Blaz: ‘Our hearts’ are with them

NEW YORK politicians, clergy and civil rights leaders expressed shock and outrage Thursday over the South Carolina church massacre.

“This is an absolutely troubling and heartwrenching moment,” Mayor de Blasio said.

“The fact is that nine innocent lives are lost. Our hearts go out to the people of Charleston. Our hearts go out to the members of Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church.”

The Rev. Al Sharpton called the mass killing “one of the most horrendous acts that I have ever seen.

“To walk into a church and kill nine people in a place that should be sacred is a new low in hate and atrocities in this country,” Sharpton said in a news conference at the National Action Network’s Harlem headquarters. “None of us are safe if we cannot go to a church for Bible study.”

The Rev. Reginald Lee Bachus, associate pastor at the Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem, said the community was rocked by news of the shooting.

“This is a sad day — it used to be that the house of the Lord was our only sanctuary,” he said. “I think it’s horrific and we are absolutely enraged and just devastated this would happen.

“I believe this was an attack on Christianity, as well as an attack on African-Americans.”

The mass murder was also on the minds of dozens who gathered in Union Square for a 7 p.m. vigil, and among parishioners and workers streaming inside the food pantry at the Allen A.M.E. Church in Queens.

“That wasn’t God, that was Satan,” said Pauline Griffin, 62, a pantry volunteer. “We’re not safe in the church, not safe in our homes, not safe outside. ”

Detectives from the NYPD’s counterterrorism unit have been in contact with Charleston police, a police source said.

The NYPD reached out to black churches to advise them to call if they have concerns or see something suspicious.

“The NYPD’s prayers are with the victims and the survivors of last night’s terrible shooting in Charleston,” Police Commissioner Bill Bratton tweeted Thursday.