Live updates: Nine killed in shooting at church in Charleston

Charleston will host a prayer vigil on Friday evening at the College of Charleston, city officials announced this afternoon.

For some, the shooting evoked memories of the 1963 Birmingham bombing, in which Ku Klux Klan members planted dynamite on the steps of the 16th Sreet Baptist Church, killing four African American girls.

“The appalling events at the Emanuel Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston sent shudders through those who spent decades working to hold the Birmingham church bombers accountable,” Doug Jones, the former U.S. attorney who prosecuted Klan members who carried out the bombing, said in a statement Thursday. “For such a heinous act to be perpetrated in a house of God more than a half a century after the 16th Street tragedy is a reminder to us all that we must be ever vigilant and work as one community to call out and eliminate racial hatred. “

Black church leaders far from South Carolina responded to Wednesday’s fatal shooting in Charleston with grief, prayer and calls of action. From Acts of Faith:

From church leaders to political leaders, the mass shootings at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church pricked the hearts of many in one of oldest and most prominent church denominations in the country.

“The AME church has a real strong connective bond across the country,” said Dakarai Aaron, a member of the Board of Stewards at Metropolitan AME church in Washington DC. “When one of us hurts all of us hurt.”

Read more here.

Hands are raised during a prayer vigil held at Charleston’s Morris Brown AME Church for the victims of Wednesday’s shooting. (Grace Beahm/The Post And Courier via AP)

Nine victims were gunned down Wednesday evening at Emanuel AME. Here are their stories:

Sharonda Coleman-Singleton, 45: “All her life, Sharonda Coleman-Singleton pressed toward a goal.”

DePayne Middleton Doctor, 49: “DePayne Middleton Doctor had a powerful voice, an alto belt that could fill a church and bring out calls of praise from her fellow parishioners when she soloed in the choir.”

Cynthia Hurd, 54: “Cynthia Hurd dedicated her life to public service.”

Susie Jackson, 87: “It’s just hard to process that my grandmother had to leave Earth this way.”

Ethel Lance, 70: “Ethel Lance was practically always at her church, members said.”

Clementa C. Pinckney, 41: “Clementa C. Pinckney was busy Wednesday, not unusual for a man who was both a respected reverend and state senator in his native South Carolina.”

Tywanza Sanders, 26: “Tywanza Sanders was a year out of college when he was killed in Wednesday’s shooting, remembered by his alma mater as a quiet, warm and committed student.”

Daniel Simmons, 74: “Daniel Simmons was a pastor retired from another church in Charleston who worshipped every Sunday at Emanuel AME and visited on Wednesdays for Bible studies.”

Myra Thompson, 59: “Myra Thompson, 59, was was the wife of Reverend Anthony Thompson, a vicar at Holy Trinity REC in Charleston.”

Read more here: Remembering the Charleston church shooting victims.

SHELBY, N.C. — Debbie Dills says she was going to work on Thursday morning when she pulled up next to a car and saw something that caught her eye.

His hair caught her eye, she said later, but she continued driving and pulled off of Interstate 74 to continue on to her job as a florist at Frady’s Florist in Kings Mountain. But she decided she had to do something.

That hair, and that car, had been all over the news in the hours before Dills got into her car. Police had released photos of Dylann Roof and said he had opened fire inside a Charleston, S.C., church, gunning down nine parishioners gathered in the building.

“Those people were doing what I had just done,” Dills said in an interview Thursday. She was at her church, the West Cramerton Baptist Church in Gastonia, on Wednesday night. “They were studying his word, that is what they were there to do, and they lost their lives doing that.”

(Ken Otterbourg for The Washington Post)

Dills called her boss Todd Frady, and got back on the road, driving about 10 miles down I-74 before catching up to him. She and Frady eventually got onto a three-way phone call with the Shelby Police Department, she said, and she got close enough to the car to get the tag number.

A short time later, Dills said, the police told her they had the situation under control, and she turned around to go to work.

Before Dills got back to work, though, Frady called her to tell her the news: Police had arrested Roof in Shelby.

The Shelby Police Department did not immediately respond to messages seeking comment Thursday. But when Gregory Mullen, the Charleston police chief, announced the arrest on Thursday morning, he pointed to one tip in particular, saying that Roof was captured after a citizen saw something suspicious and called the police.

