Dylann Storm Roof is the alleged killer of nine people on the evening of June 17, 2015, at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in downtown Charleston, South Carolina. He was captured the morning after the attack in Shelby, North Carolina, at a traffic stop on Route 74.
Dylann Storm Roof? Is that his real (birth) name?
"There's a storm coming...," of course, from
The Dark Knight Rises (2012). Colorado's Aurora, "red dawn," and James Holmes come to mind.
There's a storm coming, Mr. Wayne. You and your friends better batten down the hatches, because when it hits, you're all gonna wonder how you ever thought you could live so large and leave so little for the rest of us. - The Dark Knight Rises
What more does the moniker tell us? The simple explanations run in these directions.
Dylan: This is a Welsh name linked to the Celtic word for "sea." Also, it can be read as "Sea God" = Neptune, Poseidon. And there we go with the Trident, again.
Giant Neptune and his Trident on Hilton Head, South Carolina.
Storm: An occurrence of bad weather in which there is a lot of rain, snow, and often strong winds.
Roof:
This unusual and interesting name derives ultimately from the Old Germanic personal name "Hrodwulf", which is composed of the elements "hrod", meaning "renown" and "wulf", wolf. In Old Norse the contracted form was "Hrolfr", in Old Danish and Old Swedish "Rolf", and these personal names reached England first through their popularity with Scandinavian settlers before the Norman Conquest of 1066. The Normans thereafter introduced their own form of the name, generally found as "Rou" or "Roul" and often Latinized as "Rollo". There are more than twenty variants of the modern surname, ranging from "Rolf", "Rolfe", "Rolph" and "Roalfe" to "Rofe", "Roff", "Roffe", "Roof", "Rulf" and "Rule". Source.
But the middle and surname,
Storm Roof, suggests a neo-Nazi bent.
T. Peter Park has noted, via an email communique:
"Storm Roof" sounds like an attempted Anglicization of "Sturmruf," German for "Storm-Call." It recalls the original Nazi storm-troopers, the S.A. or "Sturmabteilung" ("Storm-Section"), and also the American white supremacist and neo-Nazi website "StormFront," as well as the line from the song "Tomorrow Belongs to Me!" from Cabaret, "But gather together to greet the storm--Tomorrow belongs to me!" All this, I suspect, suggests that "Dylan Storm Roof" (whatever his real name might turn out to be) is something more than just one more run-of-the-mill garden-variety Southern racist, but rather is "into" the far-right "hard stuff."
The Sturmabteilung symbol
Dylann Storm Roof appeared to hold some decidedly racist beliefs, and subscribed to displaying symbols reinforcing these stances. In a Facebook photo, Roof is seen frowning at the camera wearing a jacket with two flags: one representing Rhodesia and the other apartheid South Africa. Both were countries with white minority rule. (Rhodesia was in the country now known as Zimbabwe. After an international campaign against apartheid, South Africa began dismantling their policies in 1990.)
See more from Andrew W. Griffin, in this vein, here, "
Roof Shooter: Alleged gunman in Charleston massacre nostalgic for apartheid era?"
The church Roof allegedly attacked is one of the United States' oldest black churches. The senior pastor, the Rev. Clementa C. Pinckney, a state senator, was among the nine people killed. In the immediate aftermath, police sought a white male, later identified as Dylann Storm Roof.
Select past June 17ths:
1462 – Vlad III the Impaler attempts to assassinate Mehmed II (The Night Attack) forcing him to retreat from Wallachia.
1497 – Battle of Deptford Bridge: Forces under King Henry VII defeat troops led by Michael An Gof.
1565 – Matsunaga Hisahide assassinates the 13th Ashikaga shogun, Ashikaga Yoshiteru.
1775 – American Revolutionary War: Colonists inflict heavy casualties on British forces while losing the Battle of Bunker Hill.
1861 – American Civil War: Battle of Vienna, Virginia.
1863 – American Civil War: Battle of Aldie in the Gettysburg Campaign.
1876 – American Indian Wars: Battle of the Rosebud: One thousand five hundred Sioux and Cheyenne led by Crazy Horse beat back General George Crook's forces at Rosebud Creek in Montana Territory.
1877 – American Indian Wars: Battle of White Bird Canyon: The Nez Perce defeat the U.S. Cavalry at White Bird Canyon in the Idaho Territory.
1885 – The Statue of Liberty arrives in New York Harbor.
1933 – Union Station massacre: In Kansas City, Missouri, four FBI agents and captured fugitive Frank Nash are gunned down by gangsters attempting to free Nash.
