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The Murders in Charleston
I’ve never said the Charleston killer’s name out loud. I physically can’t without feeling sick. I refer to him only as “the shooter” or “the killer.” I don’t want him to have a name. He doesn’t deserve to have a single American know about him because of the lives he took and the pain he inflicted on my state. He is nothing but a reminder that real hate exists in the world.
I saw the true face of evil in the man who killed nine worshippers in that Charleston church on June 17, 2015. I wouldn’t wish the memory of him on my worst enemies. I can’t imagine how it torments the families of the victims. I know it’s never left me. When the killer was apprehended in North Carolina after fleeing Charleston, I directed our law enforcement officials to use the plane I used as governor to get him to South Carolina as fast as possible. Our state law enforcement director, Chief Mark Keel, asked if I was sure I wanted to do that. I soon understood why. I watched in horror as television news broadcast the killer getting on the plane and sitting in the seat I usually sat in. Whenever I rode in the plane after that, I was disgusted. All I could think about was that I was sitting in the same seat as the killer—someone with more hate in his heart than I could comprehend.
I first learned about the shooting when I was getting the kids ready for bed in the governor’s mansion in Columbia. It came in a text from my chief of staff, James Burns. As governor, I had a real love-hate relationship with my phone. It kept me in constant touch with my staff and other state officials. But whenever it went off at night I got a bad feeling in the pit of my stomach. Over the years there had been way too many calls with bad news. I learned about prison riots in which officers were attacked and held hostage by the inmates, about school shootings, a state agency director having a stroke, the deaths of soldiers and state employees, and hurricanes bearing down on South Carolina—all from late-night calls or texts on my phone.
That night, James’s text didn’t have much information. But a few minutes later, a call came in from Chief Keel. He was a man of few words in any circumstance. That night, he got straight to the point.
“Governor, there has been a shooting at Mother Emanuel Church. We believe there could be casualties. It doesn’t look good,” he said.
Mother Emanuel is the name South Carolinians have for the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church. It is a fixture of Charleston and the oldest AME church in the South. It was also the church in which a beloved state senator, Clementa Pinckney, was a senior pastor.
Senator Pinckney was a Democrat from a rural area in Jasper County. He was a tall man with a great, deep voice. He had been elected to the state legislature when he was quite young and had served with genuine concern for the people of South Carolina. He and I had shared a stage just weeks before to announce new jobs created in his district. He was gracious and appreciative. His smile had a way of making you feel calm.
Chief Keel was already headed to Charleston. I asked him to be in touch with me as soon as he arrived. And then, without thinking, I called Senator Pinckney. I got his voice mail.
“Senator, I wanted to call and let you know that I just heard about the shooting at Mother Emanuel,” I said. “The chief and I are on it. He is headed to Charleston now. Please know whatever your congregation or the families need, we will be in full force to assist. I’m so very sorry. Please give me a call back when you receive this.”
It never for a second occurred to me that Senator Pinckney would be at the church that evening. It was a Wednesday night. The legislature was in session in Columbia, a full two-hour drive from Charleston. But as I waited for him to call me back, the horrific dimensions of the shooting began to take shape. Each text and each call were one more kick in the gut. By the early morning hours of June 18, 2015, it was clear that South Carolina had experienced an unspeakable tragedy. Chief Keel called to tell me that there had been eight casualties at the church. Another person had died at the hospital, for a total of nine murdered. The shooter was still at large, he said. And Senator Pinckney was among the casualties.
Of all the terrible memories I have from the Mother Emanuel tragedy, learning that night that Senator Pinckney was never going to call me back is among the worst. The fact that his phone was ringing in his pocket as he lay on the floor of his church will haunt me for the rest of my life.
By dawn, I was getting ready to leave for Charleston. The kids were still asleep. But I didn’t want them to hear about the shooting from someone else. So I went to their rooms and began one of the most difficult conversations I’ve ever had with them. I told them I had to go to Charleston and I would probably not be home that night.