— Ken Otterbourg

Weeks before being gunned down at Emmanuel AME Church, the Rev. Clementa Pinckney took to the South Carolina Senate floor to address racism and violence. His remarks, which addressed the police shooting of Walter Scott, were made in support of equipping police officers with body cameras, our colleague Max Ehrenfreund writes:

“Today the nation looks at South Carolina and is looking at us to see if we will rise to be the body and to be the state that we really say that we are,” Pinckney said, citing “a real heartache and a yearning for justice, for people not just in the African American community, but for all people — and not just in the Charleston area or even in South Carolina, but across our country.”

Pinckney went on to suggest that his faith requires forgiveness, even of those who kill.

“The Lord teaches us to love all, and we pray that over time, justice will be done,” he said.

Read more at Wonkblog here.

The South Carolina and American flags fly at half mast as the Confederate flag unfurls below at the Confederate Monument Thursday in Columbia, South Carolina. (Sean Rayford/Getty)

The United States and South Carolina flags atop the statehouse in Columbia have been lowered Thursday after the shooting at Emanuel AME. But a Confederate flag on the statehouse grounds remains raised at full mast, the Post and Courier reported.

Officials told the Post and Courier that the state legislature controls when it comes down. From the paper:

State law reads, in part, the state “shall ensure that the flags authorized above shall be placed at all times as directed in this section and shall replace the flags at appropriate intervals as may be necessary due to wear.”

The protection was added by supporters of the flag to keep it on display as an officially recognized memorial to South Carolinians who fought in the Civil War. Opponents say it defends a system that supported slavery and represents hate groups.

In a show of respect, a brief recognition ceremony was held in the Senate chamber Thursday. The U.S. and South Carolina flags were lowered from the dome. The square Confederate banner that’s in front of the building and on display at the Confederate monument was left alone.

As Will Whitson, South Carolina state reporter for NBC affiliate WIS-TV explained, removing the flag requires a legislative vote and “it is not an instantaneous process.”

Shooting suspect Dylann Roof on Thursday waived extradition and was expected to return to Charleston, the Cleveland County Clerk’s Office confirmed.

Roof was arrested Thursday in Shelby, N.C., which is in Cleveland County. Charleston, S.C., is about four hours away.

Over on Early Lead, Clinton Yates takes a look at the Charleston RiverDogs’ decision to play tonight’s scheduled minor league baseball game, against the West Virginia Power.

Writes Yates:

Nearly three years ago, I was sitting in Joseph P. Riley Jr. Park watching the Charleston RiverDogs play baseball. I was on a tour to visit minor league parks and the second largest city in South Carolina was the furthest point south. I did all the tourist things, visiting the historic district, where the ugly details of the state’s slave past is conveniently white-washed with phrases that make everyone feel like it was all okay.

One tour guide called an old trading block downtown “the Internet of its era” and others would routinely throw around the phrase “most prosperous” or “most profitable” colony, as if there was a reason that farmers were making money beyond, you know, atrocious human rights activities that allowed them to enrich themselves on the backs of others. I visited seven cities that summer all across the American South.

Charleston was the only place I felt physically uncomfortable just walking around, because the visual vocabulary of the place was so painfully unchanged from one of the most awful chapters of American history.

Read the full piece here.

A group of firefighters bow their heads in prayer outside the site of the Sofa Super Store in Charleston, South Carolina, June 19, 2007. (Mahmood Fazal/Bloomberg News)

Today marks a sad anniversary in the city of Charleston: on June 18, 2007, nine firefighters died in a blaze at the Sofa Super Store. Commemoration events had been planned for Thursday night, the Post and Courier reported.

A firefighter walks in front of the burning Sofa Super Store in Charleston, S.C., Monday, June 18, 2007. (Tyrone Walker/The Post And Courier via AP)

A firefighter takes a moment after helping to put out the fire that claimed the lives of nine Charleston area firefighters at the Sofa Super Store in Charleston, S.C., Tuesday, June 19, 2007. (Alice Keeney/AP)

Three years ago, before the gunfire erupted at a Sunday morning service, members of the close-knit Sikh community in suburban Milwaukee seldom locked the temple doors.

