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When Roof was led outside the Shelby Police Department on Thursday, he was photographed in a bulletproof vest. He was shown in the vest again later that day when he was being ushered onto a plane for extradition back to South Carolina. DeRay McKesson, a key Black Lives Matter organizer, was among those expressing frustration with the steps being taken to protect the suspect from Jack Ruby–style assassination.This is heartrending, and horrifying. — Jerrad Peters (@jerradpeters)June 18, 2015
(Others online were quick to point out that the cops occasionally give high-profile suspects bulletproof vests, as they did in the case of Lee Boyd Malvo after the 2002 Beltway sniper attacks.)But in all the furor over Roof's treatment, no detail was quite as provocative as the news that police in Shelby gave the unemployed former landscaper a meal from Burger King shortly after taking him into custody. The Charlotte Observer mentioned the meal in a piece that ran Friday—Shelby Police Chief Jeff Ledford mentioned to the press that after Roof complained that he hadn't had a meal in a while, the cops got him some BK—but as often happens in an age when the internet is actually impossible to keep up with, the nugget wasn't seized upon by social media activists until days later.They put Dylann in a bulletproof vest as he walked to the police car. Watch whiteness work. — deray mckesson (@deray)June 18, 2015
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It does sound like a generous meal for a guy who, the previous night, had reportedly waited until the parishioners of Emanuel AME bowed their heads in prayer to pull out his gun and say something along the lines of, "I'll give you something to pray about!" as he opened fire on them.On Tuesday, possibly in response to the uproar, Shelby police released the footage of Roof's arrest as captured by the dash cams mounted inside their officers' cruisers:Dylann Roof got Burger King after his arrest SO HIS SENTENCE STARTED EARLY, THAT FOOD IS TERRIBLE HAHAHA JK WE LIVE IN A RACIST NIGHTMARE.
— Caitlin Gill (@ROBOTCAITLIN)June 22, 2015
It's clear the 21-year-old is not exactly being treated roughly. The three-and-a-half minute video begins with a handful of cops approaching the car with their guns drawn. The first officer walks up to the driver's side window with caution, but when there's no apparent conflict, the other officers holster their weapons and seem to chill out in a matter of seconds.Roof exits his car willingly, and cooperates as officers cuff him and give him a quick pat down. Then he's walked over to a police cruiser, and the most forceful moment comes starting around the 2:10 mark, when he's pressed up against a cruiser with authority, and subjected to a more forceful and thorough search.None of this could be described as "brutal"—which is to say, anything that even remotely resembles police brutality.
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