LETTER FROM CHARLESTON CHURCH SHOOTER REVEALS NO REMORSE FOR KILLING NINE AFRICAN AMERICANS IN BIBLE STUDY GROUP, THIS SUNDAY ON“60 MINUTES”
Racist Letter from Dylann Roof is in Response to an Attempt to Reform Him
by Former White Supremacist Christian Picciolini
A racist letter from prison indicates Dylann Roof has no remorse for murdering nine African Americans in a Charleston church in 2015 – a crime he was sentenced to death for. The letter was sent to Christian Picciolini, a reformed white supremacist and the subject of a 60 MINUTES report by Scott Pelley to be broadcast Sunday, Dec. 17 (7:30-8:30 PM, ET/7:00-8:00 PM, PT) on the CBS Television Network.
Picciolini spent eight years in the white supremacist movement beginning as a teen. He explains how the movement capitalized on his loneliness as a child and told him, “Everybody was against me as a white man,” and “I was being intentionally ostracized…diversity was a code word for white genocide.”
As a neo-Nazi, he says he hated blacks and Jews and committed acts of violence against them. After many years, he says, he came to a realization. “The truth is, I’d never met or had a meaningful dialogue…with anybody that I thought I hated. And when they took the step to try and reach me, the demonization of them that I had in my head started to crack,” he tells Pelley.
Today, Picciolini helps train police, FBI and homeland security in the ways of the white supremacist movement. He also tries to reform white supremacists and says he has counseled 200 members of the movement. In these efforts, he wrote to Roof in prison in hopes of hearing signs of remorse. For Roof, there were none, apparently, considering what he wrote back to Picciolini. “Well, starts off with: ‘Traitor, you’ve really cashed in, haven’t you? I know you won’t be, but you really should be ashamed of yourself. I hope you know that you are 100 times worse than the Jews you’ve surrounded yourself with,’” says Picciolini.
“That tells me he is completely indoctrinated by these alternate sets of facts… pushed by the movement that puts all the blame on – Jewish people…he’s been fed that [and] that’s become his reality,” he tells Pelley.
Picciolini warns that today’s youths can be easily influenced on social media and drawn to hate groups like he was. Social media drew the largest white supremacy march in 15 years to Charlottesville, Va., to protest the removal of a statue of Robert E. Lee. “It’s these types of things that appeal to young people who, frankly, are living in an environment right now where it’s tough to find something to believe in,” says Picciolini.
At the Charlottesville event, a man alleged to have been a white nationalist intentionally drove his car into a crowd of counter protestors, killing one and injuring many more. The death is part of a disturbing pattern that also includes Roof’s hate crime. “The data tells us this: 74 percent of extremist-related killings in this country in the last ten years have been carried out by right-wing extremists, not Islamic extremists,” says Oren Segal, director of the Center on Extremism at the Anti-Defamation League. “So white supremacists, in particular, have been responsible for a majority of the killings, even in the last ten years.”
“60 MINUTES” AND THE WASHINGTON POST FOLLOW UP ON THEIR JOINT INVESTIGATION INTO THE OPIOID EPIDEMIC WITH THE INSIDE STORY OF HOW THE DEA’S BIGGEST OPIOID CASE EVER WAS BARGAINED AWAY BY GOVERNMENT LAWYERS
The “60 Minutes” Story and the Washington Post Article Appear on Sunday
First Excerpt to Appear on “CBS This Morning”
The biggest case the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration ever built against a drug company was settled far too leniently, say two DEA whistleblowers who made the case. A retired special agent and a DEA investigator appear in a follow-up to the impactful joint investigation on the opioid epidemic reported in October by 60 MINUTES and The Washington Post. The inside story of the DEA’s case against McKesson, the largest drug distributor in the U.S., by 60 MINUTES correspondent Bill Whitaker, producers Ira Rosen and Sam Hornblower, and The Washington Post’s investigative reporters Scott Higham and Lenny Bernstein will appear Sunday, Dec. 17 in The Washington Post and on 60 MINUTES (7:30-8:30 PM, ET/7:00-8:00 PM, PT) on the CBS Television Network.
