President Obama on Thursday decried the “senseless murders” of nine churchgoers in Charleston, SC — saying he knew one of the victims personally.
“Their Christian faith compelled them to reach out not just to members of their congregation, or to members of their own communities, but to all in need,” Obama said of his friend — Pastor and state Sen. Clementa Pinckney — and the congregation at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church.
“To say our thoughts and prayers are with them and their families and their community doesn’t say enough to convey the heartache and the sadness and the anger that we feel,” the president said.
“Any death of this sort is a tragedy. Any shooting involving multiple victims is a tragedy. There is something particularly heartbreaking about a death happening in a place in which we seek solace and we seek peace, in a place of worship.”
South Carolina politicians also reacted with shock and horror.
“We have some grieving to do, and we’ve got some pain we have to go through,” said Gov. Nikki Haley, fighting back tears.
The retired Rev. Thomas E. McClary, a mentor to Pinckney, recalled the father of two as a “well-spoken young man.”
“He never raised his voice. He emulated, I guess we would say, the pastors that he came in contact with. He said he had a calling to help people,” McClary said.
In New York, Mayor de Blasio called the massacre “a very, very painful moment for all us” and promised to step up security at black churches around the city.