Local pastor reacts to SC church shooting

WASHINGTON SQUARE (WPVI) -- The African Methodist Episcopal (AME) church community in the Philadelphia area is reacting with shock and sadness to the deadly shooting at an historic AME church in South Carolina.

Dr. Mark Kelly Tyler, pastor at Mother Bethel AME Church in Philadelphia's Washington Square neighborhood, received a call Monday night about the shooting at the Emanuel AME Church in Charleston.

He told Action News Tuesday morning that he'd not been able to sleep all night.

Tyler explained there are a number of people in his congregation whose parents or grandparents migrated to Philadelphia from South Carolina.

Tyler said his heart goes out to all the victims and their families in Charleston.

He said Emanuel AME's pastor, Reverend Clementa Pinckney, who was among those killed Monday, had been a friend of his for almost a decade.

Tyler said he and Pinckney would talk about their congregations, and that he once interviewed Pinckney for a documentary about the AME church community in South Carolina.

"This is something that hits all AMEs," said Tyler. "We are on five continents and in almost forty countries. I guarantee you by later this morning, we will be getting email messages from people in South Africa, the Caribbean and Europe and all over. We are a family."

He says his own congregation will be doing something to show solidarity with Emanuel AME, and that details would be forthcoming.