The Charleston church shooting

Also known as the Charleston Massacre 

On the evening of June 17, 2015, a white supremacist  murdered nine people during a prayer service at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in downtown Charleston, South Carolina, United States.

Three other victims survived.

The morning after the attack, police arrested Dylann Roof in Shelby, North Carolina. 

He confessed to committing the shooting in the hope of igniting a race war.

 It is the oldest African Methodist Episcopal Church in the South, often referred to as "Mother Emanuel".

Has long been a site for community organization around civil rights.

An hour before the attack 13 people including the shooter participated in the Bible study.

The survivors say when the shooter walked into the historic African-American church, he immediately asked for rev. Clementa C. Pinckney and sat down next to him, initially listening to others during the study.

After waiting for the other participants to begin praying, the shooter pulled a  Glock 41 .45-caliber handgun from his fanny pack.

26-year-old Tywanza Sanders, tried to talk him down and asked him why he was attacking churchgoers.

The shooter responded, "I have to do it. You rape our women and you're taking over our country. And you have to go." 

When he expressed his intention to shoot everyone, Sanders dove in front of his aunt 87-year-old Susie Jackson. and was shot first.

He reloaded his gun five times.

Sanders' mother and his five-year-old niece, survived the shooting by pretending to be dead.

According to the son of one of the victims, the shooter allegedly turned the gun to his own head and pulled the trigger, but only then discovered he was out of ammunition.

The entire shooting lasted around six minutes.

All the victims were Methodist African Americans.

Of the dead there was  six women and three men.

Eight died at the scene and one died at MUSC Medical Center.

Five individuals survived the shooting unharmed.

The victims were later collectively referred to as "The Charleston Nine" and "The Emanuel Nine".

According to the FBI, a police report detailing Roof's admission to a narcotics offense should have prevented him from purchasing the weapon used in the shooting.

The shooter reportedly told friends and neighbors of his plans to kill people, including a plot to attack the College of Charleston, but his claims were not taken seriously.

Interrogations with Roof after his arrest determined he had been planning the attack for around six months.
At 10:44 a.m., on the morning after the attack, Roof was captured in a traffic stop, approximately 245 miles from the shooting scene.

Roof was charged with nine counts of murder and one count of possession of a firearm during the commission of a violent crime on June 19.

At a bond hearing later that day, shooting survivors and relatives of five of the victims spoke to Roof directly, saying that they were "praying for his soul" and forgave him.

The judge set a $1 million bond for the weapons possession charge and no bail on the nine counts of murder.

The governor called on the prosecutors for the death penalty.

On July 7, Roof was indicted on the nine murder charges and the weapons charge, as well three new charges of attempted murder, for each of the survivors.

He also faced hate crime charges, with 18 of the charges carrying the federal death penalty.

On July 31, Roof pleaded not guilty to the federal charges against him on the advice of his lawyer.

On September 16, Roof's attorney that he was willing to plead guilty in exchange for a sentence of life in prison without parole.

His trial began on December 7, 2016.

On December 15, 2016, he was found guilty of all 33 federal charges against him.

Roof composed a white supremacist manifesto, writing: "I would like to make it crystal clear, I do not regret what I did. I am not sorry. I have not shed a tear for the innocent people I killed."

He was sentenced to death on January 10, 2017.

And then to life in prison without parole on April 10, 2017.

Until  the 2017 Sutherland Springs church shooting, this was the largest mass shooting at an American place of worship, alongside a 1991 attack at a Buddhist temple in Waddell, Arizona.