You have to go, said shooter before killing 9
Attack in US labelled a hate crime with racist motive
THE killer, a young white man with slim features and a pudding-basin haircut, bided his time. Then one hour into the weekly Bible study group at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina, he stood up and announced: “I have to do it; you have to go.” And he started to shoot.
Branded a hate crime by officials, the quick, and apparently methodical, act of slaughter left nine people dead, including the church’s pastor, the Reverend Clementa Pinckney, who was also a Democrat member of the South Carolina Senate. Wednesday’s shooting sent shock waves thorough a nation already battered by months of renewed racial unease and protests.
The shooter, identified as Dylann Roof, was arrested at a roadblock in neighbouring North Carolina on Thursday. Yesterday, it emerged that he had been given a gun for his 21st birthday in April.
“It doesn’t happen in other places,” said Barack Obama, addressing the nation yesterday. “At some point we as a country will have to reconcile the fact that these types of mass violence don’t happen in other advanced countries. It is in our power to do something about it. I say that recognising the politics in this town.”
Obama acknowledged that the fact the attack was on a black church “raises questions” about the motive.
“This is an unfathomable and unspeakable act by somebody filled with hate and with a deranged mind,” Charleston mayor Joe Riley said.
The victims were named as Cynthia Hurd, 54, Susie Jackson, 87, Ethel Lance, 70, Reverend DePayne MiddletonDoctor, 49, Pinckney, 41, Tywanza Sanders, 26, Reverend Daniel Simmons, 74, Reverend Sharonda Singleton, 45, and Myra Thompson, 59. All but one died at the scene.
“I’m heartbroken,” said Shona Holmes, 28, a bystander at the aftermath of the shooting. “It’s just hurtful to think that someone would come in and shoot people in a church. If you’re not safe in church, where are you safe?”
Police said Roof had been arrested on April 26 for trespassing and had a drug case pending against him. They had earlier distributed a mugshot, as well as security camera images of him at the church and of the car he sped away in.
Local officials confirmed the US Department of Justice had joined the investigation, a further indication that it was being treated as a hate crime with racist motives.
The scene at the Bible class, held each Wednesday in the church basement, was described by Sylvia Johnson, a cousin of the pastor, who said she heard it from one of only three survivors.
“I have to do it,” the killer reportedly proclaimed. “You rape our women and you’re taking over the country. You have to go.” The survivor said he reloaded his gun five times.
He reportedly told one woman he would spare her so she would tell the world what he had done and why.
Difficult to calculate is the anger the attack will cause in the black community. South Carolina, where the Civil War began, shares the history of the Deep South, from slaveowning to the civil rights movement and the terror that the KKK once instilled.