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Charleston church shooting: police hunt suspect in 'hate crime' – latest updates Read more

Clementa Pinckney, a high-flying Democrat state senator who campaigned for police to wear body cameras, was one of those killed in the mass shooting at a historic black church in Charleston, South Carolina, on Wednesday.

The 41-year-old was a pastor of the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal church where a gunman, believed to be white, opened fire in what officials are treating as a hate crime.

Pinckney won election to the South Carolina senate in 2000 at the age of 27, becoming the youngest African American to do so. He had previously been elected to the state’s House of Representatives at 23. Reports said he met Hillary Clinton earlier on Wednesday at a fundraising event in Charleston.

Clementa Pinckney. Photograph: Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church

In April Pinckney helped lead a prayer vigil for Walter Scott, a black South Carolina man who was shot dead by a police officer as he tried to run away. The veteran civil rights campaigner Al Sharpton, who was also involved in the vigil, tweeted on Wednesday night:

Reverend Al Sharpton (@TheRevAl) Rev. Clements Pinckney, a SC legislator is among the 9 killed in SC church. I am reminded that he helped lead our prayer vigil for Scott.

Pinckney campaigned for legislation to require police officers to wear body cameras while working. He said: “Body cameras help to record what happens. It may not be the golden ticket, the golden egg, the end-all-fix-all, but it helps to paint a picture of what happens during a police stop.”

The Rev Joseph Darby, the presiding elder at Beaufort AME Church, described Pinckney as “an advocate for the people”. He told MSNBC: “He was a very caring and competent pastor, and he was a very brave man. Brave men sometimes die difficult deaths.”

Pastor Thomas Dixon, who has been working with a local chapter of the Black Lives Matter movement, had met Pinckney in the wake of the April death of Walter Scott, the unarmed black man whose shooting by a white North Charleston police officer was caught on video. He said Pinckney was highly respected in the community as both a political and religious leader.

In the wake of the latest shooting, Dixon said he was “disheartened but not surprised”.

The Emanuel church website said Pinckney began preaching at 13 and was first appointed as a pastor at 18. He had a degree in business administration, and master’s degrees in public administration and divinity.



Facebook Twitter Pinterest Clementa Pickney at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church

His profile on the church website included a quote from a Washington Post columnist, David Broder, who said Pinckney was a “political spirit lifter for surprisingly not becoming cynical about politics”.

Pinckney is survived by his wife, Jennifer, and two children, Eliana and Malana.