Now, those who arrive this evening to pray for the victims in Charleston, S.C. must ring a buzzer for a full-time security guard to let them inside, Danielle Paquette reports. This is life for the Sikh Temple of Wisconsin after a gunman killed five men and one woman in 2012, the last major bloodshed at a place of worship in the United States before the deadly church shooting in Charleston, S.C.

“It used to be in the Sikh religion, all doors stayed open,” Balhair S. Dulai, vice president of the temple. “But what happened here, and what happened in South Carolina — these things could happen anywhere. No one is immune.”

Head to Post Nation for more.

Former U.S. attorney general Eric Holder sent his first tweet from his personal account Thursday, and it was in response to the shooting at Emanuel AME:

Holder’s former spokesman, Matthew Miller, confirmed that the account does indeed belong to Holder.

Rae H. Wooten, the Charleston County coroner, confirmed the names of the nine victims killed on the shooting spree inside the Charleston church.

Speaking at a news conference Thursday, Wooten recited the nine names, though she did not immediately provide spellings or other personal details.

• Cynthia Hurd, 54, a library branch manager
• Susie Jackson, 87
• Ethel Lance, 70
• The Rev. DePayne Middleton-Doctor, 49
• The Rev. Clementa Pinckney, 41, the church’s pastor and a state senator
• Tywanza Sanders, 26
• The Rev. Daniel Simmons, 74, who died at the hospital after the shooting
• The Rev. Sharonda Singleton, 45
• Myra Thompson, 59

(This list has been updated.)

In April, Dylann Roof was arrested on charges of trespassing at the Columbiana Mall in Columbia, S.C. That came two months after he was banned from the mall after a police officer said he found Roof in possession of a narcotic there.

Here are the police reports from those two incidents.

In this report from February, police in Columbia, S.C., say that Roof was acting suspicious at a mall north…

Police report on trespassing charges against Charleston shooting suspect Dylann Roof

One of the victims of the Charleston church shooting was a recent college graduate, the university where he studied confirmed Thursday.

Tywanza Sanders, a 2014 graduate of the Division of Business Administration at Allen University, was among those killed in the shooting, the institution said in a news release.

“He was a quiet, well known student who was committed to his education,” the statement read. “He presented a warm and helpful spirit as he interacted with his colleagues. Mr. Sanders was participating in the Bible Study session at Mother Emanuel church at the time of the shooting.”

From Acts of Faith’s Sarah Pulliam Bailey comes five key points to know about violence at houses of worship in the United States:

• This incident ties for the largest mass murder at a house of worship in the United States.
• There is an uptick in violence at houses of worship. In 2014, there were 176 deaths at a religious institution.
• There have been 13 mass murders at a house of worship since the Birmingham, Ala., bombing in 1963.
• About 60 percent of violence at religious institutions include guns.
• The last mass killing at a house of worship was at a Sikh temple outside Milwaukee in 2012.

Bailey writes:

The Charleston shooting ties for the most people killed during a mass murder at a faith-based institution in recent memory, according to Carl Chinn, who runs what is considered to be the most extensive database on church violence. The FBI defines mass murder as four or more killed in a single act, typically at one location.

“It’s certainly one of, if not the most, vicious attacks I’ve seen at a faith-based organization,” said Chinn, who described the shooting as the 13th mass murder at a faith-based organization in the country.

Read more at Acts of Faith here.

Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.) wipes his eye as members of Congress congregate for a prayer circle honoring the South Carolina shooting victims outside the U.S. Capitol on Thursday. (Yuri Gripas/Reuters)

Lawmakers and aides assembled outside of the U.S. Capitol steps Thursday morning for a prayer circle led by Senate Chaplain Barry Black.

“A church should be one of the safest places on the planet. And people assembled to lift their heads in prayer to hear the word of God. And they were brutally murdered in the house of God,” Black said. “Our hearts ache for the families of the victims. Our hearts ache for the citizens of Charleston, South Carolina. Our hearts ache for our nation, and we pray and ask that God would somehow use us to end the insanity of violence that we see.”

House and Senate members and staff gather in a prayer circle in front of the U.S. Capitol. (Mark Wilson/Getty)

Vice President Biden, who had seen one of the victims of the Charleston shooting less than a year ago, called it an “act of pure evil and hatred.”