1972 – Watergate scandal: Five White House operatives are arrested for burgling the offices of the Democratic National Committee, in an attempt by some members of the Republican party to illegally wiretap the opposition.
1994 – Following a televised low-speed highway chase, O. J. Simpson is arrested for the murders of his wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend Ronald Goldman.
As noted, June 17 is the anniversary of when the Statue of Liberty came to the USA. "Liberty" is a goddess named for and representing the concept Liberty has existed in many cultures, including classical examples dating from the Roman Empire to those representing national symbols such as the
American Columbia and its
Statue of Liberty.
Columbia has appeared before in mass shooting. One of the most obvious, of course, being Columbine, the name of the high school and today associated with the name of the massacre that happened there (Littleton, Colorado) on April 20, 1999. On February 1, 2003, the Space Shuttle Columbia on mission STS-107 disintegrated during reentry into the Earth's atmosphere, killing all seven astronauts aboard.
Now, we find that Dylann Storm Roof has his quota of Columbia-linked names in his unfolding story:
In February 2015, [Dylann Roof] attracted attention at the Columbiana Centre, a shopping mall, when, dressed all in black, he asked store employees "out of the ordinary questions" such as how many people were working and what time they would be leaving, according to a police report.
...
Roof’s current address is listed in public records as being in this rural speck of a town southeast of Columbia with an overwhelmingly black population.
...
From school records, Mr. Roof appears to have moved back and forth as a child between Richland County, which includes Columbia and Eastover, and nearby Lexington County to the west. He attended ninth grade twice: at White Knoll High School in Lexington in the 2008-9 school year and, the next school year, at White Knoll until February 2010, when he transferred to Dreher High School in Columbia.
...
Ms. Scott, who is black, said she was “scared to death” after hearing news reports that Mr. Roof wanted to kill black people. “My concern is that he’s saying he’s out to kill black people,” she said, unaware that he had been arrested. “We’re the closest ones to him.”
She added that her grandmother had called her Thursday morning and told her: “Get out of that bed. That boy was from Garners Ferry,” the name of the street where she and Mr. Roof lived. Source.
Roof was apprehended about 11 a.m. on June 18, 2015, after a motorist spotted his black Hyundai Elantra, which displays an apartheid “Confederate States of America” license plate on the front bumper, while driving near Shelby, North Carolina.
In an odd twist, the Supreme Court ruled
Thursday, June 18, 2015, that Texas could refuse to offer specialty Confederate flag license plates that had been requested by the Sons of Confederate Veterans.
[Debbie] Dills, driving from her home in south Gastonia into work, first spotted [Dylann] Roof on U.S. 74 near Sparrow Springs Road in Gastonia [North Carolina].
…
“She called me when she was at the exit for Kings Mountain on Highway 74,” [her boss Todd] Frady said. “I called Shane Davis, then he called Shelby PD.”
According to Dills and Frady, Shelby Police Department had officers near the Shelby Ingles location on U.S. 74/West Dixon Boulevard and Polkville Road. Just 20 short minutes after Dills’ initial call to her boss, Shelby police pulled Roof over near Plato Lee Road.
After initially spotting Roof's car in south Gastonia, she said she followed Roof’s car to the Kings Mountain exit on Bypass 74, then exited to head to work at the florist shop. Something didn’t feel right to her, so she made a quick right turn onto Kings Street and headed back to the bypass and traveled west to attempt to catch up to Roof to provide more details.
She caught up with Roof’s Hyundai, again, near the Wal-Mart in Shelby and continued to follow him, while she stayed on the phone with Frady. She saw Shelby police begin to follow Roof at the Ingles on U.S. 74 and Polkville Road. She stayed behind, then knowing the situation was under control, she made a U-turn at Cleveland Funeral Services, but seemed to still want to see the process all the way through.
When she U-turned, again, she saw flashing blue lights and Shelby Police officers lining the side of West Dixon Boulevard with Roof pulled over and apprehended. Source.
All of this happened near and/or in Shelby.
Shelby, North Carolina?
Perhaps the late James
Shelby Downard,
Synchromysticism's Godfather, is having a little nod about that twilight language sidetrip?
And the names of the victims?
