Stories tagged with: hate crimes

• 'Go see the movie,' Emanuel massacre survivor urges

  by Diana Chandler, posted Monday, June 10, 2019 (3 years ago)

  

  CHARLESTON, S.C. (BP) -- Let someone walk into Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church with a backpack and Polly Sheppard relives June 17, 2015. That's when white supremacist Dylann Roof walked in.

  "Only in that church. Other churches I can sit and be calm," Sheppard told Baptist Press in advance of the documentary film "Emanuel." "But when I go to Emanuel and they come in with a backpack and anything like that, I say it's somebody coming in to do harm, but it doesn't have to be." Read More

• Hate crime charges added in La. church arsons

  by Diana Chandler, posted Tuesday, April 16, 2019 (3 years ago)

  

  Screen capture from Facebook

  OPELOUSAS, La. (BP) -- Hate crime charges have been filed against a white man accused of arson that destroyed three Louisiana black Baptist churches more than a century old.

  Holden Matthews, 21, pleaded not guilty April 15 to the charges in St. Landry Parish Criminal Court, according to the St. Landry Parish Clerk of Court's office. Matthews is charged with three counts of hate crimes, two counts of simple arson of a religious building and one count of aggravated arson of a religious building, and was denied bond. Read More

• Repent & be saved, 'Emanuel 9' families urge Roof

  by Diana Chandler, posted Wednesday, January 11, 2017 (5 years ago)

  

  ABC Nightly News screen capture

  CHARLESTON, S.C. (BP) -- Convicted murderer Dylann Roof should repent of the massacre of nine people he killed at Mother Emanuel church, the victims' survivors said after a jury recommended the death penalty Jan. 10.

  "Judgment day is coming sooner for him than what he expected," Denise Quarles, daughter of massacre victim Myra Thompson, said on ABC News after the jury's decision was announced. "He definitely needs to [repent]." Her father and Thompson's widow Anthony Thompson said "yes" in agreement. Read More