New report has emerged that the suspect, Dylann
Roof, got a gun as his 21st birthday present from
his father.
Roof has been taken into custody in Shelby,
North Carolina, law enforcement officers said.
———————————————-
Dylann Roof, 21, of Lexington, South Carolina, is
the suspect in Wednesday’s deadly shooting at
the Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, the
Charleston police said Thursday. He may be
driving a black Hyundai with vehicle tag LGF330,
police said.
———————————————————————————
The person who shot and killed nine people at
Charleston’s Emanuel African Methodist
Episcopal Church was there for about an hour,
attending a meeting with the eventual victims,
before he began shooting, Charleston police
Chief Greg Mullen said Thursday morning.
Of the nine people killed, six were female and
three were male.
The suspect is in his early 20s and stands 5 feet,
9 inches tall. “He has on a very distinctive
sweatshirt as well as the vehicle, with a very
distinctive license plate,” the police chief said.
——————————————————————————————–
Police have launched a manhunt after nine
people were killed in a mass shooting at a church
in Charleston, South Carolina, United States.
The shooting happened at the Emmanuel African
Methodist Episcopal church in downtown
Charleston at around 9pm (local time) on
Wednesday night.
Police said eight people had died at the scene
and a ninth victim died later in hospital. A tenth
victim is being treated in hospital.
Charleston Police Chief Gregory Mullen
confirmed the shooting was being investigated
as a hate crime.
The city’s mayor Joe Riley said: “This is an
unspeakable and heartbreaking tragedy in this
most historic church, an evil and hateful person
took the lives of citizens who had come to
worship and pray together.”
Shortly after the shooting, people were told to
move back after a bomb threat was made in the
area, the Reuters news agency reported.
A police spokesman said they were looking for a
slim white male suspect, aged around 21 and
wearing a grey sweatshirt, blue jeans and
Timberland boots.
A police helicopter was assisting officers on the
ground – wearing bulletproof vests and carrying
guns – with the search for the shooter and the
FBI were also investigating.
Cameras at the scene filmed police taking a
white man in a grey T-shirt into a nearby Marriott
hotel – but law enforcement officials said they
were still looking for the gunman.
Local media said the more than 150-year-old
Emmanuel AME church has a predominantly
black congregation and is one of the oldest in the
country.
Fox News reported that a bible study session is
held in the basement every Wednesday evening.
The church’s pastor, Clementa Pinckney, is also
a state senator and is thought to have been in the
building at the time of the shooting.
Tearful relatives were seen gathering at the edge
of the police cordon, where they were speaking
to emergency services workers.
Charleston Governor Nikki Haley said in a
statement: “While we do not yet know all of the
details, we do know that we’ll never understand
what motivates anyone to enter one of our
places of worship and take the life of another.”
Republican presidential hopeful Jeb Bush
announced he was cancelling a scheduled
appearance in Charleston on Thursday.
