On this date, June 17, 2015, Nine people are killed in a mass shooting at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina. I will post information about the mass shooting from Wikipedia.
Charleston church shooting | |||
| |||
Location | Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church, Charleston, South Carolina, United States | ||
Date | June 17, 2015 c. 9:05 p.m. – c. 9:11 p.m. (EDT) | ||
Target | African American churchgoers | ||
Attack type | |||
Weapons | |||
Deaths | 9 | ||
Non-fatal injuries | 1 | ||
Suspected perpetrator | Dylann Roof | ||
Motive | |||
The Charleston church shooting (also known as the Charleston church massacre) was a mass shooting that took place at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in downtown Charleston, South Carolina, United States, on the evening of June 17, 2015. During a prayer service, nine people were killed by a gunman, including the senior pastor, state senatorClementa C. Pinckney; a tenth victim survived. The morning after the attack, police arrested a suspect, later identified as 21-year-old Dylann Roof, in Shelby, North Carolina. Roof later confessed that he committed the shooting in hopes of igniting a race war.
The United States Department of Justiceinvestigated whether the shooting was a hate crimeor an act of domestic terrorism, eventually indicting Roof on 33 federal hate crime charges. Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church is one of the United States' oldest black churches and has long been a site for community organization around civil rights. Roof is to be indicted on federal hate crime charges, and has been charged with nine counts of murder by the State of South Carolina. If convicted, he could face a sentence of death or thirty years to life in prison. A website apparently published by Roof included a manifestodetailing his beliefs on race, as well as several photographs showing him posing with emblems associated with white supremacy. Roof's photos of the Confederate battle flag triggered debate on its modern display.
Background
The 200-year-old church has played an important role in the history of South Carolina, including the slavery era, the 1960s Civil Rights Movement, and the Black Lives Mattermovement in the 2010s. The church was founded in 1816 and it is the oldest African Methodist Episcopal Church in the South, often referred to as "Mother Emanuel". It is the oldest historically black congregation south of Baltimore. When one of the church's co-founders, Denmark Vesey, was suspected of planning a slave rebellion in Charleston in 1822, 35 people, including Vesey, were hanged and the church was burned down. Charleston citizens accepted the claim that a slave rebellion was to begin at the stroke of midnight on June 16, 1822, and to erupt the following day; the shooting in 2015 occurred on the 193rd anniversary of the thwarted uprising. The rebuilt church was formally shuttered with other all-black congregations by the city in 1834, meeting in secret until 1865 when it was formally reorganized, acquired the name Emanuel ("God with us"), and rebuilt upon a design by Denmark Vesey's son. That structure was badly damaged in the 1886 Charleston earthquake. The current building dates from 1891.
The church's senior pastor, the Rev. Clementa C. Pinckney, had held rallies after the shooting of Walter Scott by a white police officer on April 4, 2015, in nearby North Charleston, and as a state senator, he pushed for legislation requiring police to wear body cameras. Several observers noted a similarity between the massacre at Emanuel AME and the 1963 bombing of a politically active African-American church in Birmingham, Alabama, where the Ku Klux Klan(KKK) killed four black girls and injured fourteen others, an attack that galvanized the 1960s Civil Rights Movement.
A number of scholars, journalists, activists and politicians have emphasized the need to understand the attack in the broader context of racism in the United States, rather than seeing it as an isolated event of racially motivated violence. In 1996, Congress passed the Church Arson Prevention Act, making it a federal crime to damage religious property because of its "racial or ethnic character", in response to a spate of 154 suspicious church burnings since 1991. More recent arson attacks against black churches included a black church in Massachusetts that was burned down the day after President Barack Obama was inaugurated in 2009.
Shooting
At around 9:05 p.m. EDT on Wednesday, June 17, 2015, the Charleston Police Departmentbegan receiving calls of a shooting at Emanuel AME Church. A man described as white, with sandy-blond hair, around 21 years old and 5 feet 9 inches (175 cm) in height, wearing a gray sweatshirt and jeans, opened fire with a Glock 41.45-caliberhandgun on a group of people inside the church at a Bible study attended by Pinckney. The shooter then fled the scene. He had been carrying eight magazines holding hollow-point bullets. This was the largest mass shooting at an American place of worship, alongside a 1991 attack at a Buddhisttemple in Waddell, Arizona.
During the hour preceding the attack, 13 people including the shooter participated in the Bible study. According to the accounts of people who talked to survivors, the shooter asked for Pinckney and sat down next to him, initially listening to others during the study. He started to disagree when they began discussing Scripture. Eventually, after waiting for the other participants to begin praying, he stood up and pulled a gun from a fanny pack, aiming it at 87-year-old Susie Jackson. Jackson's nephew, 26-year-old Tywanza Sanders, tried to talk him down and asked him why he was attacking churchgoers. The shooter responded, "I have to do it. You rape our women and you're taking over our country. And you have to go." When he expressed his intention to shoot everyone, Sanders dove in front of Jackson and was shot first. The suspect then shot the other victims, all the while shouting racial epithets. He also reportedly said, "Y'all want something to pray about? I'll give you something to pray about." He reloaded his gun five times. Sanders' mother and his five-year-old niece, both attending the study, survived the shooting by pretending to be dead.
