FRIDAY, JUNE 19, 2015
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CARNAGE IN CHARLESTON
Suspect caught Man, 21, charged in slaying of 9 OFFICIALS REACT Leaders from across South Carolina and the nation released statements concerning the slaying of nine people Wednesday in Charleston.
“It is with great sadness that I heard of the unspeakable tragedy that occurred in Charleston (Wednesday) night. My heart goes out to the victims, including State Sen. Pinckney, their friends and family and members of Emanuel AME Church. I am distraught that this kind of hate still exists in our country and specifically in my home state of South Carolina. ...
U.S. REP. JAMES CLYBURN
KEITH GEDAMKE / THE SUMTER ITEM
Sumterites pray for victims of Wednesday’s mass shooting in Charleston during a vigil at Mount Pisgah AME Church on Thursday. Dylann Storm Roof, 21, was arrested and charged Thursday in the shooting deaths of nine people at Emanuel AME Church, a historic black church in Charleston, on Wednesday night.
Alleged church shooter was welcomed to Bible study CHARLESTON (AP) — It was an act of “pure, pure concentrated evil,” Charleston’s mayor said — a black community’s leading lights extinguished by gunfire, allegedly at the hands of a young white man who sat among them through an hour of prayer. And so the nine victims at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church joined the ROOF ever-lengthening list of America’s racial casualties. In one blow, the gunman ripped out part of South Carolina’s civic heart: a state senator who doubled as the
MORE INSIDE • More about what Sumterites are saying about Wednesday’s massacre / A2 • Local law enforcement was on high alert Thursday morning / A2 • Profiles of shooting victims / A2 • Attacks on black churches / A8
church’s minister, three other pastors, a regional library manager, a high school coach and speech therapist, a government administrator, a college enroll-
ment counselor and a recent college graduate. Six women and three men who felt called to open their church to all and, authorities said, welcomed the gunman into their Bible study. Police arrested Dylann Storm Roof, a 21-year-old who complained that “blacks were taking over the world” and that “someone needed to do something about it for the white race,” according to a friend who alerted the FBI. Roof waived extradition from North Carolina and was put on a plane Thursday afternoon, authorities said.
The air barely moved in Mount Pisgah African Methodist Episcopal Church as members of the community gathered to pay their respects not even 15 hours after a shooting left nine dead in a Charleston AME church. Church members prayed for the victims and the shooter, saying they need to get the man who did this help no matter how bad his actions were.
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“He was probably the strongest voice in the Senate, and at the same time you never met a kinder, more gentle spirit than he had. The idea that we lost him the way that we did is just nauseating. If there was ever a servant’s heart, he had it. He pastored in what I would call the ‘mothership’ of all AME churches in this state, and he also had one of the largest districts, covering four or five counties. This man spent all of his time serving. He would want people to come together right now.”
STATE SEN. THOMAS McELVEEN “This is just a tragic incident that took the life of a good man, a good senator, a good pastor and eight other people. Sen. Pinckney really cared for the little man; he really cared for rural South Carolina. He was a senator who really did not seek the limelight, but any time he said something, he knew what to say, how to say it and when to say it, and he was very effective. His wisdom and leadership in the South Carolina Senate is going to be sorely missed. Our prayers go out to his family and the families of all the victims, to the whole community of Charleston and really the whole state of South Carolina. He was really a good senator, and I would say one of the best. It is going to be hard to find somebody to fill his shoes.”
LET US KNOW We would like to hear from you if you know one of the victims of the Charleston shooting or if you know the suspect so that we can share your voices in the community. If you know one of them, please contact Rick Carpenter, managing editor at The Sumter Item, at (803) 774-1201 or rick@theitem.com.
As speaker after speaker orated from behind a lectern, the audience and ministers
KEITH GEDAMKE / THE SUMTER ITEM
James Rodgers joins other Sumter community members as they pray at Mount Pisgah AME Church in Sumter on Thursday for victims of SEE PRAYING, PAGE A8 the Charleston shooting Wednesday night.
DEATHS, B5 James Johnson Carrie M. Williams Naomi W. Warner Carrie Baker Lenoir Alfonzo Starks Kenneth Earl Clea
STATE REP. MURRELL SMITH
SEE CHURCH SHOOTING, PAGE A8
Community unites in prayer for victims BY COLLYN TAYLOR AND ADRIENNE SARVIS intern@theitem.com, adrienne@theitem.com
“This is a tragic event. It leaves me speechless. I’ve known Sen. Pinckney since I have been in the Legislature. He served in the House and was elected to the Senate when I was elected to the House. We did not serve together, but we passed each other in our tenure, and he always would come back over to the House and maintained the great relationship with those of us in the House. He was the epitome of a true gentleman. He loved his Lord, he loved his family and the institutions that he served. I have never heard him say anything negative. He was always complimentary, always interested in whatever you discussed. I think there is a true void in South Carolina with his passing.”
Odell B. Harriott Robert Wilson Jr. Leslie Dickerson Leon Jackson Christopher K. Mandel III
STATE SEN. KEVIN JOHNSON See more comments from our leaders online at theitem.com.
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