“There was a shooting in a church,” I said. My thirteen-year-old son Nalin asked me, “Mom, why would someone shoot in a church?” His older sister Rena asked the same thing. It broke my heart to hear this question. Church was supposed to be a safe place. All I could do was assure them we would catch the person who did it.
“Everything will be okay,” I said. “But I need to be there to make sure it happens.”
* * *
IT WAS STILL VERY EARLY when I arrived in Charleston. I immediately went to the command center the police had set up near the crime scene. There was an eerie quiet on the streets around the church. The police had cordoned off the area so members of the media and onlookers couldn’t get near the crime scene. Officers who had worked through the night were still working, carefully marking the spots where the seventy-four shell casings the killer left behind had fallen.
The police had reviewed the security cameras outside the church and had some good news. They had clear images of a young white man with a bowl haircut entering the church the night before at 8:17 p.m. and then exiting, gun in hand, at 9:07 p.m. Chief Keel told me the police believed they knew who he was. They had spoken to his family members about where he might have gone.
“Chief, tell me he has a mental illness,” I said. I couldn’t understand how a sane person could have done this. I didn’t want to understand how a person in their right mind was capable of such evil. But the chief said no. From talking with his family, he learned there had been no sign of mental illness.
“We believe this is a hate crime,” Chief Keel said.
There was a press conference scheduled for 11:00 a.m. I was in the car on my way there when I got a call. Someone had spotted the killer in North Carolina, and he was in custody. For the first time, I felt like I could breathe. I needed him back in South Carolina as soon as possible to be charged. It was then that I told Chief Keel to use the state plane.
The plan was for Charleston police chief Greg Mullen to lead off the press conference with the announcement of the apprehension of the killer. Then Charleston mayor Joe Riley would speak, and then me. I knew I had to focus on what I could possibly say to give strength to my fellow South Carolinians. I needed to be calm. I needed to assure the people they were safe. But all I could think about was that South Carolina would never be the same. Everyone’s sense of safety—even in church—had been violated. People would constantly be looking over their shoulders, constantly expecting the worst.
I needed to be a source of calm and strength in a state that was grieving, but I didn’t know if I could be. I called my friend and advisor, Jon Lerner, from the car.
“This will bring the state to her knees. I’m so upset at that thought,” I told him. “I’m worried about being strong enough and knowing what to say to the people.” Jon’s advice was wise and assuring, as usual. He said it was a time to not hold back, to be straightforward and completely honest with the people of South Carolina. They would understand if I lost my composure. They were all feeling the same way.
The summer heat was almost unbearable as we gathered before the media. When it came time for me to speak, I thanked the mayor for his leadership and I thanked law enforcement for apprehending the shooter so quickly. And then I began to address the people of South Carolina. As I started to speak, all the anxiety, the sadness, and the anger I had been bottling up for the past twelve hours came rushing to the surface.
“We woke up today…” I began. And then I lost it. As I continued, my voice cracked and my eyes welled up with tears: “… and the heart and soul of South Carolina was broken.”
My mind went back to my conversation with my children just hours before. I talked about how all South Carolina’s parents were forced to have that same conversation with their kids today. I thanked the American people for the outpouring of love and concern we had already received. I asked the people of South Carolina to come together and be strong. The families of the victims needed our love and our prayers, I said. We can get through this together.
When the press conference was finished, I was angry and disappointed with myself. I had done what I was afraid I would do. I had lost control of my emotions. As a woman, this is something that I have always been particularly sensitive to. And at this time of all times, when the people of my state needed strength and reassurance, I felt like I had showed them weakness.
My press aides had been watching while I spoke. I looked at them and said, “I am so mad at myself. Why did I cry?” Their response was one that I needed to hear, not only that day, but in the days and weeks that followed. You’re only human, they told me through their own tears. Anyone would have the same reaction. And they were right. South Carolinians needed to grieve, and I was one of them, too.
