My family
and I had been enjoying a relaxing vacation. Yes, since our arrival in
Charleston, South Carolina, on Saturday, the heat and humidity had been
oppressive. Our days had been spent at the South Carolina Aquarium,
Sullivan’s Island Beach, walking along the Battery, and exploring Charleston’s array of
outstanding restaurants.
Wednesday,
June 17, had been a day of recovery. We had walked so many miles the day before
that we decided to take it easy. We spent some time looking through the
Charleston Museum, and had a leisurely dinner at Fish, a restaurant on King Street. After dinner, around 8:45 PM, we strolled across
Marion Square to our hotel, the Courtyard at the corner of King and Meeting
Streets.
The hotel
had a long veranda. Since no one else was around, Cherie, Anna Claire, and I
decided to sit in the hotel’s rocking chairs under the ceiling fans to enjoy the evening. By this
time, the temperature had dropped to a tolerable level, and a nice breeze was
blowing across the veranda. We enjoyed the view of Calhoun Street, including
the lovely and historic Emanuel AME Church catty-corner across the street, which we had walked by a few days
before.
Things were
pretty quiet until, as Cherie noticed, several dogs began barking wildly down
Calhoun Street. Then all hell broke loose. One police car raced down Calhoun
with its siren blaring, then another, then another, then ambulances and fire
trucks. A few minutes later, a female police officer led three obviously
distraught people up the stairs of our hotel and into the lobby – two women and
a young girl, all African-American. Cherie noticed that one of the women was
not wearing shoes. We had no clue what was happening, but the three were
quickly seated in the lobby, where the police officer attended to them. An ambulance
was parked in front of the hotel where someone was being attended to by
paramedics.
The two
women and young girl burst into tears in the lobby. We quietly began praying,
but were also trying to figure out what had happened. None of the hotel staff
seemed to know. This was obviously still a tense situation, because the police outside quickly ushered everyone from the sidewalk
into our hotel lobby, and whisked the two women and the young girl into a
conference room just off the lobby.
My comment
to Cherie and Anna Claire was that it appeared all of the activity was
occurring near the church. We decided we should get out of everyone's way and go to our rooms. We flipped on
local television stations, and discovered that a horrible shooting had occurred at
“Mother Emanuel,” as the locals referred to the church. Few details were
available, but the news anchors reported that nine people at a Bible study had
been gunned down, including the church’s beloved pastor and State Senator,
Clementa Pinckney, and that the shooter was still at large. As we watched the
television in horror, the sound of helicopters overhead and sirens punctuated
the story we were hearing. Calhoun Street in front of our hotel had been closed
and was filled with emergency vehicles of all kind. News organizations were
beginning to stream into the area, setting up tents and bright lights.
All we
could do was pray. Pray that God would comfort the victims’ family and friends. Pray that any survivors would be preserved. Pray that the gunman would be found. Pray for the church family. Pray for the people of Charleston. Pray for the first responders. Pray.
As the
facts filtered in, it became apparent that the shooter, a young white man, had
attended the Bible study, and had been welcomed warmly into the fellowship. It
was reported later that he almost didn’t carry out his devilish plan because
everyone had been so kind to him. We also learned later that one woman and a
child were saved by playing dead, and another woman, who was praying, was left
by the gunman to tell the story. It also appeared later that one of the women
we saw in our hotel lobby was Pastor Pinckney’s wife, and that the young girl
was his eldest daughter, all of whom had locked themselves in Pastor Pinckney's office.
