Dylann Roof, the admitted killer of nine people at Charleston’s Emanuel AME Church in July of 2015, was assaulted early Thursday morning by a fellow Charleston County Detention Center inmate.
At about 7:45 a.m. this morning, Roof was near the showers when another inmate, Dwayne Stafford, left his cell and ran down a set of stairs and toward Roof, assaulting him with his hands, officials said.
Charleston County Sheriff Al Cannon said Stafford, 25, punched Roof, 22, “a number of times and assaulted him quickly.”
Roof was hit in the face and body, and suffered bruising to his face and back, the incident report states. Detention officers intervened.
The incident report calls the assault "unprovoked," and Roof and Stafford were "checked by medical at the jail and cleared," the report states.
Stafford, said to be a “frequent visitor” to the Charleston County Detention Center, is Black. Charleston County Sheriff Al Cannon said the lapse in security was a “wake up call” for the officers to remain on their toes:
Cannon said the process for giving shower access to Roof, who is in protective custody, involved officers checking to ensure that the doors to all the other inmates' cells were properly locked and monitoring Roof as he moved in and out of his cell. At the time of the attack, one of the detention officers on duty in the area was taking a break, Cannon said, while the other had been called to provide toilet paper to another inmate.
The sheriff said they were investigating why Stafford's cell was not properly locked.
"It seems pretty obvious to me at this point at the very least we have complacency," he said.
Security precautions for Roof are high due to the racially-charged nature of his crime. Given a bullet proof vest to wear at the time of his apprehension, Roof has been held in solitary confinement since he was captured in Shelby, North Carolina, a few days after the Charleston shooting.