Charleston shooting

Video surveillance footage showing Roof entering Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church

### Location

Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church, Charleston, South Carolina, South Carolina

### Attack type

* Terrorist attack
* Shooting

### Sentence

**Federal**
Death
**South Carolina**
9 consecutive life sentences without possibility of parole

The **Charleston shooting** was a terrorist shooting that occurred on 17 June, 2015 at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church, Charleston, South Carolina, United States in which, a lone gunman killed 9 people and injured 1 other with a Glock 41 handgun before being arrested at a traffic stop 245 miles from the location of the shooting.

## Attack

At **around 9:05 p.m.**, The gunman entered Emanuel African Methodist Esiscopal Church, immediately asked for Reverend Clementa C. Pinckney and sat down next to him, initially listening to others during the study.

After other participants began praying, he stood up, and aimed a gun he pulled from a fanny pack at 87-year-old Susie Jackson. Jackson's nephew, 26-year-old Tywanza Sanders, tried to talk him down and asked him why he was attacking churchgoers. The shooter said, "I have to do it. You rape our women and you're taking over our country and you have to go." before opening fire on the churchgoers whilst shouting racial slurs.

After opening fire on churchgoers, the gunnman spotted a churchgoer, Polly Sheppard, laying on the floor alive. He apporached her and asked, "Did I shoot you?" She replied, "No." Then, he said, "Good, 'cause we need someone to survive, because I'm gonna shoot myself, and you'll be the only survivor." The gunman then allegedly turned the gun to his own head and pulled the trigger, but discovered he was out of ammunition before leaving the church.

## Perpetrator

### Criminal penalty

**Federal**
Death
**South Carolina**
9 consecutive life sentences without possibility of parole

**Dylann Storm Roof** (born 3 April, 1994) is an American man who was identified as the shooter by his father and uncle, after they contacted police upon seeing security photos of him in the news. Roof was born in Columbia, South Carolina and had a prior police record consisting of two arrests, for trespassing and drug possession, both made in the months before the attack.

Roof reportedly told friends and neighbors he intended to kill people, including a plot to attack the College of Charleston, but his claims were not taken seriously

On June 20, bloggers discovered a website called "The Last Rhodesian" (www.lastrhodesian.com); it had been registered to a "Dylann Roof" on February 9, 2015. The website included what appeared to be an unsigned manifesto containing Roof's opinions of "Blacks", "Jews", "Hispanics" and "East Asians", In this manifesto, Roof says he became "racially aware" as a result of the 2012 killing of Trayvon Martin, writing that when he learned about the incident, he read about it, concluding that George Zimmerman had been in the right. He did not understand the controversy about it. He said he searched for "black on white crime" on Google and found the website of the Council of Conservative Citizens, where he read "pages upon pages" of cases involving black people murdering white people. Roof wrote that he had "never been the same since that day".

## See also

* Christchurch shootings - 2 consecutive terrorist shootings that were inspired by the Charleston shooting

## External links

* Charleston church shooting at English Wikipedia

## References

1. ↑ New Police Documents Reveal Deadly Minutes Inside South Carolina Church.
2. ↑ Charleston church shooting survivor describes the moment suspected gunman Dylann Roof began firing.
3. ↑ Affidavits spell out chilling case against Dylann Roof.
4. ↑ Inside the Bible study massacre: A mom ‘laid in her son’s blood’.
5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 Charleston Shooting: What the Gunman Allegedly Told Churchgoers Before the Shooting.
6. ↑ Dylann Roof tried to kill himself during attack, victim’s son says.
7. ↑ Dylann Roof's father, uncle called police to ID him in church shooting.
8. ↑ Church shooting suspect Dylann Roof captured amid hate crime investigation.
9. ↑ Dylann Roof: FBI probes website and manifesto linked to Charleston suspect.