Page 30 - 6-19-15 Friday's Edition

Local
Police Arrest Gunman In Church Massacre
CHARLESTON, S.C. – The man suspected of fatally shooting nine people at a church in Charleston, South Carolina Wednesday was given a gun by his father as a 21st birthday present in April.
The FBI identified the gun- man in the deadly shooting as Dylann Roof, 21, according to the Charleston Post and Courier.
Roof’s uncle, Carson Cowles, said he recognized his nephew in a photo released by police and described him as quiet and soft spoken.
Roof opened fire during a prayer meeting inside a his- toric black church in down- town Charleston, killing nine people, including the pastor, in an assault authorities de- scribed as a hate crime.
Roof attended the meeting at the church Wednesday night and stayed for nearly an hour before the deadly gunfire erupted, Police Chief Greg Mullen said.
Roof was caught in Shelby, North Carolina, 250 miles north of the shooting in- cident.
According to officials, Roof said he was at the church to kill Black people.
The victims of the shooting were six females and three males, Mullen said Thursday morning. He did not give other details about the victims.
Mullen said he believed the attack at the Emanuel AME Church was a hate crime.
REV. CLEMNTA C. PINKNEY Pastor of Emmanuel AME Church and South Carolina State Senator
Mullen said the scene at the church was chaotic when police arrived, and the officers thought they had Roof tracked with a police dog, but he got away.
Charleston Mayor Joseph P. Riley Jr. called the shooting "an unfathomable and unspeakable act by some- body filled with hate and with a deranged mind."
"Of all cities, in Charleston, to have a horrible hateful per- son go into the church and kill people there to pray and wor- ship with each other is some- thing that is beyond any comprehension and is not ex- plained," Riley said. "We are going to put our arms around that church and that church family."
State House Minority leader Todd Rutherford told The Associated Press that the church's pastor, State
DYLANN ROOF
institutions.
"We'll never understand
what motivates anyone to enter one of our places of wor- ship and take the life of an- other," Haley said.
Soon after Wednesday night's shooting, a group of pastors huddled together pray- ing in a circle across the street.
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."
Even before Scott's shoot- ing in April, Cason said he had been part of a group meet- ing with police and local lead- ers to try to shore up relations.
The Emmanuel AME church is a historic African- American church that traces its roots to 1816, when several churches split from Charleston's Methodist Epis- copal church.
One of its founders, Den- mark Vesey, tried to organ- ize a slave revolt in 1822. He was caught, and white landowners had his church burned in revenge. Parish- ioners worshipped under- ground until after the Civil War.
Sen. Clementa Pinckney, was among those killed.
Pinckney, 41, was a mar- ried 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-Co- lumbia, said. "He was always out doing work either for his parishioners or his con- stituents. He touched every- body."
In a statement, NAACP President and CEO Cornell William Brooks condemned the shooting.
"There is no greater cow- ard than a criminal who enters a house of God and slaughters
innocent people engaged in the study of scripture," Brooks said.
The attack came two months after the fatal shooting of an unarmed black man, Walter Scott, by a white po- lice officer in neighboring North Charleston that sparked major protests and highlighted racial tensions in the area. The officer has been charged with murder, and the shooting prompted South Carolina law- makers to push through a bill helping all police agencies in the state get body cameras. Pinckney was a sponsor of that bill.
In a statement, Gov. Nikki Haley asked South Carolinians to pray for the vic- tims and their families and de- cried violence at religious
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