“Hate has once again been let loose in an American community,” Biden and his wife, Jill, said in a statement Thursday. “And the senseless actions of a coward have once again cut short so many lives with so much promise.”

Biden said that they last saw the Rev. Clementa Pinckney, who was also a state senator, last year at a prayer breakfast in Columbia, S.C.

“He was a good man, a man of faith, a man of service who carried forward Mother Emanuel’s legacy as a sacred place promoting freedom, equality, and justice for all,” Biden said. “We pray for him and his sister as we do for the seven other innocent souls who entered that storied church for their weekly Bible study seeking nothing more than humble guidance for the full lives ahead of them.”

What appears to be the Facebook profile photo of the Charleston gunman carries a possible indicator of a racist worldview, as Ishaan Tharoor explains here.

The picture shows Dylann Roof, who has been named as the gunman by police, in the woods, wearing a jacket with at least two conspicuous patches. The patches, as the Southern Poverty Law Center quickly noted, are the old flags of racist, white-minority regimes in southern Africa.

For more on these flags, head to WorldViews.

A Charleston university said that the mother of one of its students was killed in the church shooting.

“We are especially mourning the loss of Sharonda Coleman-Singleton, the mother of rising sophomore Chris Singleton,” Charleston Southern University President Jairy C. Hunter Jr. said in a statement Thursday.

Chris Singleton is a member of the university’s baseball team, Hunter said. He added that the team’s players and coaches are reeling from the shooting, with the head coach saying Sharonda Coleman-Singleton made an “immeasurable” contribution to the team.

The university will hold a prayer vigil on-campus on Monday at 11:30 a.m.

From The Fix’s Philip Bump comes this timeline of President Obama’s responses to mass shooting incidents since he took office. Read more at The Fix here.

A woman who worked at one of Charleston’s libraries was killed in the shooting, the county announced Thursday.

Cynthia Hurd had “dedicated her life to serving and improving the lives of others,” the Charleston County Public Library system said in a statement.

“Charleston County Public Library is saddened to confirm the loss of one of our own in Wednesday’s shooting at the Mother Emmanuel AME Church,” the statement said.

Hurd, who had worked for the library system for 31 years, was the manager of the St. Andrews Regional Library. That library is located a little more than six miles from the church where she was shot and killed.

Due to the shooting and Hurd’s death, the county library system said it would be closed on Thursday. The St. Andrews regional branch and the John L. Dart branch, where Hurd was manager before going to St. Andrews, will both be closed Friday.

[This post originally stated that Hurd was 31, which is incorrect.]

President Barack Obama speaks alongside Vice President Joe Biden from the Brady Press Briefing Room on Thursday. (Saul Loebs/AFP/Getty)

President Obama on Thursday expressed “deep sorrow” over the “senseless murders” in Charleston, S.C., where nine people were killed in a church shooting Wednesday night, blaming ineffective gun laws and issuing a sharp condemnation of the politics surrounding gun control legislation.

“Any death of this sort is a tragedy. Any shooting involving multiple victims is a tragedy. There is something particularly heartbreaking about the death happening in a place in which we seek solace and we seek peace, in a place of worship,” the president said from the White House, with Vice President Biden standing by his side.

Wearing a dark blue suit, the somber president pursed his lips frequently as he spoke, as if to contain either anger or sorrow. Obama noted that he and his wife knew the Rev. Clementa Pinckney, the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church pastor who was killed in the shooting, as well as several other members of the congregation.

“And 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,” he said, adding that he was constrained in terms of discussing details of the case. “But 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.”

The president said that the FBI is on the ground and will send more agents to assist with the investigation. He cited a statement by Attorney General Loretta Lynch classifying the effort as a hate crime investigation. But though he acknowledged many facts are not yet known, he also said that insufficient gun laws were partially to blame.

“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,” he continued. “Now is the time for mourning and for healing, but 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.  It doesn’t happen in other places with this kind of frequency.”

Read the rest here

At Charleston’s Morris Brown AME Church, located just a few blocks from where the fatal shooting occurred, a long line of mourners filed in Thursday for a noon prayer service for the victims.

The Rev. Dan Clark, a white Episcopal priest from Charleston, said he came to pay tribute “because of the dreadful circumstances of those who have fallen victim to hate.”

Inside, the church pews were filled with a crowd that included Rep. Jim Clyburn (D), and Gov. Nikki Haley (R).

