South Carolina Church Shooter Admits He Wanted "To Start A Race War"

According to CNN, Dylann Roof, the 21 year old gunman who shot and killed nine at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church on Wednesday night, told investigators that he wanted to start a race war.

One survivor of the incident said that Roof responded to a man's pleas to stop shooting by saying, "No, you've raped our women, and you are taking over the country ... I have to do what I have to do."

His roommate told ABC News that Roof was "big into segregation." And the Berkeley County, South Carolina, government tweeted a picture of him wearing a jacket with flags from apartheid-era South Africa and nearby Rhodesia, a former British colony that was ruled by a white minority until it became independent in 1980.

By telling authorities his aim, Roof admitted he attacked unarmed civilians for political purposes in an act of terror.

John Mullins recalls "racist slurs in a sense" that Roof made while the two attended White Knoll High School in Lexington, South Carolina, though he also remembers him having black friends.

"He would say it just as a joke," Mullins told CNN. "I never took it seriously. But ... maybe they should have been."

Joey Meek told ABC that talk of reinstating segregation was nothing new for Roof, his roommate. He'd been plotting something for six months, though "he never did any of that," and authorities weren't tipped off.

"I think he wanted something big like Trayvon Martin," Meek said, referring to the black Florida teen whose shooting death at the hands of George Zimmerman -- who was acquitted of murder -- provoked huge protests. "He wanted to make something spark up the race war again."

More at CNN.