A cousin of the Rev. Clementa Pinckney, a state lawmaker and the pastor of the historic South Carolina black church where nine people — including Pinckney — were shot to death Wednesday night, said the shooter claimed to be targeting blacks for "raping our women" and "taking over our country."
Sylvia Johnson told NBC News in an interview aired on the
MSNBC "Morning Joe" show Thursday that the shooter, allegedly Dylann Roof, 21, came into the church and sat next to Pinckney, and had been in the church for over an hour before he opened fire.
"One of the survivors said that he reloaded five different times," Johnson said. "And her son was trying to talk him out of doing that act of killing people. And he just said, 'I have to do it.'
"He said, 'You rape our women. And you're taking over our country. And you have to go,'" Johnson said.
As the Bible study concluded, the church members "just started hearing loud noises ringing out," she said. "And he had already wounded, the suspect had already wounded a couple of individuals including my cousin, Rev. Clementa Pinckney."