“What happened in that church last night was not the people of South Carolina,” Haley said. “What’s happening in this church and in churches all across this state — that’s the people of South Carolina.”

Also in attendance was Charleston Mayor Joseph P. Riley Jr. (D), who said Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church, the site of the shooting, had long held an important place in the city’s history.

“Now it is even more sacred,” Riley said.

President Obama delivered remarks from the White House Thursday morning. He said, in part:

Michelle and I know several members of Emanuel AME Church. We knew their pastor, Reverend Clementa Pinckney, who, along with eight others, gathered in prayer and fellow ship and was murdered last night, and 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.

Read Obama’s full remarks on the fatal shooting here.

President Obama on Thursday expressed “deep sorrow” over the “senseless murders” in Charleston, where nine people were killed in a church shooting Wednesday night, blaming ineffective gun laws and issuing a sharp condemnation of the politics surrounding gun control legislation.

“Any death of this sort is a tragedy. Any shooting involving multiple victims is a tragedy. There is something particularly heartbreaking about a death happening in a place in which we seek solace and we seek peace, in a place of worship,” the president said from the White House.

The president said that the FBI is on the ground and will send more agents to assist with the investigation into the shooting. He cited a statement by Attorney General Loretta Lynch classifying the effort as a hate crime investigation. But although he acknowledged many facts are not yet known, he also said that insufficient gun laws were partially to blame.

“I’ve had to make statements like this too many times. Communities like this have had to endure tragedies like this too many times,” he said. “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.”

The president’s remarks Thursday were his 14th statement related to a shooting since he took office, according to CBS News’ Mark Knoller. Of those, 11 were about domestic shootings while the other three occurred abroad.

“Now is the time for mourning and for healing. But 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,” he said.

This story is developing. Check back for updates…

From The Fix’s Janell Ross:

Of the thousands of hate crimes reported in 2013, nearly half (48.5 percent) involved crimes motivated by racial animus, and another 17.4 percent were driven by some form of religious intolerance. It is unclear how many, like the incident at Emanuel AME, might have involved some elements of both. White perpetrators of hate crimes — many of them young and male like the just-apprehended accused Emanuel AME church shooter, Dylann Storm Roof — were involved in the majority of both types of crime.

Read more here.

A visibly emotional South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley (R) said her state was grieving in the aftermath of the Charleston shooting and called for statewide prayers.

“We woke up today, and the heart and soul of South Carolina was broken,” Haley said at a news conference, sounding as if she were holding back tears. “So we have some grieving to do. And we have some pain to go through. Parents are having to explain to their kids how they can go to church and feel safe, and that’s not something we ever thought we’d have to deal with.”

The gunman who opened fire inside the Charleston church made racist comments before he started shooting, according to law enforcement officials.

Police have identified Dylann Roof as the shooter. He was taken into custody Thursday morning in North Carolina.

Roof sat in the back of the room for about an hour, these officials said, and some people in the Bible study group encouraged him to join the discussion. Before he began firing a semiautomatic handgun, Roof said something that the officials described as hateful racial epithets.

Officials said that the gunshots were fired at close range, rather than a random spray of gunfire across the room.

— Sari Horwitz

Charleston Mayor Joseph Riley (D) announced the establishment of a fund to help cover expenses faced by families of the Charleston shooting

“The Mother Emanuel Hope Fund will be a vehicle for citizens of our community and citizens around the country” to support the shooting victims’ families, he said Thursday.

The city opened the fund with a $5,000 contribution, Riley said.

Police have not provided many details about the circumstances of Roof’s arrest, but Gregory Mullen, the Charleston police chief, said the suspected gunman “was cooperative” with the officer who stopped him in North Carolina.

The traffic stop that ended with Roof’s arrest began when a citizen reported something suspicious to law enforcement, Mullen said at a news conference. That tip prompted police to stop his car in Shelby.

Mullen also said that it did not appear in the aftermath of Roof’s arrest that other people participated in the shooting.

“We don’t have any reason to believe that anybody else was involved,” Mullen said.

Roof remained in Shelby, N.C., nearly an hour after his arrest. Mullen declined to discuss many details of the investigation and would not answer a question about whether Roof admitted guilt in the shooting.

