Man, 21, charged over US shootings

A 21-year-old white man has been charged with nine counts of murder for an attack on a historic black South Carolina church, with media reporting that he had hoped his actions would incite a race war in the US.

Dylann Roof was also charged with possession of a firearm during the commission of a violent crime, the Charleston Police Department said.

The charges came after his arrest in North Carolina, 350km north of the nearly 200-year-old Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church, where he shot dead nine black worshippers.

US officials are investigating Roof’s attack, in which four ministers were killed, including a Democratic state senator, as a hate crime.

It comes in a year of turmoil in the US, where police killings of unarmed black men has provoked angry national debates about race relations, policing, and the criminal justice system.

Roof confessed to the attack and said he intended to set off racial confrontations with his attack, according to CNN

Charleston Police spokesman Charles Francis declined to comment on the reports of a confession.

South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley told NBC’s Today show that she would prefer to see Roof tried on state charges and believed state prosecutors should pursue a death sentence.

“This is an absolute hate crime,” said Haley, a Republican. “We’ve been talking with the investigators because we’ve been going through the interviews, they said they looked pure evil in the eye.”

South Carolina is one of just five US states that does not have a hate crime law, which typically imposes additional penalties on crimes committed because of a victim’s race, gender, or sexual orientation.

President Barack Obama said the attack stirred up “a dark part” of US history and illustrated the continuing dangers of the nation’s liberal gun laws.

Other politicians echoed Obama’s mention of gun control.

“After a tragedy, we all get to sing and hold hands, but the elephant in the room is guns,” said state Representative Wendell Gilliard, a Democrat who represents Charleston. “South Carolina and the country have gone gun-crazy.”

The church, known as Mother Emanuel, was founded in the early 19th century by black worshippers who were limited in how they could practice their faith at white-dominated churches.

Compounding anger over the incident, the South Carolina capital continues to fly the Confederate flag, the symbol of the pro-slavery South during the US Civil War.

In addition to the church’s leader and Democratic state Senator Clementa Pinckney, other victims included three pastors — DePayne Middleton Doctor, 49; Sharonda Coleman Singleton, 45; and Reverend Daniel Simmons, 74.