## At about 9, gunfire and terrified cries shattered the evening calm// In the pastor s office, Mr// Pinckney s wife, who had been waiting patiently with their younger daughter, turned off the lights, locked the door, hugged her child close and called 911// When the shooting was over, nine congregants were dead, including Mr. Pinckney and two of the newly ordained ministers, each shot multiple times with a //45caliber handgun// The stranger identified by the police as Dylann Roof, 21, a high school dropout and sometime landscaper has been charged with nine counts of murder// *You are raping our women and taking over our country,* Mr. Roof said to the victims, all of them black, before killing them, witnesses told the police// In a matter of unforeseen moments, the future of the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church and its 350 active members would be changed forever// Church leaders were lost, along with worshipers young and middleaged// Children were left motherless// A girls track team lost its coach, a university its admissions coordinator// And residents of all races in Charleston, a city that places such value on its houses of worship that it calls itself the Holy City, recoiled in horror as one of its most storied buildings was desecrated by intolerant rage and transformed, if briefly, into a charnel house//
## A parishioner, Elizabeth Alston, said Saturday that the church would be open for Sunday school and services the next morning//
The massacre has reverberated far beyond Charleston, prompting fierce new debate about race relations in a nation already grappling with protests over police conduct toward AfricanAmericans// President Obama spoke Thursday of *the heartache and the sadness and the anger* the shootings had elicited// The Justice Department opened a hate crimes investigation// And in Columbia, where Mr. Pinckney s empty desk in the Legislature has been adorned with a black cloak and flowers, lawmakers were once again grappling with the question of whether the Confederate battle flag should fly on the grounds of the statehouse//But the deepest pain was at the handsome, whitewashed old church in Charleston, now cordoned off with yellow police tape, and along the intimate tendrils that connected its members to friends and family// The Itinerant Pastor Mr. Pinckney, 41, was a busy man// But when he was talking to you, said Sylvia Johnson, 56, his cousin, he locked eyes intently and listened carefully// He was especially tender toward Ms.Johnson s blind daughter// His voice could move into a more stern, but still loving, register when he addressed his own daughters, Eliana and Malana// With his flock in Charleston, his home in Jasper County, at South Carolina s southernmost tip, and his job up in Columbia, Mr. Pinckney had to work to spread his love around// He called himself the *itinerant pastor//* He had recently run an old car dry and bought a new SUV// On Wednesday morning in Columbia, he was dressed, sharp as always, in a dark suit and sitting in his office with his back to a view of the capitol dome, preparing for a Senate Finance Committee meeting// He was surrounded by framed newspaper spreads, recognitions of achievement, volumes of Bibles and a poster of the Rev// Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Next to a refrigerator bearing a *Yes! I Love My Library* sticker given to him by his wife, Jennifer, a librarian, he had rolled up a bunch of posters depicting AfricanAmerican life in the South Carolina Lowcountry// He planned to take them home that day//
But first, another day of work// Mr. Pinckney, elected to the South Carolina House at age 23, had always had a sense of purpose// In seventh grade, the skinny student endured the taunts of his classmates in Jasper County, a depressed angle of what Senate colleagues called the Forgotten Triangle, for wearing a starched shirt and tie and for carrying a briefcase instead of a backpack//
## He thought you needed to dress like someone to be someone// Continue reading the main story RELATED IN OPINION Hatred or Heritage?
