Dylann Roof opened fire at the historic Emanuel AME church in Charleston, South Carolina Wednesday night, killing nine people. The shooting is being investigated as a hate crime.
The white gunman sought by police for shooting dead nine people during a bible study meeting at an African-American church in South Carolina last night has been named as Dylann Storm Roof.
Roof, who remains on the run since the horrific massacre at the 150-year-old Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, received a gun from his father for his 21st birthday in April, his family has revealed.
On Wednesday, he allegedly entered the church and joined the bible study group before suddenly opening fire an hour later. One survivor recounted how he reloaded his gun five times as he picked off his victims – killing three females and six males, including the Reverend Clementa Pinckney, who is also a South Carolina state senator.
Pinckney’s cousin told NBC News that one of the survivors told her they had urged Roof to stop.
‘He just said: “I have to do it. You rape our women and you’re taking over our country. And you have to go”,’ Sylvia Johnson said.
Roof, from Lexington, spared one woman so she could ‘tell the world what happened’, eye witnesses recounted, while a five-year-old girl also survived the attack after her grandmother told her to play dead. The gunman then fled.
Police have launched a massive manhunt for Roof and have released surveillance images showing him and his car.
Source: Mass shooting at Charleston church in South Carolina leaves 9 dead
