He told the predominantly African-American congregation, “‘I have to do it. You rape our women and you’re taking over our country.”
The man suspected of shooting nine black people at a church in Charleston has been arrested and taken into custody.
Dylann Roof, a 21-year-old white man, was arrested at a traffic stop approximately four hours from the site of the shooting, police say.
Roof is alleged to have sat with church goers at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church for nearly an hour before opening fire on the congregation.
Eight people were killed in the church, and a ninth died shortly after receiving medical attention. Several others were wounded.
One witness, Sylvia Johnson, told MSNBC that the gunman reloaded five times during the attack and said to the predominantly African-American congregation, “‘I have to do it. You rape our women and you’re taking over our country.”
The shooter allegedly told one survivor he would let her live so she could tell other people what had occurred, according to the president of the Charleston NAACP.
It is believed that the shooting was motivated by racial hatred, and US attorney-general Loretta Lynch has told the media that her office is investigating whether Roof could be charged for a racial hate crime, a conviction which typically carries a longer sentence.
A Facebook page that appears to belong to Roof includes photographs of the accused wearing a jacket featuring the flags of both apartheid-era South Africa and white-rules Rhodesia, indicating a racial motivation for the crime.
The Southern Poverty Law Centre, which researches US hate groups and advocates for minority groups, said the tragic shooting served to illustrate the dangers of domestic extremists in the United States.
“Since 9/11, our country has been fixated on the threat of jihadi terrorism,” a statement from the Southern Poverty Law Centre said.
“But the horrific tragedy at the Emanuel AME reminds us that the threat of homegrown domestic terrorism is very real.”
Carson Cowles, who identified as Roof’s uncle, has stated that Roof received a gun from his father as a present for his 21st birthday.
“I don’t have any words for it,” Cowles said of the tragedy.
“Nobody in my family had seen anything like this coming.”
President Obama has delivered a powerful address in the wake of the tragedy, urging Americans to reconsider lax gun laws.
“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,” President Obama said.
“The fact that this took place in a black church obviously raises questions about a dark part of our history. We don’t have all the facts but we 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 victims of the shooting have yet to be officially identified, but Reverend Al Sharpton, a civil rights leader based in New York, tweeted that the church’s pastor and a member of the State Senate, Reverend Clements Pinkney, was among the fatalities.
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Top Comments
He doesn't only hate blacks. He hates women too.
In fact, he owns them. He says to a room full of black women and men "you rape OUR women" He seriously believes white women belong to him. Maybe he also believes that black women are the property of black men?
I wish we could make a pact, not to make people like this famous by using their names and photos.