Dylann Roof, the suspected gunman who authorities say opened fire inside the church, was arrested following a traffic stop in Shelby, N.C., shortly after 11 a.m., according to Gregory Mullen, the Charleston police chief.

Authorities announced his arrest and name during a news conference on Thursday morning in Charleston. Shelby is nearly four hours away from Charleston.

“We were able to arrest this awful person in Shelby, North Carolina, because we got the word out,” Charleston Mayor Joseph P. Riley Jr. (D) said at the briefing. He added: “In America, you know, we don’t let bad people like this get away with these dastardly deeds.”

South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley (R) gave a tearful address, saying that the attack cut to “the heart and soul” of the state.

“It is a very, very sad day in South Carolina,” she said. But she added that the people of the state have stepped up together and were going to get through it together.

Attorney General Loretta Lynch said Thursday that the suspected gunman is in custody.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said Thursday she first thought news reports about the Charleston attack were actually about an anniversary of an historic attack.

“I must say, when the news came forth about this, I thought maybe they were reporting on the anniversary of something that happened a long, long time ago,” said Pelosi, our colleague Mike DeBonis reports. “It wasn’t that of course. It was a new fresh reality.”

Pelosi added: “Words are totally inadequate.”

South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott (R) and Rep. James Clyburn (D) were already in the state or en route back home from Washington when the shooting took place, DeBonis reports.

The Rev. Al Sharpton said in a statement that he was “shocked and outraged” by the Charleston church shooting, which left nine people dead.

“I am shocked and outraged about the killing of nine innocent people at Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina,” Sharpton said in the statement released by the National Action Network. “What has our society come to when people in a prayer meeting in the sacred halls of a church can be shot in what is deemed a possible hate crime?”

The full statement reads:

“I am shocked and outraged about the killing of nine innocent people at Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina. What has our society come to when people in a prayer meeting in the sacred halls of a church can be shot in what is deemed a possible hate crime?

“The Pastor of the church, Reverend Clementa Pinckney, worked closely with our National Action Network Chapter leader and our Vice President of Religious Affairs, Rev. Nelson Rivers. It is chilling to me that just over two months ago while I was in North Charleston over the police shooting of Walter Scott, I’m reminded that Rev. Pinckney was among the clergy who stood with me at that occasion and now he has fallen victim to senseless violence.

“We must do what we can to apprehend the killer and we must support the families involved in this tragedy. Demagoguery, increasing tension, and talk of violence will only make a mockery of what we face.”

U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch on Thursday pledged the federal government’s full support to Charleston in the wake of “the heartbreaking and deeply tragic events” that occurred there last night.

“This is a crime that has reached into the heart of that community,” Lynch said at a news conference in Washington.

She said that the Justice Department has opened a hate crime investigation and that the FBI and other agencies were participating in the investigation, which is being led by the Charleston Police Department.

Lynch also stressed that the alleged gunman, who a federal official has named as Dylann Roof, would be apprehended.

“I want to be clear: The individual who committed these acts will be found and will face justice,” she said.

The gunman who opened fire inside the church has been identified as Dylann Roof, a federal law enforcement official said Thursday.

A relative of the church’s pastor was told that the suspect in the Charleston shooting reloaded multiple times, and said: “I have to do it,” NBC News reported.

“She said that he had loaded — reloaded — five different times. Her son was trying to talk him out of doing the act of killing people,” Sylvia Johnson, a cousin of Clementa Pinckney, told NBC affiliate WIS-TV. “He just said ‘I have to do it.’ He said, ‘You rape our women and you’re taking over our county. And you have to go.'”

Johnson, who told the affiliate that she spoke with a survivor of the shooting, also said she was told that the suspect asked for the pastor after entering the building, NBC reported.

“From my understanding, the suspect came to the church, and he asked for the pastor: ‘where’s the pastor?'” Johnson told WIS-TV. “They showed him where the pastor was. He sat next to my cousin, Rev. Clementa Pinckney, throughout the entire Bible study. At the conclusion of the Bible study, from what I understand, they just start hearing loud noises, just ringing out.

“He had already wounded — the suspect had already wounded — a couple of individuals, including my cousin, Rev. Clementa Pinckney.”

Law enforcement officials have not yet released the names of the victims, but Pinckney is believed to be among the dead.

