Nine killed at prayer meeting

A gunman kills six women and three men, at a bible study group  at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina. Victims include Reverend Clementa Pinckney, the church’s pastor, who was a Democratic member of the State Senate. The gunman arrives at the church and asks for the pastor, the Rev. Pinckney, and sits among parishioners during a Bible study meeting. At the conclusion of Bible study , the gunman opens fire on the gathering, wounding several people, including the pastor. A survivor says the gunman reloads five different times and that her son was trying to “talk him out of doing the act of killing people,” but he does not listen. The shooter says to the group:

You rape our women and you’re taking over our country. And you have to go.

Eight people are killed inside the church and one more dies at the hospital soon after the incident. Three people survive. Police are still searching for the suspected shooter – a clean-shaven white male about 21 years of age. He is reportedly wearing a grey sweatshirt, blue jeans and Timberland boots.