The 60 MINUTES segment includes interviews with retired DEA agent David Schiller, who led the team that made the case, and retired DEA agent Helen Kaupang, who worked on it. They both are speaking for the first time.
60 MINUTES and The Washington Post first reported in October how the DEA’s efforts to crack down on the opioid epidemic were derailed as the number of opioid drug deaths increased. In its wake, Rep. Tom Marino (R. PA) withdrew his name from consideration as America’s drug czar. A number of Democrats and at least one Republican called for modification or outright repeal of the law Marino shepherded through Congress, which undercuts the DEA’s ability to take action against the drug industry. The law and how it was passed was a central tenet of the first story in the joint investigation.
Whitaker and Bernstein will appear today on CBS THIS MORNING to talk about their latest findings. Watch the 60 MINUTES clip. Preview the Post’s video and sign up to have the story delivered to your inbox: wapo.st/DEA.
Jeff Fager is the executive producer of 60 MINUTES and Martin Baron is the executive editor of The Washington Post.
“60 MINUTES” LISTINGS FOR SUNDAY, DEC. 17
The stories below are scheduled to be broadcast Sunday, Dec. 17 (7:30-8:30 PM ET/7:00-8:00 PM, PT) on the CBS Television Network.
TOO BIG TO PROSECUTE – A joint investigation by 60 MINUTES and Washington Post reveals how the biggest opioid case in U.S. history, against one of the world’s largest drug distribution companies, was settled by the government and the company’s lawyers in a deal that shocked DEA agents for its leniency in light of the opioid epidemic. Bill Whitaker reports. Ira Rosen and Sam Hornblower are the producers.
AN AMERICAN TERRORIST – Christian Picciolini was once a white supremacist. Today, he is a reformed racist who helps law enforcement understand the extremist movement, while trying to help others change their racist ways. Scott Pelley reports. Michael Radutzky is the producer.
THE AIRLIFT – 60 MINUTES cameras are there to capture the airlifting of black rhino from place to place by helicopter, a spectacular part of a bold effort to repopulate the endangered species. Lara Logan reports. Henry Schuster and Rachael Morehouse are the producers
WHEN RHINOS FLY, “60 MINUTES” IS THERE
Lara Logan and Cameras Capture a Bold Way to Help Preserve a Critically-Endangered Species – Sunday on CBS
How do you move a ton of rhinoceros from one remote place to another without hurting the animal? Very carefully – and a helicopter can help make the operation a smooth, albeit astonishing, one. 60 MINUTES captures it all when Lara Logan reports from South Africa on a black rhino conservation effort that hangs the prehistoric-looking animals upside down on a helicopter that airlifts them to their new homes. Her report will be broadcast on 60 MINUTES Sunday, Dec. 17 (7:30-8:30 PM, ET/7:00-8:00 PM, PT) on the CBS Television Network.
No matter how it looks, it’s medically safe to hang the rhino by its feet for periods of time, says Dave Cooper, the chief veterinarian for Kwazulu-Natal provincial parks in South Africa. “It looks as if the animal’s really uncomfortable. But we’ve done our homework…We hung rhinos upside down with cranes and sat and monitored their vitals on top of this sophisticated kind of equipment,” says Cooper.
The animals are sedated for the flights, which usually last less than 10 minutes. They have not lost a rhino in over 200 such airlifts.
Black rhino numbers are dwindling because many have been killed or injured by poachers seeking their valuable horns. The animals are moved from one area to another to help re-populate the species.
Veterinarian Jacques Flamand started the Black Rhino Range Expansion Program (BRREP) with support from the World Wildlife Fund in 2003. The program takes rhinos from public and private game reserves and places them in other locations where new populations can be started. The helicopters make the program possible, says Flamand. “Some of these rhinos are in very inaccessible parts of the reserve. And this method of airlifting them provided us with an opportunity. I immediately thought that this is the solution to our problem, getting them out of rugged, mountainous or thick-forested areas where vehicles cannot go in,” he tells Logan.
60 MINUTES follows the process from darting and capture to the spectacular take-off and flight and is there when the rhino reaches its new home. Says Flamand, “One always feels sad removing them from their existing homes but it’s for a good cause. It is to start a new breeding population.”
No comments:
Post a Comment