Charleston mass shooting suspect Dylann Roof has confessed to police that he killed nine people at the Emanuel AME Church with the goal of inciting a “race war,” CNN reports. (A friend says Roof had complained that “blacks were taking over the world” and that “someone needed to do something about it for the white race.”)
Roof apparently also told investigators that he almost decided not to carry out his massacre because the patrons of Emanuel’s Bible study group were “nice” to him.
CNN says Roof bought the gun used in the shooting at a Charleston store.
South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley says prosecutors will seek Roof’s execution. The state carries out death penalties relatively frequently, usually via lethal injection—10 inmates have been executed there in the last decade. More than 30 are on Death Row.
