A white man in his twenties opened fire on people praying inside a historic black church, killing nine people, in what has been described as a hate crime. The shooting at the Emanuel AME Church in downtown Charleston was carried out last night as the people inside took part in a prayer meeting, police said. Police Chief Greg Mullen said believed it was a hate crime, but would not elaborate
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‘The only reason that someone could walk into a church and shoot people praying is out of hate,’ said Charleston Mayor Joseph P. Riley. ‘It is the most dastardly act that one could possibly imagine, and we will bring that person to justice. … This is one hateful person.’
The campaign of Republican presidential hopeful Jeb Bush sent out an email saying that due to the shooting, the candidate had canceled an event planned in the city Thursday.
The Emmanuel AME church is a historic African-American church that traces its roots to 1816, when several churches split from Charleston’s Methodist Episcopal church. One of its founders, Denmark Vesey, tried to organize a slave revolt in 1822. He was caught, and white landowners had his church burned in revenge. Parishioners worshiped underground until after the Civil War.
Authorities were shocked not only by the killings but that the violence occurred in a house of worship.
“People in prayer Wednesday evening. A ritual, a coming together, praying, worshiping God. An awful person to come in and shoot them is inexplicable,” said Charleston Mayor Joe Riley. Six women and three men were killed, including the church’s politically active pastor, the Rev. Clementa Pinckney.
Johnson told CNN her friend recounted the man coming into the church, asking for the minister.
“My cousin, being the nice, kind, welcoming person he is, he welcomed him to his congregation, welcomed him to the Bible study, and he sat there for an hour … At the conclusion of the Bible study, they just heard just a ringing of a loud noise, and it was just awful from what I heard,” Johnson said.
When the son of her friend pleaded with the shooter to stop, Johnson said the gunman replied: “‘No, you’ve raped our women, and you are taking over the country … I have to do what I have to do.’ And he shot the young man.”
Her friend pretended she was dead.
“But she watched her son fall and laid there. She laid there in his blood,” Johnson said.
Before he left the church, he asked one of the elderly members whether he had shot her, and she said no.
“And he said good, because we need a survivor because I’m going to kill myself,” Johnson told CNN.
A law enforcement official said witnesses told authorities the gunman stood up and said he was there “to shoot black people.”
The president of the NAACP expressed his outrage at the violence.
“There is no greater coward than a criminal who enters a house of God and slaughters innocent people engaged in the study of scripture,” Cornell William Brooks said.
Roof, 21, of Lexington, South Carolina, was arrested Thursday morning about 245 miles (395 kilometers) away in Shelby, North Carolina. Police got a tip from Debbie Dills, who reportedly spotted Roof on her way into work. She followed him for 35 miles,the Shelby Star reported.
“I had been praying for those people on my way to work,” Dills told the newspaper about victims of the church shooting. “I was in the right place at the right time.”
According to an arrest warrant from a February incident, Roof had an unlabeled pill bottle with a drug believed to be suboxone, which is used to treat opiate addiction.
Charleston County Coroner Rae Wooten identified the nine victims as follows: Cynthia Hurd, 54; Susie Jackson, 87; Ethel Lance, 70; Rev. DePayne Middleton-Doctor, 49; Hon. Rev. Clementa Pinckney, 41; Tywanza Sanders, 26; Rev. Daniel Simmons Sr., 74; Rev. Sharonda Singleton, 45; Myra Thompson, 59.
Source: CNN
