As police release more details regarding the incident, it has emerged that a five-year-old child only managed to survive the ordeal by pretending to be dead.
The incident is being treated as a hate crime by authorities, with a local reporter recalling the scene at the Mother Emmanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church as “beyond description”.
Shaun King of the Daily Kos added: “Career officers are describing it as the worst thing they have ever seen.”
According to reports, the gunman entered the church at around 9pm last night and briefly joined in a prayer meeting, before then standing up and opening fire on the group. Nine people were killed in the incident, including the church’s pastor Reverend Clementa Pinckney. A tenth person is being treated in hospital.
Commenting on the tragedy, Charleston Mayor Joseph Riley said: “People in prayer, coming together, praying and worshipping God...to have an awful person come in and shoot them is inexplicable, obviously the most intolerable and unbelievable act possible.”
Our thoughts and prayers are with all those affected by the tragedy.