Dot Scott, president of the local branch of the NAACP, said she had heard from victims' relatives that the shooter spared one woman (Sanders' mother) so she could, according to him, tell other people what happened. He asked her, "Did I shoot you?" She replied, "No." Then, he said, "Good, 'cause we need someone to survive, because I'm gonna shoot myself, and you'll be the only survivor." According to the son of one of the victims, who spoke to that survivor, the shooter allegedly turned the gun to his own head and pulled the trigger, but only then discovered he was out of ammunition. Before leaving the church, he reportedly "uttered a racially inflammatory statement" over the victims' bodies. The entire shooting lasted for approximately six minutes.
Several hours later, a bomb threat was called into the Courtyard by Marriott hotel on Calhoun Street, complicating the investigation and prompting an evacuation of the immediate area.
 |
Nine victims of the Charleston church shooting. Top row: Cynthia Hurd, Rev. Clementa Pinckney, Rev. Sharonda Coleman-Singleton Middle row: Daniel Simmons, Rev. Depayne Middleton Doctor, Tywanza Sanders Bottom row: Myra Thompson, Ethel Lee Lance, Susie JacksonVia Facebook and Getty Images [PHOTO SOURCE: http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/charleston-church-shooting/charleston-church-shooting-tributes-paid-kind-hearted-victims-n377551] |
Victims
The dead, six women and three men, were all MethodistAfrican Americans. Eight died at the scene; the ninth, Daniel Simmons, died at MUSC Medical Center. They were all killed by multiple gunshots fired at close range. One unidentified person was wounded but survived. Five individuals survived the shooting unharmed, including Felicia Sanders, mother of slain victim Tywanza Sanders, and her five-year-old granddaughter, along with Polly Sheppard, a Bible study member. Pinckney's wife and daughter were also inside the building during the shooting. Those killed were identified as:
- Cynthia Marie Graham Hurd (54) – Bible study member and manager for the Charleston County Public Library system; sister of Malcolm Graham.
- Susie Jackson (87) – a Bible study and church choir member.
- Ethel Lee Lance (70) – the church's sexton.
- Depayne Middleton-Doctor (49) – a pastor who was also employed as a school administrator and admissions coordinator at Southern Wesleyan University.
- Clementa C. Pinckney (41) – the church's pastor and a South Carolina state senator.
- Tywanza Sanders (26) – a Bible study member; grandnephew of Susie Jackson.
- Daniel Simmons (74) – a pastor who also served at Greater Zion AME Church in Awendaw.
- Sharonda Coleman-Singleton (45) – a pastor; also a speech therapist and track coach at Goose Creek High School.
- Myra Thompson (59) – a Bible study teacher.
 |
Mugshot taken of Dylann Roof, taken following his capture and extradition. Dylann Storm Roof (born April 3, 1994) is an American suspected of perpetrating the June 17, 2015 Charleston church shooting. During a prayer service at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church, Roof is alleged to have killed nine African Americans, including senior pastor and state senatorClementa C. Pinckney, and injured one other person. After several people identified Roof as the main suspect, he became the center of a manhunt that ended the morning after the shooting with his arrest in Shelby, North Carolina. He later confessed that he committed the shooting in hopes of igniting a race war. Three days after the shooting, a website titled The Last Rhodesian was discovered and later confirmed by officials to be owned by Roof. The website contained photos of Roof posing with symbols of white supremacy and neo-Nazism, along with a manifesto in which he outlined his views towards blacks, among other peoples. He also claimed in the manifesto to have developed his white supremacist views following research on the 2012 shooting of Trayvon Martin and "black-on-white crime". Roof has been charged with nine counts of murder, three counts of attempted murder, and possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony. He also faces federal hate crimecharges, for which he faces the death penalty. His trial in state court will start on January 17, 2017. |
Suspect
Dylann Storm Roof was named by the Federal Bureau of Investigation(FBI) as the suspected killer after his father and uncle contacted police to positively identify him upon seeing security photos of him in the news. Roof was born in Columbia, South Carolina, and was living in largely African-American Eastover at the time of the attack. Roof had a prior police record consisting of two arrests, both made in the months preceding the attack. According to FBI DirectorJames Comey, a police report detailing Roof's admission to a narcotics offense should have prevented him from purchasing the weapon used in the shooting, but an administrative error within the National Instant Criminal Background Check System kept Roof's admission (though not the arrest itself) from appearing on his mandatory background check.
One image from his Facebookpage depicts Roof wearing a jacket decorated with two emblems that are popular among American white supremacists: the flags of the former Rhodesia (now known as Zimbabwe) and apartheid-era South Africa. Roof reportedly told friends and neighbors of his plans to kill people, including a plot to attack the College of Charleston, but his claims were not taken seriously. On June 20, a website was discovered called The Last Rhodesian (www.lastrhodesian.com); it had been registered to a "Dylann Roof" on February 9, 2015. The website included what appeared to be an unsigned manifesto containing Roof's opinions of "Blacks", "Jews", "Hispanics" and "East Asians", as well a cache of photos, including an image of Roof posing with a handgun and a Confederate Battle Flag. In this manifesto, Roof says he became "racially aware" as a result of the 2012 shooting of Trayvon Martin, writing that because he kept hearing people talk about the incident, he "decided to look him up" and read the Wikipedia article about it. He concluded that George Zimmerman had been in the right, and he was unable to comprehend why the case had gained national attention. He then searched for "black on White [sic] crime" on Google and found the website of the Council of Conservative Citizens, where he read "pages upon pages" of cases involving black people murdering white people. Roof then writes he has "never been the same since that day".