He quickly became someone// He had begun preaching sermons in his teens// An ambitious intern unafraid to ask his bosses to look at the county budget, he became a page in the State House of Representatives and ultimately a member, and then a senator//Now, 12 hours before he was killed, he took the elevator down to Room 105 for another meeting on the budget, where he again pushed, in the face of an overwhelming Republican majority, for funding to fix the roads in his deprived district// Later, he rode an escalator up from the parking lot to the statehouse// He walked between marble columns and up a mahogany staircase lined with paintings of the Revolutionary War, and greeted friends in a lobby presided over by a statue of John C. Calhoun// In the stately Senate chamber, he greeted more friends on the floor and took a seat next to Senator Vincent A.Sheheen, a fellow Democrat// It was here that Mr.Pinckney made his mark that day// When Mr.Sheheen nervously prepared to voice his opposition to a compromise reached with Republicans on their effort to introduce a voter ID bill, he was shocked to hear Mr.Pinckney s booming voice call out, *No//* Advertisement Continue reading the main story *When I heard him voting no, loud and clear, I knew I was doing the right thing,* Mr.Sheheen said// They were the only two to vote in dissent// Mr.Pinckney left another meeting early, telling colleagues that he had an appointment at his church back in Charleston// A WildTalking SuspectIt is not clear where or how Mr. Roof spent his Wednesday morning// Even to his friends, there were unexplained gaps// He had dropped out of many of his oldest friends lives some years ago// But then, about a month ago, he resurfaced, telling them that he had gone to a public library in Columbia to open a Facebook account for the express purpose of finding them// As a younger man, Mr. Roof had a rocky academic career, attending ninth grade twice at two schools, but possibly not making it any further// Friends recalled him as being painfully shy// But recently, he had been showing a new side, his friends said: spouting racist comments, praising segregation and talking wildly of setting off a race war// He had also been arrested twice: once in February for possession of Suboxone, a drug used to treat opiate addiction, and a second time in April for trespassing at a mall where he had been banned for a year after the first arrest// On the day Mr. Roof contacted his old friends through Facebook, he went to the family trailer home of one of them, Joseph C.Meek Jr//, in Red Bank, in suburban Lexington County// Soon, he was sleeping there as often as four times a week, sometimes on the floor// He had a cellphone, his friends said, but no phone service// To communicate, he used WiFi to send messages via Facebook, or he showed up in person// Mr. Roof told his friends that he had quit a landscaping job because he could not bear working in the Southern heat// He spent his days loafing around the place, watching television and sometimes calling his father, pretending to be at work, said Jacob Meek, 15, Joseph s brother// *He said his parents kept pressuring him to get a job,* Jacob said//
He was fond of vodka and usually kept a stash around// He went to the Platinum Plus strip club recently, Jacob said, and threw dollar bills at the dancers//But amid his aimlessness, Joseph Meek, 20, and other friends said, Mr.Roof talked wildly about hurting AfricanAmericans, about doing something *crazy//* Joseph, worried, hid the //45caliber handgun Mr. Roof had bought with money his parents gave him for his 21st birthday// But Joseph eventually returned the gun because he was on probation and feared having it around// At one point, Jacob said, Mr. Roof s parents took the gun, too// *I guess he stole it back,* he said// On Tuesday, Mr. Roof agreed to drive his friends to Lake Murray// He said he was pressed for time, because he wanted to make the 2 p.m. showing of *Jurassic World* at the AMC theater// He showed Jacob the movie coupon he had in his car// He carried a $7 pack of American Spirit cigarettes and wore a longsleeve gray shirt with a Border Patrol logo on one side and a sleeve stained with battery acid//
## He wore that shirt all the time, Jacob said// Advertisement Continue reading the main story He was not acting jumpy or out of the ordinary, his friends recalled// He was acting like a guy who had a movie to catch// *He did seem like he was in a rush,* Jacob said// *He was like, Come on, let s go// *Felicia Sanders, who was in the room, heard the gunfire before seeing who the gunman was, she later told a friend, Ms. Johnson, Mr. Pinckney s cousin// Ms,Sanders dropped to the ground with her 5yearold granddaughter// She saw blood everywhere// The white visitor was doing the shooting, and he reloaded his weapon five times// Ms, Sanders s son, Tywanza Sanders, tried unsuccessfully to shield his aunt, Susie Jackson, 87, and talk sense to the gunman// *That s when the gunman said: Y all are raping our women and taking over the country// This must be done, * Ms. Johnson recalled Ms. Sanders telling her// Then he shot Tywanza// At one point, he asked a woman if she had been shot yet// When she said no, he said: *Good// Someone has to live to tell the story, because I m going to kill myself, too//* Ms. Sanders survived only by playing dead, Ms. Johnson said//
Soon, the gunman was gone, fleeing in his Hyundai Elantra and leaving nine churchgoers dead or dying behind//
