BBC News interviewed two of Dylann Roof's friends. The one who spoke the most was twenty-one-year old Christon Scriven, an African American. He said he never heard Dylann say anything racist, that they used to hang out together, even crash at the same place. He also said Roof had mentioned in passing that he wanted to shoot up UCA in Charleston which was about 3 miles up the street from the church.
Here's a portion of the interview below the squiggle along with the video:
BBC: What's your reaction to the news about Dylann?
CHRISTON: That he actually did everything he said he was going to do. And, I don't feel no different today than I felt about him before he did this stuff. Like I said, who's to say Dylann was in his right mind? Nobody knows what anybody go [sic] through?
BBC: Was Dylann ignorant? Was he racist?
CHRISTON: No. Like everybody's making him out to be racist, but here I am in front of you today as a black man and telling you I look at him no different today than what I looked at him last week. Because he never said anything racist to me. Never treated me any different than he treated Justin. (turns to friend sitting next to him on the sofa)"
BBC: You said at the beginning of the interview that at one point he might have said something but you didn't remember it? What did you mean by that?
CHRISTON: Like ah...like he told that he was not---that church was not his primary target at all. That's why my heart goes out to those nine families because you guys weren't the targets.
BBC: What does that mean?
CHRISTON: He wanted to shoot that school up. UCA--University of Charleston. It's three miles up the street from that church.
BBC: He-he told you--
CHRISTON: Yeah--
BBC: He wanted to attack the school?
CHRISTON: The school (he says this at the same time as the interviewer) Yeah he had no---he had no intentions of harming those people in that church."
I'm sorry, Christon, but you obviously
didn't know shit about your friend. Didn't know about all the
racist selfies he took and the horrid manifesto he wrote. And what about the eye-witness's friend who said Roof made a point of telling one of his victims that black people were taking over the world, and raping their women, and that they needed "to go"?
He was not your friend Christon. At the very least he was a deviant, psychopathic acquaintance who harbored a great amount of seething hatred against you and people like you. I gather this is a real life case of Do The Right Thing where the racist Pino played by John Turturro separated Magic Johnson from the rest of his race as being "more than black." (rolling eyes) Looks like he viewed you as "more than black" too, Christon. You're just lucky he didn't snap and shoot you during one of his off moments.
I know a lot of times our friends say crazy stuff, but if a friend of mine said "I want to shoot the university up and they all got seven days to live," I would take it seriously.
For the complete interview, watch the video.
Video won't show up, so he's the link:
Here's another video interview with The Telegraph. Here's an excerpt from the article:
A police affidavit released Friday accused Roof of shooting all nine victims multiple times, and making a "racially inflammatory statement" as he stood over an unnamed survivor.
But Mr Scriven claims that Roof never made any racist remarks around him.
"My opinion about Dylann doesn't change, my feelings about him doesn't change. I still love him as a friend, no matter what," Mr Scriven said.
In this interview, Scriven says that at one point he and his friends hid Dylann's gun from him. So apparently something in him was worried. Why he didn't alert anyone is beyond me.