"They did it first" isn't a defense. If I slapped my sibling and told mother "They did it first" I still earned punishment.
What you're defending isn't defensible. Snopes clearly lied by using the false rating here.
>They are not saying everything in The Source story is false.
Yes, in fact, they are:
http://www.snopes.com/ratings/
"This rating indicates that the primary elements of a claim are demonstrably false."
The Roof situation is best described by their Mixture rating. Snopes specifically chose the false rating despite elements of truth to this story.
Dylan Roof was fed by police shortly after arrest: True
Dylan Roof was fed fast food by police shortly after arrest: True
Dylan Roof was fed Burger King fast food by police shortly after arrest: True
Dylan Roof was fed Burger King fast food by police shortly after arrest at Burger King: False
He wasn't taken to Burger King.
The claim being reviewed in this particular case is that Roof as taken to Burger King by the police. That claim is false, and so "False" is the correct rating for Snopes to give.
That the article also has other claims, and that some or all of them may be true, is irrelevant. A false claim does not get upgraded to mixed just because some different claims in the same source are not false.
It is not.
People in custody must be provided with food and water. If a suspect is being held somewhere where food is not readily available on the premises, it is normal and expected that someone will be sent out to get food.
What is not normal is to take the suspect out to get food.
The headline of the article at The Source says he was "taken to" Burger King. As you yourself noted, most people don't read down the page. It's that headline that gets spread through tweets and social media.
Even if people do read down the page at The Source, they won't get the mistaken impression that Roof was taken to Burger King dispelled, because further in they say he "was treated to a meal at Burger King".
They also say he "was arrested, strapped with a protective bulletproof vest, then treated to burgers and fries", which gives the impression that that he was taken to the food (hence the need for the vest), rather than the food being brought to him.
Maybe The Source did not intend to mislead, but in fact they did, as can be seen by looking at other articles and social media reports that repeated the "taken to" Burger King narrative, which mostly seem to trace back to The Source article.
I think you also may be misunderstanding the scope of Snopes' "false" rating. They are not saying everything in The Source story is false. They are specifically addressing whether or not Roof was taken to Burger King, because that's what was being spread via multiple other outlets and on social media. That is what they are saying is "false". And they are right.