Haley says church shooting will forever change her outlook

COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — For five years, Gov. Nikki Haley dismissed questions about the Confederate flag that flies on Statehouse grounds, saying she respected the 2000 compromise that took it off the dome.

In her 2010 campaign, she called the two-thirds approval required to move the flag too high a hurdle for a healthy debate. Last October, she criticized her opponent’s call to remove the flag as a campaign stunt.

But all of that changed after June 17, when nine people were killed at a historic black church in Charleston.

Haley says she decided to call for the flag’s removal the night of suspect Dylann Roof’s bond hearing, when the victims’ families astonishingly offered forgiveness.

Haley says she couldn’t look her two children in the face and justify that flag anymore.