Police Investigating Attempted Shooting at Bethel African Methodist Church in Charleston

Authorities will now patrol surrounding areas during upcoming church services, in an effort to catch or prevent similar acts of violence.

July 23, 2015

Local authorities are currently investigating what appears to be an attempt at another church shooting in Charleston, South Carolina. After a member of the Bethel African Methodist Churchfound four bullet holes in the building's front window and broken glass, police were notified. The church is less than ten miles from the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church, where domestic terrorist Dylann Roof brutally murdered nine people during services.

African American churches have suffered a long, grueling history of racially charged acts of violence — with an unsurprising majority of them linked to various white supremacist groups. In 1995, the Mt. Zion African Methodist Episcopal Church in Greeleyville, South Carolina was burned to the ground by two Ku Klux Klan-affiliated white men. The 1963 bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama — which took the lives of four young girls — was also linked to the KKK.

Charleston police are planning to patrol the areas surrounding the Bethel African Methodist Church during service hours in an effort to prevent or completely deter a repeat of the Charleston Church Massacre. On Wednesday, Roof was charged with federal hate crimes and is currently being held without the possibility of parole.