Video seems to show Charleston shooting suspect in the church
Police brought Dylann Roof back to Charleston Thursday night, a city left heartbroken after one of the deadliest mass shootings in state history.
He is scheduled to appear at a bond hearing via video link Friday on charges he shot nine people to death inside an historic black church Wednesday night, reports CBS News correspondent Jeff Pegues.
City officials announced a prayer vigil for Friday evening. A memorial continues to grow outside the church.
"The heart and soul of South Carolina was broken, and so we have some grieving to do," said Gov. Nikki Haley. Choking up, she continued, "We have some pain we need to go through. Parents are having to explain to their kids how they can go to church and feel safe."
Roof entered the Emanuel AME Church around 8 p.m. Wednesday, authorities say. He spent a full hour mingling with parishioners before he stood up, declared he was there to kill black people and opened fire, Pegues says.
At the end of the murderous rampage, six women and three men were dead.
A Snapchat video reportedly taken by one of the few survivors of the attack shows a small group of people gathered together inside the church. All of them are black except for one man.
It's now believed that person was the alleged shooter, Roof, Pegues says.
He evaded capture for more than 12 hours, until police pulled over his black Hyundai in Shelby, North Carolina, 250 miles from Charleston.
"Once we got the surveillance photos out, we started to receive tips, which led to the ability to make the arrest," Charleston Police Chief Gregory Mullen told reporters.
Upon his arrest, Roof made incriminating statements indicating he was involved in Charleston church shooting, according to a law enforcement source.
That tip came from Debbie Dills, a florist who was running late for work. She says she looked into the car next to hers and recognized the bowl-cut hair of the accused gunman.
"I was directly behind him at a stoplight and everything going through my mind was what ifs, what ifs. But the only thing I could see was those people in Charleston, in those prayer circles, in their hands gathered around praying that prayer would be answered," she said.
Sources say Roof made incriminating statements linking him to the Charleston shooting and was arrested without incident.
In his car, a .45 caliber pistol matching the casings found at the church.
It was thought the gun was given to Roof by his father for his recent 21st birthday, Pegues notes.
Meek, a former friend who reconnected with Roof a few weeks ago, said that while they got drunk on vodka, Roof complained that "blacks were taking over the world" and declared that "someone needed to do something about it for the white race."
The FBI, which is involved in a federal hate crime investigation of the shooting, has interviewed both of Roof's parents, Pegues says.
Charleston Mayor Joseph Riley Jr. said, "The arrest of this awful man is an important part for all of us in this community and in our country to begin the necessary process of our healing together."
He described the shooting at the church as an act of "pure, pure concentrated evil."
The victims included a state senator who was also the church's minister, three other pastors, a regional library manager, a high school coach and speech therapist, a government administrator, a college enrollment counselor and a recent college graduate.
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President Obama called the tragedy yet another example of damage caused by guns in America.
NAACP President and CEO Cornell William Brooks said "there is no greater coward than a criminal who enters a house of God and slaughters innocent people." Others bemoaned the loss to a church that has served as a bastion of black power for 200 years, despite efforts by white supremacists to wipe it out.
"Of all cities, in Charleston, to have a horrible hateful person go into the church and kill people there to pray and worship with each other is something that is beyond any comprehension and is not explained," said Riley. "We are going to put our arms around that church and that church family."
Surveillance video showed the gunman entering the church Wednesday night, and initially didn't appear threatening, Charleston County Coroner Rae Wilson said.
"The suspect entered the group and was accepted by them, as they believed that he wanted to join them in this Bible study," she said. Then, "he became very aggressive and violent."
Meek called the FBI after recognizing Roof in the video, down to the stained sweatshirt he wore while playing videogames in Meek's home the morning of the attack.
"I knew it was him," Meek told The Associated Press after being interviewed by investigators.
During their reunion a few weeks ago, Roof said he had bought a .45-caliber Glock pistol and that he had "a plan," Meek said, adding that it scared him enough that he took the gun out of Roof's car and hid it in his house until the next day.
It's not clear whether Roof had any connection to the 16 white supremacist organizations operating in South Carolina.
On his Facebook page, Roof displayed the flags of defeated white-ruled regimes, posing with a Confederate flags plate on his car and wearing a jacket with stitched-on flag patches from apartheid-era South Africa and Rhodesia, which is now black-led Zimbabwe.
His police record includes misdemeanor drug and trespassing charges.
Spilling blood inside a black church -- especially "Mother Emanuel," founded in 1816 -- evoked painful memories nationwide, a reminder that black churches so often have been the targets of racist violence.
A church founder, Denmark Vesey, was hanged after trying to organize a slave revolt in 1822, and white landowners burned the church in revenge. Decades later, the congregation rebuilt and grew stronger, eventually winning campaigns for voting rights and political representation.
Its lead pastor, state Sen. Clementa Pinckney - among the dead - recalled his church's history in a 2013 sermon, saying "we don't see ourselves as just a place where we come to worship, but as a beacon and as a bearer of the culture."
"What the church is all about," Pinckney said, is the "freedom to be fully what God intends us to be and have equality in the sight of God. And sometimes you got to make noise to do that. Sometimes you may have to die like Denmark Vesey to do that."
Pinckney, 41, was a married father of two and a Democrat who sserved 19 years in the South Carolina legislature.
The other victims were Cynthia Hurd, 54; Tywanza Sanders, 26; Myra Thompson, 59; Ethel Lance, 70; Susie Jackson, 87; and the reverends DePayne Middleton Doctor, 49; Sharonda Singleton, 45; and Daniel Simmons Sr., 74.