Dylann Storm Roof is an American white supremacist, Neo-Nazi, and mass murderer who is currently awaiting execution on death row at USP Terre Haute for perpetrating the Charleston church shooting on June 17, 2015, in the U.S. state of South Carolina. During a Bible study at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church, Roof killed nine people, all African Americans, including senior pastor and state senator Clementa C. Pinckney, and injured a tenth person. After several people identified Roof as the main suspect, he became the center of a manhunt that ended the morning after the shooting with his arrest in Shelby, North Carolina. He later confessed that he committed the shooting in hopes of igniting a race war. Roof's actions in Charleston have been widely described as domestic terrorism.
Mugshot of Roof taken by the Charleston County Sheriff's Office, June 18, 2015
Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church
USP Terre Haute, where Roof is incarcerated
Charleston church shooting
The Charleston church shooting, also known as the Charleston church massacre, was an anti-black mass shooting and hate crime that occurred on June 17, 2015, in Charleston, South Carolina. Nine people were killed, and one was injured, during a Bible study at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church, the oldest black church in the southern United States. Among the fatalities was the senior pastor, state senator Clementa C. Pinckney. All ten victims were African Americans. At the time, it was the deadliest mass shooting at a place of worship in U.S. history and is the deadliest mass shooting in South Carolina history.
People mourning the deaths at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church; image taken June 20 (three days post-shooting)
Dylann Roof entering Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church through a side door at 8:16 pm, as captured on CCTV
A prayer vigil at Morris Brown African Methodist Episcopal Church
Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church, Charleston South Carolina. 21 June 2015