White suspect arrested in killing of nine at black US church

Charleston: A 21-year-old white man suspected of killing nine people at a historic African-American church in Charleston, South Carolina was arrested on Thursday after an attack that the United States is investigating as a hate crime.

Law enforcement officials arrested alleged gunman Dylann Roof after a traffic stop in Shelby, North Carolina, about 220 miles (350 km) north of Charleston, said police chief Gregory Mullen.

"This individual committed a tragic, heinous crime last night," Mullen told reporters.

The mass shooting on Wednesday followed months of racially charged protests over killings of black men which have shaken the United States.

U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch said her office was investigating whether to charge Roof with a hate crime motivated by racial or other prejudice. Such crimes typically carry harsher penalties.

"The fact that this took place in a black church obviously raises questions about a dark part of our history," U.S. President Barack Obama told reporters. "We don't have all the facts but we know that, once again, innocent people were killed in part because someone who wanted to inflict harm had no trouble getting their hands on a gun."

The Southern Poverty Law Center, which researches U.S. hate groups, said the attack illustrates the dangers that home-grown extremists pose.

"Since 9/11, our country has been fixated on the threat of Jihadi terrorism. But the horrific tragedy at the Emanuel AME reminds us that the threat of homegrown domestic terrorism is very real," the group said in a statement, referring to the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on the United States.

A man who identified himself as Roof's uncle earlier told Reuters Roof's father had recently given him a .45-caliber handgun as a birthday present and that Roof had seemed adrift.

"I don't have any words for it," the uncle, Carson Cowles, 56, said in a telephone interview. "Nobody in my family had seen anything like this coming."

The victims, six females and three males, included Reverend Clementa Pinckney, who was the church's pastor and a Democratic member of the state Senate, according to colleagues.

Roof sat with churchgoers inside Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church for about an hour on Wednesday before opening fire, Mullen said, adding that police believe Roof acted alone.

Demonstrations have rocked New York, Baltimore, Ferguson, Missouri and other cities following police killings of unarmed black men including Eric Garner, Freddie Gray and Michael Brown.

A white police officer was charged with murder after he shot Walter Scott, an unarmed black man, in April in neighboring North Charleston.