The New York Times and other sources report that the suspect in the Charleston shooting at Emanuel A.M.E. Church, Dylann Storm Roof, has been captured in Shelby, N.C.:
The police here say Mr. Roof, who is white, is suspected of being the gunman who walked into the prayer meeting Wednesday night, sat down with black parishioners for nearly an hour, and then opened fire.
The Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, the F.B.I., and the United States Attorney’s Office for South Carolina have opened a hate crime investigation into the shooting, which left six women and three men dead, and Chief Mullen has called it a hate crime.
The Reverend Clementa C. Pinckney, pastor of Emanuel, was among those killed.
Sylvia Johnson, a cousin of Mr. Pinckney’s, said in an interview with NBC News that a survivor of the shooting had told her the gunman reloaded five times. The survivor said the gunman had entered the church and asked for the pastor. Then he sat next to Mr. Pinckney during the Bible study before opening fire.
“I have to do it,” the gunman was quoted as saying. “You rape our women and you’re taking over our country. And you have to go.”
USA Today quotes Senator Marlon Kimpson, interviewed on CNN, reflecting on the Rev. Pinckney: “He was a giant, a legend, a moral compass.”
Posted by Cara Ellen Modisett