Police tape surrounds the parking lot behind the AME Emanuel Church as FBI forensic experts work the crime scene Friday.
Gosnell, who was branded a racist sympathizer on social media, has a history of putting his foot in his mouth.
“There are four kinds of people in this world: black people, white people, red necks, and n-----s,” he told a black defendant in a Nov. 2013 bond reduction hearing.
Gosnell later offered a sorry defense, saying he was merely repeating a statement he heard from an African American lawman.
“[Gosnell] represents he knew the defendant, the defendant’s father, and the defendant’s grandfather,” court papers show.
[Gosnell] represents that when the defendant, an African-American, appeared in court for the bond hearing, \[Gosnell\] recalled a statement made to him by a veteran African American sheriff’s deputy.”
Gosnell insisted he made the comment in an “ill-considered effort to encourage him to recognize and change the path he had chosen in life.”
Still, the outrageous statement led the state Supreme Court to issue Gosnell a “public reprimand.”
Gosnell’s Friday statement — which was aired live on cable news — drew the wrath of hordes of furious social media users. “Judge James Gosnell in the complete wrong to give sympathy first to #DylannRoof's family. But it's South Carolina,” tweeted Vincent Obisie.
“Wait was judge James Gosnell Jr job to arraign Dylan Roof or defend Roof's family? Wow #RacismInAmerica,” Pierrela Jeanbaptist posted.
“OH.OH.OH. Judge James Gosnell SYMPATHIZING with #DylannRoof family as victims?! Ashamed to be white today,” tweeted Lisa Sanders.
Gosnell offered no apologies afterward. "I set the tone of my court,” he told FOX News. “It's my courtroom, I take control over it, and I conduct business within the scope of the law."
Gosnell also raised eyebrows in 2003 when he showed up at a county lockup about 1 a.m. after a fellow jurist was busted on a DUI charge — and signed a jail form setting bond at $1,002.
It's not the time or place to say something like that in the court where the victims' families are grappling with the reality that their loved ones have been brutally murdered. It's not acceptable. He should apologize.
