The Presidential Campaign in Charleston/Charleston Church Shooting: NYT Live Updates

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Charleston, SC Church Shooting: NYT Live Updates

http://www.nytimes.com/live/updates-on-charleston-church-shooting/?module=article-embed

The Presidential Campaign in Charleston


Charleston was expected to be in the national spotlight this week because of visits by prominent presidential hopefuls, not because of a shooting, The Post and Courier notes in an article.

As reported earlier, the campaign team for Jeb Bush, the former Florida governor and a contender for the Republican presidential nomination, said late Wednesday that he would not appear in Charleston as planned on Thursday because of the shooting.

Hillary Rodham Clinton was at a fund-raiser about a mile from the church earlier Wednesday, on East Bay Street, at a house owned by the Charleston attorney Akim A. Anastopoulo.

Mrs. Clinton left at least two hours before the shooting was reported, her campaign team said.

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In the first hours after the shooting, the police blocked reporters and passers-by from approaching the church, opposite a Marriott Courtyard hotel, because of a bomb threat. Many among the news media cluster were political reporters in town to cover campaign events of Hillary Rodham Clinton and Jeb Bush.

Helicopters with searchlights circled overhead, and a group of pastors knelt and prayed across the street.

“The question is, ‘Why God?’ ” a man wearing a shirt bearing the name of the Empowerment Missionary Baptist Church said during the prayer.

Later, a group of church leaders gathered at the corner of Calhoun and King Streets, a few blocks from where the shooting occurred, and held an impromptu news conference. Tory Fields, a member of the Charleston County Ministers Conference, said he believed the attacker had targeted the victims because of their race.

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“It’s obvious that it’s race,” he said. “What else could it be? You’ve got a white guy going into an African-American church. That’s choice. He chose to go into that church and harm those people. That’s choice.”

The church is one of the nation’s oldest black congregations. The Gothic Revival building dates from 1891 and is considered a historically significant building, according to the National Park Service.

The congregation was formed by black members of Charleston’s Methodist Episcopal Church who broke away “over disputed burial ground,” according to the website of the National Park Service.

In 1822, one of the church’s co-founders, Denmark Vesey, tried to foment a slave rebellion in Charleston, the church’s website says. The plot was foiled by the authorities and 35 people were executed, including Mr. Vesey.

The church houses the oldest black congregation south of Baltimore, the National Park Service said.

Late Wednesday, the campaign staff of Mr. Bush, the former governor of Florida who is seeking the Republican nomination for president, said he was canceling appearances planned for Thursday in Charleston because of the shooting. Mrs. Clinton was in Charleston on Wednesday, but an aide said she had left the city before the shooting.

Bakari Sellers, a former member of the South Carolina House of Representatives, said he had been at a fund-raiser Mrs. Clinton attended in the early evening when he heard about the shooting only blocks away. He said the mood among the attendees, several of whom knew the church and its pastor well, quickly turned from hope to “darkness and despair.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/19/us/charleston-church-shooting.html?ref=liveblog