Police lead suspected shooter Dylann Roof into the courthouse. Credit:Reuters The shooter sat with churchgoers inside Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church for about an hour on Wednesday before opening fire, Police Chief Mullen said. The victims included Reverend Clementa Pinckney, the church's pastor and a Democratic member of the state Senate, his cousin and fellow state senator, Kent Williams. The shooter told one survivor he would let her live so she could tell others what happened, the president of the Charleston NAACP, Dot Scott, told the local Post and Courier newspaper. A cousin of Pinckney's, Sylvia Johnson, told MSNBC that a survivor of the shooting told her the gunman reloaded five times during the attack during a Bible-study group. Pinckney tried to talk him out of it, she said.

Dylann Roof, 21, who police suspect of shooting dead nine people at a historic black church in Charleston. The picture on Roof's Facebook page showed him wearing a black jacket with patches of the apartheid-era South African flag and the flag of white-ruled Rhodesia, now Zimbabwe. Credit:AFP "He just said, 'I have to do it. You rape our women and you're taking over our country," Johnson said. "It is a very, very sad day in South Carolina, but it is a day that we will get through," Governor Nikki Haley, a Republican, told reporters. "Parents are having to explain to their kids how they can go to church and feel safe, and that's not something we ever thought we'd deal with." Charleston police have released this photo of the suspect. Credit:Reuters Roof was reportedly left the scene in a black Hyundai with the licence plate LGF330, according to CNN.

Hand gun was birthday present Worshippers embrace following a group prayer across the street from the scene of a shooting Wednesday. Credit:AP Roof was given a gun by his father as a 21st birthday present in April, his uncle said on Thursday. Law enforcement officers were at the home of Dylann Roof's mother on Thursday morning, the uncle, Carson Cowles, 56, said in an interview. The steeple of Emanuel AME Church is visible as police close off the street after the shooting. Credit:AP

Cowles said he recognised Roof in a photo released by police, and described him as quiet and soft-spoken. Roof's father gave him a .45-caliber pistol for his birthday this year, Cowles said. Roof had seemed adrift before the incident, Cowles said. Reverend Clementa Pinckney died in the attack on the church on Wednesday. Credit:emanuelamechurch.org "I don't have any words for it," Cowles said in a telephone interview. "Nobody in my family had seen anything like this coming." Roof was charged on two separate occasions earlier this year with a drug offense and trespassing, according to court documents. In a Facebook profile apparently belonging to him, he is pictured wearing a jacket prominently featuring the flags of apartheid-era South Africa and Rhodesia, now Zimbabwe, from when the two African countries were ruled by their white minorities.

A man kneels across the street from where police gather outside the Emanuel AME Church following a shooting Wednesday. Credit:AP Roof's mother, Amy, declined to comment when reached by phone. "We will be doing no interviews, ever," she said before hanging up. People concerned about relatives seek information from police nearby the scene of a shooting at the Emanuel AME Church in Charleston. Credit:Reuters 'Somebody filled with hate'

US Attorney General Loretta Lynch said her office was investigating whether to charge Roof with a hate crime motivated by racial or other prejudice. Such crimes typically carry harsher penalties. A suspect is arrested as police respond to a shooting at the Emanuel AME Church. Police later said they were still looking for the gunman. Credit:Reuters "The fact that this took place in a black church obviously raises questions about a dark part of our history," US President Barack Obama told reporters. "We don't have all the facts but we know that, once again, innocent people were killed in part because someone who wanted to inflict harm had no trouble getting their hands on a gun." The Southern Poverty Law Centre, which researches US hate groups, said the attack illustrates the dangers that home-grown extremists pose. Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush, the former governor of Florida, cancelled an appearance in Charleston on Thursday. Credit:Bloomberg

"Since 9/11, our country has been fixated on the threat of Jihadi terrorism. But the horrific tragedy at the Emanuel AME reminds us that the threat of homegrown domestic terrorism is very real," the group said in a statement, referring to the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on the United States. Roof sat with churchgoers inside Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church for about an hour on Wednesday before opening fire at about 9pm, Mullen said, adding that police believe Roof acted alone. Demonstrations have rocked New York, Baltimore, Ferguson, Missouri and other cities following police killings of unarmed black men including Eric Garner, Freddie Gray and Michael Brown. A white police officer was charged with murder after he shot Walter Scott, an unarmed black man, in April in neighbouring North Charleston. "This is an unfathomable and unspeakable act by somebody filled with hate and with a deranged mind," Charleston Mayor Joe Riley told reporters.

Around 10:45 pm local time, police officers at the scene drew their weapons and escorted a man, who appeared to match that description, in handcuffs. But officials said later that they were still searching for the gunman. The shooting recalled the 1963 bombing of an African-American church in Birmingham, Alabama, that killed four girls and galvanised the civil rights movement of the 1960s. A bomb threat was also reported on Wednesday near the scene of the shooting, Charleston County Sheriff's Office spokesman Eric Watson said. The Charleston church is one of the largest and oldest black congregations in the South, according to its website. It has its roots in the early 19th century, and was founded in part by a freed slave who was later executed for organising a revolt, according to the US National Park Service. "This tragedy that we are addressing right now is indescribable," Mullen said. "We are committed to do whatever is necessary to bring this individual to justice."

Reuters confirmed the death of Reverend Clementa Pinckney, who political and civil rights activist Reverend Al Sharpton honoured in a tweet. The official Twitter account for the Charleston police department reported that it was hunting for a man in the area.

The house of worship is the oldest African Methodist Episcopal (AME) church in the South and was led by Reverend Pinckney, a Democrat. The FBI and chaplains were on the scene, Post and Courier reporter Melissa Boughton tweeted. The attack follows the April shooting of an unarmed black man in neighbouring North Charleston by a white police officer. The officer has been charged with murder in that case, one of a number of deaths of unarmed black men in encounters with police that have raised racial tensions in the United States.

'Where are you safe?' The community reacted with shock and grief after Wednesday's shooting. "I'm heartbroken," said Shona Holmes, 28, a bystander at the aftermath of the shooting. "It's just hurtful to think that someone would come in and shoot people in a church. If you're not safe in church, where are you safe?" "This is going to put a lot of concern to every black church when guys have to worry about getting shot in the church," said Tamika Brown while waiting for a noon prayer vigil at an AME church near the site of the shooting. "They might need security guards, police officers."

The FBI, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and other agencies have joined in the investigation, Mullen said. Eight victims were found dead in the church, Mullen said, and a ninth died after being taken to hospital. Three people survived the attack. Officials did not immediately identify the victims. Williams called Pinckney's death hard to believe. "It's devastating, devastating that someone would go into God's house and commit such a crime," Williams told CNN. "It's just a huge, huge loss." Early on Thursday, Mullen released photos of the suspect taken from the church, as well as of a black sedan that he was seen leaving in. Mullen added there was "no reason to believe" that he was not in the Charleston area.

Following the attack on the church, Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush, the former governor of Florida, canceled an appearance in Charleston that had been scheduled for Thursday morning. "Governor Bush's thoughts and prayers are with the individuals and families affected by this tragedy," his campaign team said in a statement. The attack follows the April shooting of an unarmed black man in neighbouring North Charleston by a white police officer. The officer has been charged with murder in that case, one of a number of deaths of unarmed black men in encounters with police that have raised racial tensions in the United States. Reuters, AAP, USA Today, Bloomberg Follow FairfaxForeign on Twitter