Rep. James Clyburn: Mother Emanuel shooting ‘started a reexamination of what this country is and what this country could be’

Majority whip and longtime Democratic Party leader James Clyburn joins Yahoo News Editor in Chief Daniel Klaidman and Chief Investigative Correspondent Michael Isikoff to discuss the five-year anniversary of the Mother Emanuel AME church shooting that left nine people dead at the storied African-American house of worship.

Video transcript

JAMES CLYBURN: The 17th of June, Wednesday, marks the fifth anniversary of that horrific event. And it was the response to that event on two fronts that I think instructs us about this five-year anniversary.

Number one, the response of the police. Two days after that shooting, this 21-year-old self-professed white supremacist who went into that church, invaded a Bible study, killed nine people, went up to North Carolina, and was arrested-- when he was arrested, all the videotapes show that several policemen approach his automobile. And when they did, the automobile stopped.

And as they arrested him, though they had their guns drawn at the beginning, they [? re-hosted ?] their guns. And they took him out of the car in a very civil way. When he was thirsty, they gave him water. He said he was hungry, and they took him to a Burger King before taking him back to Charleston to face justice. That's the first instruction on how to conduct an arrest.

The second bit of instruction, I think, came after, at the hearing, when those family members looked at this guy, who had just murdered their family and friends, and they said they forgave him. That, to me, started a reexamination of what this country is and what this country could be.