The steeple of Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church, Charleston

The Charleston church shooting was a mass shooting that took place on the evening of June 17, 2015, at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in downtown Charleston, South Carolina. The church is one of the United States' oldest black churches and has long been a site for community organizing around civil rights. The senior pastor, the Rev. Clementa C. Pinckney, a state senator, was among the nine people killed.^[4] In the immediate aftermath, police sought a white male, later identified as Dylann Roof, who was captured the morning after the attack in Shelby, North Carolina.^[5] The shooting is being investigated as a hate crime by local and federal officials^[1]

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charleston church shooting