According to web server logs, Roof's website was last modified at 4:44 p.m. on June 17, the day of the shooting, when Roof noted, "[A]t the time of writing I am in a great hurry."
An unidentified source said interrogations with Roof after his arrest determined he had been planning the attack for around six months, researched Emanuel AME Church, and targeted it because of its role in African-American history. One of the friends who briefly hid Roof's gun from him said, "I don't think the church was his primary target because he told us he was going for the school. But I think he couldn't get into the school because of the security ... so I think he just settled for the church."
Roof's cellphone and computer were seized and subjected to FBI analysis. According to unnamed officials, he was in online communication with other white supremacists, and although they did not appear to have encouraged the massacre, the investigation was said to have widened to include other persons of interest.
Criminal investigation
Manhunt and capture
The attack was treated as a hate crime by police, and officials from the Federal Bureau of Investigationwere called in to assist in the investigation and manhunt.
At 10:44 a.m., on the morning after the attack, Roof was captured in a traffic stop in Shelby, North Carolina, approximately 245 miles (394 km) from the shooting scene. A .45-caliber pistol was found in the car during the arrest, though it was not immediately clear if it was the same one used in the attack. Police received a tip-off from a woman who recognized Roof driving his car, a black Hyundai Elantra with South Carolina license plates and a three-flag "Confederate States of America" bumper decoration, on U.S. Route 74, recalling security camera images taken at the church and distributed to the media. She later recalled, "I got closer and saw that haircut. I was nervous. I had the worst feeling. Is that him or not him?" She called her employer, who contacted local police, and then tailed the suspect's car for 35 miles (56 km) until she was certain authorities were moving in for an arrest.
Legal proceedings
Roof waived his extradition rights and was flown to Sheriff Al Cannon Detention Center in North Charleston on the evening of June 18. At the jail, his cell-block neighbor was Michael Slager, the former North Charleston police officer charged with murder after he shot Walter Scott. According to unconfirmed reports, Roof confessed to committing the attack and said his purpose was to start a race war. He reportedly told investigators he almost did not go through with his mission because members of the church study group had been so nice to him.
On June 19, Roof was charged with nine counts of murder and one count of possession of a firearm during the commission of a violent crime. He first appeared in Charleston County court via videoconferenceat a bond hearing later that day. At the hearing, shooting survivors and relatives of five of the victims spoke to Roof directly, saying that they were "praying for his soul" and forgave him.
The judge, Charleston County chief magistrate James "Skip" Gosnell, Jr., caused controversy at the bond hearing with his statement that, alongside the dead victims and their families, "there are victims on this young man's side of the family [...] Nobody would have ever thrown them into the whirlwind of events that they are being thrown into." In 2005, the South Carolina Supreme Courtreprimanded Gosnell for using a racial slur while on the bench in 2003. Gosnell set a $1 million bond for the weapons possession charge and no bail on the nine counts of murder.
Governor Nikki Haley has called on prosecutors to seek the death penalty against Roof.
On July 7, Roof was indicted on the nine murder charges and the weapons charge, as well three new charges of attempted murder, one for each person who survived the shooting. His state trial is scheduled to start on January 17, 2017. He also faces federal hate crime charges, including nine counts of using a firearm to commit murder and 24 civil rights violations (12 hate crimecharges and 12 counts of violating a person's freedom of religion), with 18 of the charges carrying the federal death penalty.
On July 31, Roof pleaded not guilty to the federal charges against him on the advice of his lawyer David Bruck. Bruck earlier said Roof wanted to plead guilty, but he couldn't advise it without knowing the government's intentions.
On September 3, Ninth Circuit solicitor (district attorney) Scarlett Wilson announced that she intended to seek the federal death penalty against Roof, with the decision being made since more than two people were killed in the shooting and others' lives were put at risk. On September 16, Roof said through his attorney that he was willing to plead guilty in exchange for a sentence of life in prison without parole. On October 1, the federal trial was pushed back to at least January 2016 to give prosecutors and Roof's attorneys more time to prepare. On December 1, the trial was postponed again to an unknown date. He and Joey Meek, accused of misprision of felony and lying to investigators about Roof's plans, will reappear in federal court on February 11, 2016, while their lawyers hold a bar meeting with prosecutors to discuss their cases. Jury selection will start on January 17, 2017.
Aftermath
Context of racism
Memorials
Community response
Other investigations
Reactions
Officials
Families
Local community
Religious community
Others
Controversies
Confederate flag
Flag removal from statehouse grounds
Retailer bans
Other
Earl Holt political donations
"Terrorism" terminology