Reuters: A gunman opened fire on Wednesday evening at a historic African-American church in downtown Charleston, South Carolina, and was still at large, a police official said, following a media report that as many as eight people may have been shot.
Police described the suspect as a 21-year-old white man in a sweatshirt or hoodie and jeans, according to Charleston newspaper The Post and Courier. It cited unconfirmed reports that as many as eight people may have been hit by gunfire.
Charleston Police Department spokesman Charles Francis said the shooting occurred at the Emanuel AME Church around 9 p.m. local time.
He said police were still searching for a suspect, and he had no information on victims. Further details were not immediately available.
North Carolina television station WGHP, a Fox affiliate, reported on its website that some of the victims may have died.
Local broadcaster WCSC reported that the FBI was on the scene. The FBI could not be immediately reached to comment.
The website for the church said it has one of the largest and oldest black congregations in the region.
The church was built in 1891 and is considered a historically significant building, according to the National Park Service.
President Obama is speaking now!
PBO: We have to be clear and reckon with the fact this kind of MASS VIOLENCE does not happen in other countries.
NRA
You could feel President Obama’s fury.
https://twitter.com/skepticalbrotha/status/611562636111650816
She’s very much part of the crowd that set the stage and supplied the fuel for this.
New thread is up Keep commenting folks!
South Carolina church shooting suspect got gun for birthday, uncle says
Reuters By Emily Flitter
(Reuters) – Dylann Roof, the man suspected of fatally shooting nine people at a historic African American church in South Carolina on Wednesday, was given a gun by his father as a 21st birthday present in April, his uncle told Reuters on Thursday.
Law enforcement officers were at the home of Roof’s mother on Thursday morning, the uncle, Carson Cowles, said in a telephone interview.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation identified the gunman as Roof on Thursday.
Cowles said he recognized Roof in a photo released by police, and described him as quiet and soft-spoken. Roof’s father gave him a .45-caliber pistol for his birthday this year, Cowles said.
“Nobody in my family had seen anything like this coming,” Cowles said. “I said, if it is him, and when they catch him, he’s got to pay for this.”
He said he had told his sister, Roof’s mother, several years ago that Roof was too introverted.
“I said he was like 19 years old, he still didn’t have a job, a driver’s license or anything like that and he just stayed in his room a lot of the time,” Cowles said.
http://news.yahoo.com/south-carolina-church-shooter-suspect-got-gun-birthday-142936218.html
no one gives a flying fuck about Roof’s life. He murdered 9 people, assassinated a State Senator. MAY HE FRY IN HELL FOREVER.
This is part of the drill. The family says how they never saw this coming, he was so quiet, blah blah blah. But what is that stuff on his jacket? What about that license plate? They didn’t see the f***ing red flag as big as a Buick and the father bought him a gun just two months ago? Or, the white supremacy is in the family and they think it’s perfectly normal.
Speak, Liza!
“..quiet and soft-spoken; too introverted; stayed in his room a lot of the time…”
Given gun by his father as a 21st birthday present in April.
But they didn’t see it coming. Sanford says Dylann Roof’s an outlier.
GTFOH It’s the culture of the southern racists
https://twitter.com/CNNPolitics/status/611559035544936448
it’s a fucking ASSASINATION!
It annoys me sometimes some of the blanched rhetoric she employs. I get trying to tamp down emotions and situations, but when even old white Mayor Joe Riley is full of deep emotion and outrightly calling it as it is all night and this morning, we need much more than the generic, let’s not offend the racists statement from the AG.
Nine innocent souls were murdered in cold blood in the CHURCH during BIBLE STUDY, this calls for more than routine.
Or do we reserve the tears and deep emotion for those whose skin color makes them more valuable in life and in death.
Dylann Roof was found and arrested in Shelby, North Carolina according to ABC news.
Mr. NFTG @Kennymack1971
1) “He was quiet and soft spoken”
2) “But he had Black friends on FB!”
3) “We don’t know what demons he was wrestling with.”
https://twitter.com/NerdyWonka/status/611551479518724099
https://twitter.com/NerdyWonka/status/611553799019233280/photo/1
This kind of EVIL was indoctrinated into Dylann Roof. NO DENYING
You got it right. It was learned. It was drilled in. He was initiated.
What the ever living fuck?
He should be fired.
Chris Cuomo is part of the problem with this country GTFOH
The same way his big brother has been bungling the escaped convicts situation in New York.
Their father’s decency gene skipped a generation.
