'What Is Wrong With People?': Local Leaders Respond To Charleston Massacre

By Justin Heinze and Kara Seymour:

Several local lawmakers have responded to the shooting in Charleston, S.C that left nine dead.

The shooting occurred at about 9 p.m. Wednesday during a prayer meeting inside the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in downtown Charleston.

The FBI confirmed the suspect as Dylann Roof, 21, of the Columbia area of South Carolina. Roof’s Facebook page identifies him as a resident of Columbia, S.C. and a one-time student at White Knoll High School. In his Facebook profile photo, Roof is wearing a jacket bearing patches of the flags of apartheid-era South Africa and Rhodesia.

“What what what is wrong with people??” wrote State Sen. Daylin Leach (D-Montgomery/Bucks), based in King of Prussia.

“Absolute tragedy in ‪Charleston‬ - my thoughts and prayers go to all those impacted, especially families of the victims,” said Bucks County’s Congressman Mike Fitzpatrick.

“We don’t make a practice of commenting on police related incidents outside our general geography but today we are making an exception,” wrote the Horsham Chiefs Advisory Team, a community policing initiative, on Facebook.

“We were very saddened to learn of the tragedy in Charleston, South Carolina last night. Our thoughts and prayers are with the families of those who lost loved ones and to the Community as a whole. Such senseless acts of violence can tear at the very fabric of a Community. But it is exactly at such times when we must stand together as one.”

Roof, allegedly walked into a historic black church and sat down for an hour on Wednesday night, before opening fire and killing nine individuals. He was captured on Thursday about 200 miles away from the site of the shooting.

Roof later confessed to the crimes, saying he wanted to start a race war, according to a media report.

The Facebook profile photo of suspect Dylann Roof.