Memorials Established for South Carolina Church Shooting Victims
CHARLESTON, S.C., June 18 (UPI) — A 21-year-old South Carolina man suspected of shooting nine people to death at a historically black church has been arrested in North Carolina.
President Barack Obama, at a press conference Thursday, stated “deep sorrow” over the “senseless murders that took place.”
Obama said he and his wife, Michelle, knew several members of the Emanuel AME Church where the shooting occurred, including South Carolina state Sen. Clementa Pinckney, who served as pastor of the church.
“To say our thoughts and prayers are with them, and their families, and their community doesn’t say enough to convey the heartache, and the sadness, and the anger that we feel,” Obama said. “Any death of this sort is a tragedy. Any shooting involving multiple victims is a tragedy. There is something particularly heartbreaking about death happening in a place in which we seek solace and we seek peace.”
The historic Charleston church is “a place of worship that was founded by African-Americans seeking liberty. This is a church that was burned to the ground because it worked to end slavery,” Obama said. “This is a sacred place in the history of Charleston and in the history of America.”
Obama said he was constrained on speaking about the details of the ongoing investigation, but added:
“I don’t need to be constrained about the emotions that tragedies like this raise. I’ve had to make statements like this too many times. Communities like this have had to endure tragedies like this too many times. We don’t have all the facts but we do know that once again innocent people were killed in part because someone who wanted to inflict harm had no trouble getting their hands on a gun,” Obama said.
“Let’s be clear, at some point we as a country will have to reckon with the fact that this type of mass violence does not happen in other advanced countries,” Obama said. “The fact that this took place in a black church also raises questions about a dark part in our history… we know that hatred that across races and faiths poses a particular threat to our democracy and our ideals.”
In announcing the arrest of Dylann Roof, U.S. Attorney Gen. Loretta Lynch called the shooting “barbaric.” Witnesses told police he was there “to shoot black people.”
The FBI and Justice Department’s Civil Rights division are investigating the shooting as a hate crime.
NAACP President and CEO Cornell William Brooks said, “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. Our heartfelt prayers and soul-deep condolences go out to the families and community of the victims at Charleston’s historic Emanuel AME Church. The senselessly slain parishioners were in a church for Wednesday night Bible study. There is no greater coward than a criminal who enters a house of God and slaughters innocent people engaged in the study of Scripture.”
Law enforcement officials said the gunman went into the Charleston church about 8 p.m. Wednesday. He attended the service and a church meeting before he opened fire, killing six women and three men.
Eight died at the church, the oldest AME church in the South. The ninth victim died at the hospital. Pinckney’s desk in the Senate was covered in black cloth early Thursday, as per tradition.
“He was a man with a booming voice and notable presence, but always a peaceful, calming presence,” said House Minority Leader Todd Rutherford. “He did not want to pick fights.”
Shortly after the shooting, church members and members of the local community gathered near the church. “The question is, ‘Why God?’,” said a man wearing a shirt bearing the name of the Empowerment Missionary Baptist Church.
The FBI, the Department of Justice, the Sate Law Enforcement Division, the coroner’s office and multiple police agencies have launched a hate crime investigation. Matters were made more complicated Wednesday night when a bomb threat was called in around 10:30 p.m. No explosives were found.