Charleston church shooting suspect Dylann Roof is in custody in North Carolina, a senior law enforcement official tells CNN’s Deborah Feyerick.
President Barack Obama is scheduled to deliver a statement about the church shooting at 11:45 a.m. ET, the White House says.
I’m actually glad he’s alive. He can rot in a federal Super Max prison for the next 70 years or until they execute him or until he hangs himself.
Too much of a coward to even kill himself. But had no qualms murdering NINE innocents.
According to CNN Dylan Roof now in custody.
https://twitter.com/splcenter/status/611549229274808320/photo/1
“…Since 9/11, our country has been fixated on the threat of Jihadi terrorism. But the horrific tragedy at the Emmanuel AME reminds us that the threat of homegrown domestic terrorism is very real…”
The White House @WhiteHouse 3m3 minutes ago
At 11:45am ET, President Obama will deliver a statement from the Briefing Room on the shooting in South Carolina →
http://go.wh.gov/K5goiK
I think this hits home for so many reasons that are obvious. But, bottom line, this could have been our mother, our Grandmother, our Uncles, Grandfathers, Daddys. How many of us have dropped off family members or friends at Bible Study, told them, ‘I have to run an errand, but I’ll be back to get you.’ How many of us would think twice if Mama or Grandma told you, ‘ Oh, I’ll just take the baby with me to Bible Study’. It would never occur to us that this would happen. Not only that, but not one of us is surprised that they welcomed this young man into Bible Study with them, because we know that’s what they would do.
I just can’t with the phuckery today. I have no patience for it.
I had a heartbreaking call from my sisters who lives in NC & Georgia. They are churchgoers, and naturally they are over the top frighten by this massacre. We all are.
Tell them not to be. They need to go back in FAITH. This madness is coming to an end once and for all.
found this comment at TOD:
https://twitter.com/keithboykin/status/611539281182633985/photo/1
I’m so grieved. Those poor victims. Their poor families. How long, Lord?! *weeps*
Sean McElwee @SeanMcElwee
White hate groups have increased dramatically over the last decade and a half. #AMESshooting http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2487603 … pic.twitter.com/cLgqNm4Ljh
unpforgettable pfire @firefire100
#BlackExcellence RT @TheRoot: Slain Mother Emanuel AME pastor was an ‘all-around good guy’ #CharlestonShooting pic.twitter.com/yZYs0dl3xo
In 1999, Ebony Magazine named Rev. Pinckney as one of the African American community’s 30 leaders of the future.
Tiff B., Esq. @BlackElleWoods
STILL. RT @Bipartisanism: “I’m not afraid of Al-Qaeda, I’m afraid of Al-Cracka” #CharlestonShooting pic.twitter.com/s6uCbYvn9Q
https://twitter.com/DDpan/status/611533900695928832/photo/1
The Baltimore Sun ✔ @baltimoresun
UPDATE: Law enforcement officials say the suspect in the Charleston shooting may have been wearing a wig, fake nose. http://bsun.md/1SrkDiL
https://twitter.com/aurabogado/status/611534448782405632/photo/1
https://twitter.com/nytimes/status/611533612136181760
https://twitter.com/matthewkeyslive/status/611364323886170113
https://twitter.com/cassielcope/status/611522233782149120/photo/1
https://twitter.com/StephenAnfield/status/611490600743899136/photo/1
Tara Dowdell @MsTaraDowdell
Killer in #Charleston’s motive was “You people rape our women and are taking over” let’s not pretend that is not a RW hate radio narrative
I’m Black @Awkward_Duck
Today is block w/out hesitation day. Not teaching you. Not entertaining ‘devil’s advocate’ foolery. Not engaging in ‘not all white people’
Mr. NFTG @Kennymack1971
And a bunch of assholes in the media owe Janet Napolitano and DHS a huge apology.
Mr. NFTG @Kennymack1971
NOPE. It’s time for White folks to fix that shit…not Obama’s or any other Black persons job. https://twitter.com/domdyer70/status/611524620886405121 …
This is the result of the persistent and baseless hate and resentment that has been whipped up these past 7 years by evil Republicans and their ilk – and only because a black family legitimately made it to the White House.
The mindset and words of this young murderer has become all too familiar refrain from the previously entitled terrified of the changing landscape and afraid their place at the top is threatened.
We read it in comments posted all over the internet. We hear it on talk radio. We read it in newspapers.
The blood of these innocents are on the hands of those who’ve helped foment this mindset and negative situation.
