Sister of Alleged Charleston Church Shooter Raising Money Online To Fund Postponed Wedding

Amber Roof, sister of alleged Charleston Church shooter Dylann Roof, put up a GoFundMe page to raise funds online to finance her postponed wedding and honeymoon. The page — no longer available on site ­ — was created on June 27 of this year with the title “A Fresh Start For Michael and Amber.”

On June 19, Dylann Roof went to Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church and began shooting nine churchgoers including the senior pastor. He was arrested the next day with his wrongdoing being treated as a racially motivated hate crime. Amber was set to wed fiancé Michael Tyo, a U.S Army Reserve recruiter, four days later on June 21 but decided to postpone it.

According to the Washington Post, Roof wrote on her page how her wedding day was supposed to be the start of their new life. However, “due to the actions of one man,” their wedding day became filled with “sorrow, pain, and shame.”

Due to the abrupt cancellation, undue expenses were obtained, especially by friends and relatives of the couple who came into town specifically for the wedding. The couple did not want their guests to double their expenses; therefore, they decided to seek help from sympathetic netizens.

The campaign raised around US$1,600 or $ 2108.04 out of the US$5,000 [or $6587.62] goal before it was taken down on Thursday. One donor with the screen name “AmericanBlackLivesMatter” left a comment stating that the US$9 or $11.86 donated was for the Charleston Church Massacre’s nine victims.

The campaign garnered both positive and negative comments. One negative comment condemned Roof’s action of asking the public to pay for her wedding when at the moment her brother is in jail and there are nine people who are dead. Another wrote how other people were also looking for money to bury loved ones who died “due to the stupidity” of Roof’s brother.

One who donated out of sympathy wrote how the he/she and his/her partner were unable to get legally married after dating for a long time can understand how upsetting Roof’s situation was, and decided to contribute as a show of support. Another person who donated can sympathise with Roof’s plight since she also had a “selfish brother” who managed to ruin some of her special occasions.

The page said that 10 percent of the proceeds will go to the Emanuel AME Church.

For feedback/comments, contact the writer at ailyanaferrer.salumbides@gmail.com.