White gunman arrested in Killing of 9 at black US Church.

A white man who joined a prayer meeting inside a historic black church and then fatally shot nine people was captured without resistance Thursday after an all-night manhunt, Charleston's police chief said.

Dylann Storm Roof, 21, spent nearly an hour inside the church Wednesday night before killing six women and three men, including the pastor, Chief Greg Mullen said. A citizen spotted his car in Shelby, North Carolina, nearly four hours away.
The chief wouldn't discuss a motive. Charleston Mayor Joseph P. Riley Jr. called it "pure, pure concentrated evil." Stunned community leaders and politicians condemned the attack on The Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church, and Attorney General Loretta Lynch said the Justice Department has begun a hate crime investigation.

President Barack Obama, who personally knew the slain pastor, state Sen. Clementa Pinckney, said these shootings have to stop.


"At some point, we as a country will have to reckon with the fact that this type of mass violence does not happen in other advanced countries," Obama said.

Pinckney, 41, was a married father of two who spent 19 years in the South Carolina legislature. He became the youngest member of the House when he was first elected as a Democrat at 23.

"He had a core not many of us have," said Sen. Vincent Sheheen, who sat beside Pinckney in the Senate. "I think of the irony that the most gentle of the 46 of us,the best of the 46 of us in this chamber  is the one who lost his life."

The other victims were identified as Cynthia Hurd, 54; Tywanza Sanders, 26; the Rev. Sharonda Singleton, 45; Myra Thompson, 59; Ethel Lance, 70; Susie Jackson, 87; the Rev. Daniel Simmons Sr., 74; and DePayne Doctor, 49.

The shootings took out the heart of a community civic leaders including three pastors, a regional library manager, a college enrollment counselor, and a high school track coach -left the historic church with just one living minister.

"Immediately, my heart started to sink, because I knew that this was going to mean a forever impact on many, many people," Charleston County Coroner Rae Wooten said.

Wooten said autopsies would be conducted over the next several days and did not have specific information on how many times the victims were shot or the locations of their injuries.

Roof waived extradition from North Carolina Thursday and was taken to a waiting police car wearing a bulletproof vest, with shackles on his feet and his hands cuffed behind his back. Roof also waived his right to counsel, meaning he will either represent himself or hire his own lawyer.

Roof's childhood friend, Joseph Meek Jr., alerted the FBI after recognizing him in a surveillance camera image. They recognized the stained sweatshirt he had been wearing while playing Xbox videogames in their home.

"I don't know what was going through his head," said Meek's mother, Kimberly Konzny. "He was a really sweet kid. He was quiet. He only had a few friends."

But Roof had been to jail: court records show a pending felony drug case and a past misdemeanor trespassing charge. And he proudly displayed the flags of defeated white-ruled regimes, posing with a Confederate flags plate on his car and wearing a jacket with stitched-on flag patches from Rhodesia, which is now black-led Zimbabwe, and apartheid-era South Africa.

Meek said they had been best friends in middle school, then lost touch for years until Roof reappeared a few weeks ago.