Charleston shooter鈥檚 manifesto reveals hate group helped to radicalize him
Today, we found out more about how the suspected Charleston church shooter, 21-year-old Dylann Storm Roof, became a violent racist extremist at such a young age.
Today, we found out more about how the suspected Charleston church shooter, 21-year-old Dylann Storm Roof, became a violent racist extremist at such a young age.
On his website, Roof left a in which he identifies himself as a white nationalist and says he was 鈥渢ruly awakened鈥 to his beliefs after reading the online propaganda of the , a notorious, racist hate group.
鈥淚 have no choice,鈥 he writes. 鈥淪omeone has to have the bravery to take it to the real world, and I guess that has to be me.鈥
We鈥檙e not surprised.
Roof fits the profile of the lone wolf terrorist radicalized in the echo chamber of racist websites that increasingly promote a global white nationalist agenda. In his manifesto, Roof wrote that he began researching 鈥渂lack聽on White鈥 crime after the Trayvon Martin incident and found 鈥減ages upon pages of these brutal black聽on White murders,鈥 then discovered the 鈥渟ame things were happening鈥 in Western European countries.聽
This is the kind of propaganda used by hate groups to push a 鈥渨hite genocide鈥 narrative, the idea that white people are under attack by people of color across the world.
Recently, we released an , the largest white supremacist website in the world with 300,000 registered users, two-thirds of whom are Americans. Its users have murdered nearly 100 people in the past five years.
This spring, we issued a like Roof who commit acts of terror. We found that a domestic terror attack or foiled plot occurred every 34 days over the last six years.
With your support, we鈥檙e working closely with law enforcement at every level to combat this threat and are advising federal anti-terror officials as part of a council of experts.
We鈥檒l continue to provide updates as we find out more. In the meantime, you can follow the news and our analysis as it happens on , and .