DOJ to investigate Charleston shooting as hate crime

The DOJ’s Civil Rights Division, as well as the FBI and U.S. Attorney’s Office will be part of the investigation into the shooting, which took place when a while male opened fire at an historic black church in Charleston Wednesday night.

The shooter, who was identified as 21-year-old Dylann Roof, fired on people during a Bible study class at Emanuel AME Church. Among the six females and three males dead include the pastor and state Sen. Clementa Pinckney.

The church is the oldest AME church in the South.

According to Police Chief Greg Mullen, the suspect attended the meeting for nearly an hour before the shooting.

Roof asked to sit next to the pastor upon arrival to the church, one of the survivors recounted to one of Pinckney’s cousins,

“At the conclusion of the Bible study, from what I understand, they just start hearing loud noises ringing out,” Sylvia Johnson, one of Pinckney’s cousins, told NBC affiliate WIS-TV, “and he had already wounded — the suspect already wounded a couple of individuals.”

The female survivor told Johnson that Roof reloaded five different times and that her son, who was at the church too, was trying to “talk him out of doing the act of killing people” – but that he wouldn’t listen.

“You rape our women and you’re taking over our country. And you have to go,” the shooter allegedly told the churchgoers, the survivor told Johnson.

Roof is still at large and is believed by police to still be in the Charleston area. His getaway car and its license plate have already been identified and released to the public.

According to Reuters, the Carson Cowles, an uncle of Roof’s, said he recognized his nephew in a photo released by police. Cowles also told Reuters the shooter received a gun as a birthday present in April.

“Of all cities, in Charleston, to have a horrible hateful person go into the church and kill people there to pray and worship with each other is something that is beyond any comprehension and is not explained,” Charleston Mayor Joseph P. Riley Jr. said. “We are going to put our arms around that church and that church family.”

“Our sense of security and well-being has been robbed and shaken,” by the shooting, South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham said in a statement.

(reporting from The Associated Press, CNN, Reuters, NBC)

This story has been updated.