Charleston church shooting suspect's trial set to begin

CHARLESTON, S.C. (AP) — The white man who authorities said wanted to start a race war by killing nine black people in a South Carolina church is getting ready to stand trial in a city already bruised by a former police officer's racially charged murder trial that ended in a hung jury.

Roof sat with 12 people in Bible study and prayer for an hour at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston on June 17, 2015, before pulling a gun from his fanny pack, firing dozens of shots and reloading several times, police said.

The shootings took place a little more than two months after a white North Charleston police officer was charged with murder for shooting an unarmed black driver running from a traffic stop, the stark killing unfolding millions of times across the country online and on TV after a bystander recorded it.