Watch the interview below:

(Wade Spees/Post And Courier via AP)

What we know so far:

• A gunman opened fire inside a church in Charleston, S.C., during a prayer service, killing nine people.
• Police say they are investigating the shooting as a hate crime.
• The FBI, the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division and the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of South Carolina are opening a hate crime investigation into the shooting, which is parallel to the ongoing local and state investigation.
• One of the victims was identified as Clementa Pinckney, the church’s pastor, who is also a South Carolina state senator.

What we don’t know yet:

• The identity of the gunman or any motive for the shooting.
• The names of the other victims killed in the shooting.
• Additional details about what occurred inside the church. Police said that the gunman entered the church and observed the service for about an hour before he began shooting, but they have not released any other information about what happened.

This post was updated at 11:18 a.m.

The 2016 presidential candidates on Thursday offered prayers and condolences to members of the Charleston, S.C., community, where nine people were killed in a church shooting Wednesday night.

The most personal response came from GOP Sen. Lindsey Graham, South Carolina’s native son in the presidential election.

“Our prayers are with the families of the victims and the people of Charleston. We are all heartbroken by this tragedy,” said Graham in a statement. “To the families of the victims, please know that you are being prayed for and loved by so many in the community and across the nation. I pray that God will provide you healing in the coming days.”

Graham added that “our sense of security and well-being has been robbed and shaken.”

“There are bad people in this world who are motivated by hate. Every decent person has been victimized by the hateful, callous disregard for human life shown by the individual who perpetrated these horrible acts,” he said.

The Republican lawmaker also announced that he was canceling several campaign stops in Philadelphia and New Hampshire this weekend to return home.

Other candidates weighed in over social media.

The Bush campaign announced after midnight Thursday that it would cancel a scheduled political event in Charleston “due to the tragic events unfolding in South Carolina tonight.”

Several presidential hopefuls spoke about the shooting during previously scheduled media appearances, including Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal and former Pennsylvania senator Rick Santorum.

“In my mind, there are no words strong enough to condemn that — evil, terror, whatever you want to call it. This is horrific. It’s almost unimaginable. This shouldn’t happen,” Jindal said on CNN Thursday morning. “Our hearts break. I do hope that this community will be able to find some comfort in their faith.”

For his part, Santorum also raised concerns that the attack may have been motivated by anti-religious sentiments.

“This is obviously a crime of hate…. All you can do is pray for those [men and women] and pray for our country,” Santorum told radio host Joe Piscopo on AM 970 Thursday. “You talk about the importance of prayer in this time, and we’re now seeing assaults on our religious liberty that we’ve never seen before. It’s a time for deeper reflection beyond this horrible situation.”

(FBI)

What do we know about active shooting incidents in the United States? We know they are occurring more frequently, according to the FBI. A recent report found that the number of such incidents has more than doubled in recent years, while half of the deadliest shootings in U.S. history have occurred since 2007.

Active shooting incidents are defined by federal agencies as “an individual actively engaged in killing or attempting to kill people in a confined and populated area.” (This is different from mass killings, which are episodes where three or more people are killed; while many active shooting incidents wind up being mass killings, more than half of the episodes in the FBI study did not meet that definition.)

Head here for more on these facts and others about guns and shootings in the United States.

Rep. Mark Sanford (R-S.C.), who is also a former governor of South Carolina, called the mass shooting at a black church in downtown Charleston an “outlier” in the city and in the state.

“This is so out of place,” Sanford said on CNN Thursday morning. “That’s why people are shocked, they are in disbelief.”

He added that despite the state’s history of slavery — a past that he noted they share with many other Southern states — the shooting, which many are calling a “hate crime,” isn’t reflective of its character.

“This is an outlier,” Sanford said. “It needs to be dealt with.”

Sanford also said that as governor, he worked with Clementa Pinckney, the church’s pastor and a state senator. Pinckney was killed in the attack, a cousin has confirmed.

“You want to talk about someone who lived and walked this notion of faith, he did,” Sanford said. “Very serious, very thoughtful and incredibly considerate and warm human being.”

Among those believed dead in the Charleston shooting is the church’s pastor, Clementa Pinckney, who was also a South Carolina state senator.

