Dylan Roof Research Papers

On June 17, 2015, 21-year-old Dylann Roof shot and killed 9 people in Charleston, South Carolina. While this act alone is shocking enough, it wasn’t the worst of it. Roof targeted members of an African American church group. He walked into the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church where he was welcomed by the members. Roof asked to speak with the pastor and spent about an hour with the church members who were having a bible study. When the bible study was close to ending, Roof opened fire on the pastor and the other church members. Roof shot and killed eight people at the scene, and one died later in the hospital from their injuries. Roof spared the life of one church member telling him that he wasn’t going to kill him so that he could

Roof did admit that the shooting was racially motivated. Investigators found writings online by Roof that talk about his views of white supremacy. Roof also wrote a letter from jail stating his intentions. For the first stages of his trial, he represented himself. He was very quiet and showed no remorse. He never offered an apology or much of an explanation. He only stated that he felt like he needed to do it and still feels that way. Roof became the first person in the United States to be sentenced to death for hate crimes.
When profiling this offender, inductive reasoning would be a good approach. Inductive methods of profiling rely on information gathered from other similar crimes (Bartol & Bartol, 2010). The information used comes from other crimes scenes, police reports, psychological evaluations, and victimology reports. When using inductive reasoning, the profiler must first start with a hypothesis, and then information is gathered to support or reject the hypothesis. This type of profiling focuses on the “typical” offender for the type of crime they committed (Bartol & Bartol,

Using inductive reasoning rather than deductive reasoning will allow the profilers to develop hypotheses which will guide them in the right direction when looking for details about Roof’s life and what led him to commit such a crime. Using the idiographic method to investigate will help them to focus on specific characteristics of Roof’s life that will aid in their investigation, rather than relying on general information about other mass shooters. Lastly, using the actuarial method will allow the investigators to use statistics and facts from other cases to guide them and help them to avoid cognitive bias and arbitrary decisions (Bartol & Bartol,