YES! YES! YES!
tell it Zandar
https://twitter.com/zandarvts/status/611526867443712000
Rikyrah, Ametia, SG2,
If a national link is set up for locations across the country for VIGILS for members of the prayer group who were massacred, would you please post it here to inform all of us?
https://twitter.com/elonjames/status/611396554734202880
https://twitter.com/MichaelSkolnik/status/611413381065498624/photo/1
https://twitter.com/LeMonde_Photos/status/611393752628895744
Lord have MERCY, heart-wrenching!
https://twitter.com/elonjames/status/611411592572370945
https://twitter.com/mboughtonPC/status/611409370639958016/photo/1
https://twitter.com/saeed_ahmed/status/611397210056617984
https://twitter.com/MichaelSkolnik/status/611370647525195777
https://twitter.com/speechboy71/status/611400426068414465
https://twitter.com/emayfarris/status/611373815961026560
http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/charleston-church-shooting/kkk-white-supremacists-among-19-south-carolina-hate-groups-splc-n377516
I think that LE should consider the possibility that this evil terrorist belongs to one of these groups.
As LE searches for him, they should consider that one of these groups might be hiding him and his car.
https://twitter.com/joshuadubois/status/611498993399558145
https://twitter.com/spokenELLE/status/611382626763583488
And they tell us it’s all in our minds. That we focus too much on race. That all the racism targeted at us is imagined.
https://twitter.com/politicalglutto/status/611494871791206400
https://twitter.com/sarahkaplan48/status/611495545073500160
https://twitter.com/hope_tesfa/status/611389497087954944
https://twitter.com/joshuadubois/status/611492028116017152/photo/1
https://twitter.com/AlwaysActions/status/611404823477530624/photo/1
https://twitter.com/AVAETC/status/611409366298705921
https://twitter.com/markaprovost/status/611412885638631424
STEVE HUFF @SteveHuff
Fellow white folk: do not allow anyone to equivocate on Charleston. A white man shooting up a historic black church in prayer is terrorism.
https://twitter.com/erickingnbc5/status/611488450638950401
gotta keep on saying it – twitter truth
https://twitter.com/ChMadar/status/611394489773596672
https://twitter.com/cbs46/status/611513539589767168
https://twitter.com/NerdyWonka/status/611511426553917440/photo/1
Lots of people know who this murderer is. He is recognizable enough from the footage. The hair might be a wig, but he is still very recognizable.
Cameras reveal he is white, but the terrorized congregation who experienced this heinous HATE CRIME/MASACRE saw it all.
Massacre in South Carolina church leaves nine dead
06/18/15 08:00 AM
By Steve Benen
There’s heartbreaking news this morning out of South Carolina, where a mass shooting has left nine dead in at Charleston’s historic Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal (AME) church. MSNBC’s Benjy Sarlin reported from the scene:
A gunman shot to death nine church members who had gathered for Bible study and prayer Wednesday night at one of the nation’s oldest black churches. Among the dead was beloved pastor Clementa Pinckney, a longtime state senator who spent the earlier part of the day campaigning in the city with Hillary Clinton.
The suspected gunman has not been identified by name, but surveillance footage released to the media point to as a 5’9” white male, early- to mid-20s, with sandy blond hair. He remains at large.
Charleston Police Chief Gregory Mullen told reporters this morning that he believes this was a hate crime, adding, “This is a tragedy that no community should have to experience. It is senseless. It is unfathomable that somebody in today’s society would walk into a church, when people are having a prayer meeting, and take their lives.”
The full list of victims and their ages has not yet been released, though police said three males and six females were murdered.
Though NBC News has not yet confirmed this detail, the local Post and Courier reported this morning, “Mullen confirmed that the shooter was in the church for almost an hour attending the prayer meeting with the group before shooting.”
http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/massacre-south-carolina-church-leaves-nine-dead
https://twitter.com/NerdyWonka/status/611515582219993090
They welcomed this evilness into their church and he KILLED THEM.
I.CAN’T. JUST.CAN’T
OMG. I’m out of pocket for a hot minute, and this is what happens!
We can’t worship GOD in our churches without being TERRORIZED and MURDERED.
The fact that this white man was accepted into the church and sit in prayer illustrates this congregation was practicing what they preached, and this thugging murdered slid in and KILLED.
EVIL. There is EVIL in AMERICA, and she/he is DRESSED UP IN WHITE SKIN.