While welcoming visitors to his church from the church’s pulpit in this 2013 video, Pinckney explained what the church stands for, its rich history and the need to struggle and even die standing up for those beliefs.

Here are some excerpts from the video:

“Where you are is a very special place in Charleston. It’s a very special place because this church, and this site, this area, has been tied to the history and life of African-Americans since about the early 1800s.”…

“God we invite you and welcome you into this place, your house. We thank you for the spirit that dwells here. The spirit of Denmark Vesey, the spirit of R. H. Cain, the spirit of Dr. King. The spirit of many of the unsung heroes of our people. But we also thank you God for all persons who come, seeking to expand their horizons and seeking to learn more of what our country’s made of and what make us who we are as a people and our country.”…

“We don’t see ourselves, many of us don’t see ourselves, as just a place where we come to worship, but as a beacon and a bearer of the culture…It is really what America is all about.

“Could we not argue that America is about freedom, whether we live it out or not, freedom, equality and the pursuit of happiness? And that is what church is all about. Freedom to worship, and freedom from sin and freedom to be full what God intends us to be and have equality in the sight of God. And sometimes you’ve got to make noise to do that. Sometimes you may even have to die, like Denmark Vesey, to do that. Sometimes you have to march, struggle and be unpopular to do that…Our calling is not just within the walls of the congregation, but we are part of the life and community in which our congregation resides.”

CHARLESTON, S.C. — The longtime mayor of Charleston called Thursday for bolstered gun-control laws hours after an assailant opened fire in a historic African American church, killing at least nine people.

“You don’t know what could have been done,” said Mayor Joseph P. Riley Jr. (D) when asked whether the shootings could have been prevented.

But he added: “I personally believe there are far too many guns out there, and access to guns, it’s far too easy. Our society has not been able to deal with that yet.”

Head here for more.

NAACP President and CEO Cornell William Brooks released a statement Thursday noting that 106 years after the organization was founded, it still is fighting “racial hatred” and killings:

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. Today I mourn as an AME minister, as a student and teacher of scripture, as well as a member of the NAACP.

The NAACP South Carolina State Conference and Charleston Branch have been working on the ground—with police and the community to bring this case to a close. We remain vigilant while the local police and FBI investigate this hate crime and bring the shooter to justice.

Speaking in an interview with CNN, a cousin of Clementa Pinckney, the church’s pastor, confirmed Pinckney’s death.

“It’s a huge, huge loss; a sad, sad thing that has happened,” Kent Williams said.

Law enforcement officers have not yet released the names of the victims, though in another CNN interview, Dot Scott, president of the NAACP chapter in Charleston, also said that Pinckney, who was a South Carolina state senator, was among the dead.

Pictures from the South Carolina State House showed a black cloth draped at Pinckney’s seat.

“It’s devastating that someone would go into God’s house and do someone like this … It’s despicable,” Williams told CNN.

The Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, the FBI and the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of South Carolina are opening a hate crime investigation into the shooting.  The investigation is parallel to and cooperative with the state’s investigation.​

— Sari Horwitz

The Charleston Post and Courier’s front page Thursday morning features a chilling image of armed police officers outside the doors of Emmanuel AME Church.

Police block off Calhoun Street during their search Wednesday night. (Richard Ellis/Getty Images)

Charleston Police Chief Greg Mullen said Thursday that the gunman who opened fire during a prayer service stayed with the group for about an hour before opening fire.

“We believe this is a hate crime; that is how we are investigating it,” Mullen said.

Police said the shooting occurred at about 9 p.m. at the historic church, which is located between Henrietta and Calhoun streets near Marion Square in downtown Charleston.

Emergency dispatchers received a call at about 9:05 p.m., police said, and units were immediately dispatched to the church.

When officers arrived, they determined that eight people had been killed inside the church, Mullen said. A ninth person was taken to a nearby hospital, where that person died, the police chief said.

Head here for more on what police and other city officials have said so far.

When a gunman opened fire on Charleston’s Emanuel A.M.E. Church, it was as though a kind of history was repeating itself.

This historic congregation, the oldest of its kind in the South, had already seen more than its fair share of tumult and hate. It was founded by worshippers fleeing racism and burned to the ground for its connection with a thwarted slave revolt. For years its meetings were conducted in secret to evade laws that banned all-black services.

Sarah Kaplan has more on the church’s history here.