The Charleston 9 – We Will Never Forget

Wednesday, June 17, 2015 started out as a normal day if the beautiful city of Charleston, SC – but ended as one of those days where you never quite forget where you were, and what you were doing when you received “the news”. It’s one of those nights that will stain my mind forever. I was leaving West Ashley, which is approximately 10 minutes from downtown Charleston after picking up my niece and nephew from my parents’ house. I noticed the police cars, which is definitely not abnormal, but then as we approached I-26, we saw several fire trucks, as we drove further down I-26 we began to see even more police, even as we drove into North Charleston, police were everywhere!

I received a text from my best friend Tonyia stating that there had been a shooting in downtown and 8 people were dead. My friend lives in another state, but the way news travels I had no doubt that something had happened because of all of the police we had passed. I called my cousin Gretch and a few others and slowly the news had started to break about what was going on downtown. My cousin and I thought immediately that this was some sort of religious or terrorist attack, because the shooting didn’t happen in “the hood”, it happened in the busiest tourist section of the cities, one of the busiest tourist location in the world, We automatically thought a gunman simply took to the streets and fired away. Shortly thereafter, we found out something had happened at Emanuel AME Church, which happens to be an African Methodist Episcopal Church with significant history. My cousin and I called it right, it was definitely a terrorist attack, just not the type of terrorism we initially believed it to be.

There was still some hope that the initial rumor of 8 deceased people in a church, was simply a rumor. When the news broke that the coroner was at the scene we knew this night was not going to end well. I called my friend in DC, who’s mother attends that church and she was shocked and immediately went to check on her mom. Because my 14-year old niece and 10- year old nephew listened the entire time I was on the phone discussing these events, they had lots of questions and seemed to be concerned about the murderer still being on the loose.

As the night continued we learned that eight lives were lost in that church. They were identified as:

Honorable State Senator Clementa Pinckney, 41, the senior pastor at the church

Sharonda Coleman Singleton, 45, an assistant pastor

Tywanza Sanders, 26

Ethel Lance, 70

Susie Jackson, 87

Cynthia Hurd, 54

Myra Thompson, 59

Daniel Simmons Sr., 74 (died at the hospital)

DePayne Middleton Doctor, 49

Let’s just say the residents of Charleston didn’t get much sleep on this night. A mad man was on the loose. We were on the phone, texting, tweeting, many people went out to the crime scene to express their anger, to pray and to support the families who were being held at a location directly across the street from the church. We were pissed, we were angry, we were hurt and confused at how such a thing could happen, here in our beloved city.

The people of Charleston knew that there are at least five locations around the Emanuel Church that have cameras, We wanted things to happen fast, and we must give credit to the FBI. They did their job; by morning we had video and a description of the suspect and by mid-day on Thursday Dylann Roof was captured in Shelby, North Carolina. But this is just the beginning.