NOTHING BUT PREMEDITATED MURDER!!
and premeditated TERRORISM
Horrific EVIL
https://twitter.com/jusjam3s/status/611393561779642368
This evilness is still AT LARGE & the media reporting?
LAME! He assassinated a state SENATOR.
Why can’t the media realize and state the impact this evil act is having on the Black community all across the country?!
For Charleston’s Emanuel A.M.E. Church, shooting is another painful chapter in long history
By Sarah Kaplan June 18 at 5:03 AM
When a gunman opened fire on Charleston’s Emanuel A.M.E. Church Wednesday, spraying bullets into a group of worshippers gathered for a mid-week prayer meeting, it was as though history repeated itself.
This historic congregation, the oldest of its kind in the South, had already seen more than its fair share of tumult and hate. It was founded by worshippers fleeing racism and burned to the ground for its connection with a thwarted slave revolt. For years its meetings were conducted in secret to evade laws that banned all-black services. It was jolted by an earthquake in 1886. Civil rights luminaries spoke from its pulpit and lead marches from its steps. For nearly two hundred years it had been the site of struggle, resistance and change.
On Wednesday, the church was a crime scene — the street outside aglow with the flashing red lights of police cars and echoing with the screech of sirens. Nine people had been killed there, reportedly including the church’s pastor, Rev. Clementa Pinckney, though police had not confirmed his death.
“I do believe this was a hate crime,” Charleston Police Chief Greg Mullen said at a press conference early Thursday morning.
To those watching in Charleston and from afar, it was devastating.
“It’s not just a church. It’s also a symbol … of black freedom,” said Robert Greene, who studies the 20th century South at the University of South Carolina. “That’s why so many folks are so upset tonight, because it’s a church that represents so much about the rich history and tradition of African Americans in Charleston.”
In Charleston, the church is affectionately known as “Mother Emanuel,” a nod to its age and its eminence in the community. It is a place people take pride in, said Rev. Stephen Singleton, who was pastor there from 2006 to 2010 — all soaring ceilings and fine pinewood floors, with an antique pipe organ that had been shipped from Europe more than a century ago.
“They’re just God-fearing people,” Singleton said of his former congregation. “People who lived in modesty in light of the history of the congregation they called home.”
That history is a long and storied one. The congregation was founded in the era of slavery by Morris Brown, a founding pastor of the African Methodist Episcopal Church. In 1816, frustrated with the racism he encountered in Charleston’s segregated churches, Brown decided to form a Church of his own. About 4,000 parishioners followed him — more than 75 percent of city’s black community, according to a history published by the College of Charleston.
From the beginning, the congregation was a focal point of community organizing and anti-slavery activism — provoking fears and intense distrust among the city’s white population. According to a PBS documentary, white Charlestonians constantly monitored the church, sometimes disrupting services and arresting worshipers.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2015/06/18/for-charlestons-emanuel-a-m-e-church-one-of-the-oldest-in-america-shooting-is-another-painful-chapter-in-long-history/?postshare=1991434621677828
https://twitter.com/joshuadubois/status/611402750367264768
THIS A GAZILLION TIMES.
Where are the SWAT teams, dogs, tear gas, water hoses. JUST DEVASTATINGLY AWFUL & EVIL.
Prayers to the congregations and families. Lord have MERCY.
My heart and whole being is with the families and loved ones of those beautiful church people whose lives were horrifically taken by a heinous, racist terrorist.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CHxmhpVXAAAJlaY.jpg
The car looks like a Saturn or Buick to me. Where are the experts who can immediately peg the make and age of a car by the shape of its headlamps and the factory tires it came with – which is obviously what this car has.
DOMESTIC TERRORIST ATTACK
Those poor families in Charleston SC, Lord! So much pain. #fixitJesus
SWEET JESUS!
They’ll tag him mentally ill; But a vile, hate-filled, callous, arrogant racist is what he actually is.
This will be the beginning of the end of this madness. We shall not take this any longer. Enough is enough.
A child went to Bible study with grandma. That should have been the safest place in the world, but today it has become the most traumatizing.
The white supremacist terrorist intended to assassinate Rev. Pinckey, a state legislator, in my opinion. He killed the others to make it a massacre.
The FBI is investigating this as a hate crime.
That’s what it is SG. My heart can’t take much more of this ugly racist hate.
BREAKING..
May he rest in peace, and may God comfort his family.
CharlestonShooting Suspect:
White Male in his 20’s
Slender/Small Build
Grey Hoodie & Jeans
Clean shaven
If one can’t be guaranteed safety in a house of worship, what else is left?