After the press conference we went to a prayer vigil. Hundreds gathered inside Morris Brown AME Church, just blocks away from Mother Emmanuel. Hundreds more crowded the streets outside. There were South Carolinians of all colors and faiths. There were tears. There was anger. But most of all, an enormous, palpable pain filled the church. Again, I felt the need to protect my state and its people.
“What happened in that church last night is not South Carolina,” I told the crowd of mourners. “What’s happening today in this church—these are the people of South Carolina.”
* * *
WHILE WE WERE GRIEVING IN Charleston, 243 miles to the northwest in Shelby, North Carolina, the killer was confessing the details of his crime. Later, Chief Keel filled me in on his interrogation by two FBI agents. He said the killer was calm and relaxed. The shooter chuckled at times as he described how he wanted to kill black people—lots of them. He explained that he researched African American churches to find a place where large numbers of black people gathered.
The Charleston killings were planned and premeditated. The shooter chose Mother Emanuel because it was the oldest black church in the South. He went there before the shooting and asked a woman exiting the church what times the services were held. She told him there was Bible study on Wednesday nights.
The Wednesday night of the murders, the killer entered through the front door of the church. When he walked in, there were twelve people singing and reciting verses. They saw him. He didn’t look like them. He didn’t act like them. But they didn’t throw him out or call the police. Instead they pulled up a chair and prayed with him for almost an hour. The killer later acknowledged how nice they were to him. For a split second, he had second thoughts about doing what he had come there to do. But his hate overcame him. In his demented mind, blacks were hurting white people and someone had to do something. He said that over and over during his interrogation: Someone had to do something. So as the Mother Emanuel worshippers closed their eyes for their final prayer, the killer pulled out a semiautomatic pistol and began shooting. He went through seven magazines of bullets. He had an eighth, which he said he was saving to shoot himself with when the police showed up. But when the killing was over and he opened the door of the church, there were no police. Inside, there were eleven people shot on the floor, eight of whom were already dead.
Even before any of these horrific details were known to anyone outside law enforcement, the shootings became breaking national news. Media began to pour into Charleston. Within thirty-six hours of the event, the streets surrounding Mother Emanuel had been completely taken over by the press. There were tents, cameras, and communications equipment extending as far as the eye could see around the church. All the local media were there, in addition to the national broadcast and cable networks, as well as international news organizations.
With the national and international media came a different perspective on the killings. I was doing everything I could to keep the focus on the families of the victims. South Carolina needed time to process what had happened. But many in the national and international media wanted sensationalism. They wanted to take our tragedy and use it to score political or cultural points. Before all the names of the victims were even known, mostly out-of-state voices were raising issues like the death penalty, gun control, and whether South Carolina had really left its history of racial animus behind.
President Barack Obama spoke to the nation the morning after the killings. He looked tired and defeated. He and Michelle had known Senator Pinckney and other members of the church. It was clear that he was feeling the same kind of pain that we were feeling in South Carolina. But toward the end of his remarks, President Obama made a historical analogy that I thought was wrong. He mentioned the four little African American girls who were killed in a church bombing in Birmingham, Alabama, in 1963. Their deaths had shocked the conscience of the nation and been a significant motivator to the civil rights movement. President Obama quoted Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., who said of the 1963 victims, “We must be concerned not merely about who murdered them, but about the system, the way of life, the philosophy which produced the murderers” (emphasis mine).
I felt even more strongly than the president about the need for understanding exactly why the killer took the lives of nine people in a Charleston Church. I wanted justice for the victims and to make sure something like this never happened again in my state. But I also knew a lot had changed in the South since 1963.
* * *
I GREW UP IN RURAL South Carolina. I was born in a town called Bamberg, which had a population of just twenty-five hundred when my parents moved there in 1969. Mom and Dad left behind lives of relative privilege in India to come to America. Mom grew up surrounded by servants in a six-story house in Punjab. My father’s father was a commanding officer in a horse-mounted regiment of the British colonial army. Not only did my parents leave behind comfort and privilege when they left India, they left behind everyone and almost everything they had ever known.
Copyright © 2019 by Nikki R. Haley