All of the victims were black, six women and three men. Eight died at the scene, while the ninth, Daniel Simmons, died in the hospital. They were all killed by gunshots fired at close range. A five-year-old child played death to stay alive. One other person was wounded, but survived. Three survived, in total. The fatalities were identified as:
Cynthia Marie Graham Hurd, 54, a Bible study member, public library employee and sister of former North Carolina State Senator Malcom Graham
Susie Jackson, 87, a Bible study member
Ethel Lee Lance, 70, a 30-year church sexton
Depayne Middleton, 49, a Bible study member
Clementa C. Pinckney, 41, church pastor and South Carolina State Senator
Myra Thompson, 59, a Bible study member
Tywanza Sanders, 26, a Bible study member and 2014 college graduate from Allen University
Daniel Simmons, 74, a reverend at the church
Sharonda Singleton, 45, a reverend at the church and track coach for Goose Creek High School
Why would Roof pick the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church?
There is no doubt that if you wanted to hit at the heart of the black church in America, the location to attack would be "Mother Emanuel." Hillary Clinton was there shortly before the shootings. Jef Bush was scheduled to visit, but cancelled after the killings.
The Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church is located at 110 Calhoun Street, Charleston, South Carolina.
"Mother Emanuel" A.M.E. Church History
The history of Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church reflects the development of religious institutions for African Americans in Charleston. Dating back to the fall of 1787 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Richard Allen founded the Free African Society, adhering to the Doctrines of Methodism established by John Wesley. In 1816, black members of Charleston's Methodist Episcopal church withdrew over disputed burial ground, and under the leadership of Morris Brown. The Rev. Morris Brown organized a church of persons of color and sought to have it affiliated with Allen's church. Three churches arose under the Free African Society and were named the "Bethel Circuit". One of the Circuit churches was located in the suburbs of Ansonborough, Hampstead, and Cow Alley, now known as Philadelphia Alley in the French Quarters of Charleston. Emanuel's congregation grew out of the Hampstead Church, located at Reid and Hanover Streets.
In 1822 the church was investigated for its involvement with a planned slave revolt. Denmark Vesey, one of the church's founders, organized a major slave uprising in Charleston. Vesey was raised in slavery in the Virgin Islands among newly imported Africans. He was the personal servant of slavetrader Captain Joseph Vesey, who settled in Charleston in 1783. Beginning in December 1821, Vesey began to organize a slave rebellion, but authorities were informed of the plot before it could take place. The plot created mass hysteria throughout the Carolinas and the South. Brown, suspected but never convicted of knowledge of the plot, went north to Philadelphia where he eventually became the second bishop of the AME denomination.
During the Vesey controversy, the AME church was burned. Worship services continued after the church was rebuilt until 1834 when all black churches were outlawed. The congregation continued the tradition of the African church by worshipping underground until 1865 when it was formally reorganized, and the name Emanuel was adopted, meaning "God with us". The wooden two-story church that was built on the present site in 1872 was destroyed by the devastating earthquake of August 31, 1886. The present edifice was completed in 1891 under the pastorate of the Rev. L. Ruffin Nichols. The magnificent brick structure with encircling marble panels was restored, redecorated and stuccoed during the years of 1949-51 under the leadership of the Rev. Frank R. Veal. The bodies of the Rev. Nichols and his wife were exhumed and entomed in the base of the steeple so that they may forever be with the Emanuel that they helped to nurture. Source.
It is worthy of noting that Jim Brandon, an associate of James Shelby Downard, began writing me several months ago about the high frequency of people with the name
Nichols (and
related crypto-Nick forms) showing up as a significant name in some of these sync events.
Brandon wrote me in 2012, that he "wanted to add...to the Names of Power list – Nicholas and permutations (from Old Nick and Santa Claus up)...."
So, in the news of the last two days, here it develops that the Mother Emanuel serves as an actual
tomb for the deceased Reverend Nichols and his wife.
Brandon and I were also talking about places to watch, and on November 14, 2014, he penned this:
Charleston, the war sparking point at pentagonal Ft Sumter, we also of course know as the starting place of the Scottish Rite, being on latitude 33 degrees.
The War Between the States, the Civil War, began in Charleston, lest we forget in the midst of all this wall-to-wall coverage of Dylann Roof. The Scottish Rite of Freemasonry, Southern Jurisdiction, USA, of Albert Pike note, began there too.
Very War Between The States: Roommate Dalton Tyler quoted Dylann Storm Roof. “He was big into segregation and other stuff,” Tyler told ABC News. “He said he wanted to start a civil war. He said he was going to do something like that and then kill himself.”
Very Charlie Manson (
Aquarius on television): Dylann Roof confessed to authorities to shooting and killing nine people this week at a historically black Charleston, South Carolina, church, two law enforcement officials said. One of the officials said that Roof, who is white, told investigators that he wanted to start a race war, reported CNN.
And more to come on another day....
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See also
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