2015 Charleston, South Carolina shooting

Also known as Charleston church shooting, Charleston church massacre, Charleston Massacre

mass shooting in Charleston, South Carolina, United States

Key facts

Date: June 17, 2015 ; 10 years ago ( 2015-06-17 ) , c. 9:05 – c. 9:11 p.m. ( EDT )
Target: African American churchgoers at a church congregation
Attack type: Mass shooting , mass murder , domestic terrorism , right-wing terrorism , hate crime
Weapon: Glock 41 .45-caliber handgun
Perpetrator: Dylann Roof
Motive: White supremacy / nationalism Accelerationist neo-Nazism Desire to start a race war Anti-black racism Belief in the white genocide conspiracy theory
Verdict: Guilty on all counts
Convictions: 33 federal counts 13 state counts
Trial: Trial of Dylann Roof
Sentence: Federal , Death , State , 9 consecutive life sentences without the possibility of parole plus 95 years

via Wikipedia infobox

Wikidata facts

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Article

On June 17, 2015, an anti-black mass shooting and hate crime occurred in Charleston, South Carolina. Nine people were killed and another 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 one of the deadliest mass shootings at a place of worship in U.S. history, tied with the Waddell Buddhist temple shooting. Both incidents were surpassed by the Sutherland Springs church shooting in 2017.

Dylann Roof, a 21-year-old white supremacist, had attended the Bible study before opening fire. He was found to have targeted members of this church because of its history and status. In December 2016, Roof was convicted of 33 federal hate crime and murder charges. On January 10, 2017, he was sentenced to death for those crimes. Roof was separately charged with nine counts of murder in the South Carolina state courts. In April 2017, Roof pleaded guilty to all nine state charges in order to avoid receiving a second death sentence, and as a result, he was sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole. He will receive automatic appeals of his death sentence, but he may eventually be executed by the federal justice system; Roof was one of three inmates on federal death row whose sentence was not commuted by President Joe Biden prior to leaving office.