleston County jail Thursday morning, according to sheriff’s officials.
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A SC prosecutor said Thursday, Sept. 3, 2015, that she will seek the death penalty for Roof, who is charged with killing nine black churchgoers in Charleston.
Dylann Roof, 22, was outside his cell and getting ready to shower at the North Charleston jail where he is detained when the assault occurred, the sheriff said. Eric Watson said Stafford used his hands, no other weapons Charleston County Sheriff Al Cannon is holding an early afternoon news conference to discuss the assault.
The prison is looking into why Stafford was able to get into the area when he was supposed to be on the other side of a locked door.
Cannon said that during the time of the attack, one detention officer assigned to the unit had been on a break while another had been called to deliver toilet paper to a different cell, AP reported.
Roof faces the death penalty for the June 2015 shooting that killed nine people, including Rev. Clementa Pinckney, at the historic black church, known as “Mother Emanuel” African Methodist Episcopal Church. Roof suffered only bruises before officers stopped the attack.
Stafford is being held at the jail for assault and robbery charges. “He assaulted (Roof) for no reason”, Cannon said.
Cannon said there was no concrete indication that the attack was racially motivated “beyond the obvious speculation that we would all have given the nature of the situation”. “We do things day in, day out, and they become routine, and as a result of that, it’s sometimes easy to become complacent”. He pled not guilty previous year on 33 counts, including federal hate crime and firearm charges.
His federal trial is set for November while his state trial is set for next year. He faces the death penalty in upcoming trials in federal and state courts.
His state and federal attorneys have said he is willing to plead guilty in exchange for a life sentence.
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He went to jail and may face the death penalty, though his defense team is scrambling to take that option off of the table.
