Charleston Church Shooting Called a Hate Crime
Friday, June 19th, 2015A white gunman was arrested Thursday morning after allegedly killing nine African Americans at a Bible study at a historic black church in downtown Charleston, South Carolina, on Wednesday evening.
Witnesses said the gunman spent an hour at the Bible study at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal (A.M.E.) Church before opening fire, saying he was there “to shoot black people.” Six females and three males were killed. Eight died at the scene; the ninth died at a hospital. Among the victims was the church’s pastor, South Carolina Senator Clementa Pinckney. There were 13 people inside the church when the shooting occurred.
The suspect, Dylann Roof, 21, of Lexington, South Carolina, was arrested in Shelby, North Carolina, about 245 miles (395 kilometers) from Charleston. Roof was taken into custody without incident during a traffic stop. Local police acted on a be-on-the-lookout notice that included a vehicle description, the license tag, and the suspect’s name. Roof confessed to the killings, saying he wanted to start a race war.
“The only reason someone would walk into a church and shoot people that were praying is hate,” Charleston Mayor Joe Riley said. South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley, choking back tears, said “the heart and soul of South Carolina was broken.… parents are having to explain to their kids how they can go to church and feel safe.” United States Attorney General Loretta Lynch, calling the shooting “barbaric,” announced that the U. S. Department of Justice had opened a hate-crime investigation into the shooting incident. President Barack Obama mourned the violence and the victims, saying, “Any death of this sort is a tragedy.…There is something particularly heartbreaking about death happening in a place in which we seek solace, we seek peace.”
Emanuel AME Church is the oldest AME church in the South. African American members of Charleston’s Methodist Episcopal Church formed their own congregation there in 1816. The church that stands at the site today was built in 1891. Known as “Mother Emanuel,” the church has been the headquarters for civil rights activity for decades.
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