U.S. black church massacre investigated as domestic terrorism

WASHINGTON, June 19 (Xinhua) -- The black church massacre in Charleston, South Carolina where nine black churchgoers were killed by a white gunman, was being investigated by the U.S. Justice Department as a potential act of domestic terrorism, the federal agency said on Friday. "The department is looking at this crime from all angles, including as a hate crime and as an act of domestic terrorism," Justice Department spokeswoman Emily Pierce said in a statement. It was the first time the Justice Department indicated that it would investigate the case as a possible act of domestic terrorism. It had previously announced that a hate crime investigation into the case was being carried out. Earlier on Friday, suspected shooter Dylann Roof was charged with nine accounts of murder for the mass shooting at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church on Wednesday night. Although Roof's motive was still under investigation, people familiar with him said he was obsessed with the idea of segregation. "He said he wanted to start a civil war. He said he was going to do something like that," Roof's roommate Dalton Tyler told the U.S. TV network ABC News in an interview. According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, a group dedicated to fighting racial hatred, factors such as an ailing economy, an influx of nonwhite immigrants and the election of the nation's first black president have in recent years fueled racial hatred. The group said that since 2000, the number of hate groups across the country has increased by 30 percent to 784 in 2015. Data offered by the Federal Bureau of Investigation showed that the blacks are more likely to be victimized in hate crimes compared with other race and religion groups, with more than 50 out of one million black citizens becoming the victim of a racially-motivated hate crime in 2012. Related: Commentary: Black Church massacre a grim reminder of failed U.S. gun policy WASHINGTON, June 19 (Xinhua) -- With 18 months left in office and a hostile Congress fully controlled by Republicans who don't budge on sabotaging his agenda, U.S. President Barack Obama has made it clear with aggressive push in many domains that there is no way he would become a "lame duck" who frets over waning clout. Yet, when it comes to dealing with rampant mass shooting in the country, which in his words "doesn't happen in other places with this kind of frequency", Obama almost appeared resigned in his latest speech on gun violence that all he could say was that "at some point", America would have to reckon with the ugly fact. If not for anything else, the mass shooting at Black Church on Wednesday night that killed nine black people by a 21-year-old white man in Charleston, South Carolina, served as a grim reminder that how the authorities' inaction on gun violence could continue to hurt the U.S. public. Full story Obama calls for reckoning on gun violence after South Carolina hate crime shooting WASHINGTON, June 18 (Xinhua) -- U.S. President Barack Obama on Thursday expressed anger over a black church massacre in the southeastern U.S. city of Charleston and said the country has to face the fact that rampant gun violence only happens in the United States. "I don't need to be constraint about the emotions that tragedies like this raise," said Obama in his first speech after the shooting spree at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina. "To say our thoughts and prayers are with them and their families ... doesn't say enough to convey the heartache and the sadness and the anger that we feel." Full story