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Nine people, including state senator Celementa Pinckney, were killed during a shooting at a historic black church in Charleston, S.C. Pinckney was also the pastor of the church. Police say the shooting was a hate crime.VPC
Police and the FBI on Thursday identified the suspect in the killing of nine people at an historic black church in downtown Charleston as Dylann Storm Roof, a 21-year-old from the Columbia, S.C. area.
Police said the suspect may be driving a black Hyundai with vehicle tag LGF330 and appealed to the public for any information on his whereabouts.
A Facebook page for a Dylann Roof' carries a photo of a young man in a bowl-like haircut similar to the image in a surveillance photo outside the Emanuel AME church just before the killings Wednesday night. The page says he attended White Knoll High School in Lexington.
The Facebook page also carries a photo of Roof standing in in front of a swamp forest wearing a jacket with patches of the racist-era flags of South Africa and Rhodesia, the one white-ruled country now called Zimbabwe.
Lexington County, S.C. court records show Roof was arrested on March 2 on criminal possession of a controlled substance. The records indicate it may be a first offense. The case is pending. He was also jailed on April 26 on a trespassing charge.
Police, beefed up by additional FBI agents flown in from Washington, appealed to the public Thursday for tips on the whereabouts the suspect, described as a lone white gunman.
The suspect's uncle, Carson Cowles, 56, tells Reuters that he recognized the young man in the surveillance photo as his nephew.
"The more I look at him, the more I'm convinced, that's him," Carson Cowles, 56, tells Reuters in a phone interview.
Cowles said Roof was given a gun by his father as a 21st birthday present in April.
The killer walked into the church Wednesday evening and sat with the Bible group for about an hour before pulling out a weapon and firing, reportedly reloading several times.
A federal law enforcement official said Thursday that the shooter was believed to be armed with a handgun and allegedly shouted racial epithets at the time of the attack. The information came from interviews with survivors, said the official who is not authorized to comment publicly.
The official also said a semi-automatic handgun had been kept in the suspect's home.
"This is an all-hands-on-deck effort with the community as well as law enforcement," Charleston Police Chief Gregory Mullen said. "When people go out they should be vigilant, they should be aware of their surroundings. And if they see anything suspicious, they should call law enforcement."
"No one in this community will forget this night," said Mullen, who called the killings at the Emanuel AME church a "hate crime."
In Washington, the Justice Department said its Civil Rights Division, the FBI, and the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of South Carolina are opening a hate crime investigation into the shooting.
The nine victims — three men and six women — included pastor, Clementa Pinckney, 41, who was also a South Carolina state senator, State House Minority leader Todd Rutherford told The Associated Press.
Eight of the victims died at the church and the ninth died at a hospital. Three people survived, police said.
Sylvia Johnson, a cousin of Pinckney, the pastor, said one of the survivors told her that the gunman reloaded five times during the ordeal.
At point, as he was reloading, members of the group tried to get him to stop, Johnson told WIS News.
"He just said 'I have to do it. You rape our women and you're taking over our country. And you have to go," Johnson said.
Dot Scott, president of the Charleston NAACP, said the gunman apparently allowed one woman to live so that she could tell others what happened inside the church.
Charleston Mayor Joseph P. Riley called the killings "the most unspeakable and heartbreaking tragedy."
"The only reason that someone could walk into a church and shoot people praying is out of hate," Riley said. "It is the most dastardly act that one could possibly imagine, and we will bring that person to justice. ... This is one hateful person."
Police issued photos of the suspect and his apparent getaway car, a four-door, black sedan.
The gunman, called "armed and dangerous," was described as a white male in his early 20s, with sandy blond hair. He was wearing a gray sweatshirt with a yellow symbol on his left side.
The photo of the suspect, taken by a surveillance camera, indicated that he is about 5 feet, 9 inches tall, and sported a distinctive bowl-like haircut, possibly a wig.
The church is a historic African-American church that traces its roots to 1816, when several churches split from Charleston's Methodist Episcopal church.
Community organizer Christopher Cason said he felt certain the shootings were racially motivated. "I am very tired of people telling me that I don't have the right to be angry," Cason said. "I am very angry right now."
Pinckney, the 41-year-old pastor, was a married father of two who was elected to the state house at age 23, making him the youngest member of the House at the time.
"He never had anything bad to say about anybody, even when I thought he should," Rutherford, D-Columbia, said. "He was always out doing work either for his parishioners or his constituents. He touched everybody."
Emanuel is the oldest AME church in the South and has one of the oldest and largest black congregations south of Baltimore, according to its website. Denmark Vesey, executed for attempting to organize a major slave rebellion in 1822, was one of the founders.
Said Police Chief Mullen: "This is a tragedy that no community should have to experience. It is senseless. It is unfathomable that someone would walk into a church when people are having a prayer meeting and take their lives."
Pinckney was a native of Beaufort, S.C., and graduated magna cum laude from Allen University in 1995. He received a master's of divinity degree from the Lutheran Theological Southern Seminary and a master's degree in public administration from the University of South Carolina. He was elected to the South Carolina House in 1996, when he was 23, and was elected to the state Senate in 2000.
Cornell William Brooks, president and CEO of the NAACP, said in a statement: "The NAACP was founded to fight against racial hatred and we are outraged that 106 years later, we are faced today with another mass hate crime.
"There is no greater coward than a criminal who enters a house of God and slaughters innocent people engaged in the study of scripture."
In a statement, Gov. Nikki Haley asked people to pray for the victims and their families. "While we do not yet know all of the details, we do know that we'll never understand what motivates anyone to enter one of our places of worship and take the life of another," she said.
Senator Tim Scott, who last year became the first African American elected to the U.S. Senate from the south since Reconstruction, said in a statement that he will be leaving Washington to return home to South Carolina as soon as possible.
"My heart is breaking for Charleston and South Carolina tonight," he said. "This senseless tragedy at a place of worship — where we come together to laugh, love and rejoice in God's name — is absolutely despicable and can never be understood."
Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, who was in Charleston hours before the shooting, tweeted: "Heartbreaking news from Charleston - my thoughts and prayers are with you all. -H."
Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush canceled his events in the city, where he was scheduled to campaign Thursday.
"Governor Bush's thoughts and prayers are with the individuals and families affected by this tragedy," his spokesperson Allie Brandenburger said in a statement.
It takes a fucked up person to kill nine people, but to sit with them for an hour beforehand is a whole different kind of crazy. I'm sure he'll be an inspiration to other misguided young kids.
Quote: Bumble_Dick said: It takes a fucked up person to kill nine people, but to sit with them for an hour beforehand is a whole different kind of crazy. I'm sure he'll be an inspiration to other misguided young kids.
The more we publicize this and give him attention the more it snakes it's way into the minds of disturbed individuals. We're glorifying him whether or not we want to admit it. Plastering his face all over the news is exactly the kind of attention these maniacs seek out.
-------------------- Of course it's happening inside your head.
Why should that mean it isn't real?
Quote: South Carolina governor Nikki Haley has called for Dylann Roof to face the death penalty after he reportedly admitted to shooting dead nine people in a Charleston church.
I clicked the second link. "Let's stop letting them kill us" and "call ahead this Sunday and make sure the deacons are strapped" were my favorite, but all of the spelling/grammar errors were good, too.
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