(Image source: Los Angeles Times)

BY TRACY PFEIFFER

ANCHOR BLAKE HANSON

You're watching multisource US video news analysis from Newsy. 

An updated charge for a white Mississippi teen accused of a racially motivated killing.

The local DA calls it -- a hate crime.

18-teen-year-old Deryl Dedmon is now being charged with capital murder. He was allegedly the ringleader of a group of seven teens who targeted and beat 49-year-old autoworker James Craig Anderson -- reportedly, for being black. (Video: WAPT, CNN)

Another teen, John Aaron Rice, was also arrested and charged with assault in connection with the incident.

But the capital charge against Dedmon stems from this exclusive video from CNN.

DREW GRIFFIN, CNN SPECIAL INVESTIGATOR:“Here you see James Craig Anderson in a hotel parking lot as he first comes into view in the lower right corner of the screen. This is after he was beaten, according to law enforcement officials. He staggers into the headlights of Mr. Dedmon’s truck. The truck backs up, and surges forward suddenly, running right over the defenseless man.”

A capital murder charge means Dedmon faces the death penalty or life without parole.

The alleged racial nature of the crime has gotten the feds involved. WAPT explains why the Hinds County DA invited the Justice Department to the case.

ERIN KELLY, WAPT:“The DA hopes the federal investigation will look into the teenagers charged, Deryl Dedmon, and John Rice, and the ones who weren’t, to see if there were other instances of hate in the past. …The District Attorney says he doesn’t expect this case to go to grand jury this month -- that’s because the federal investigation could take weeks, even months to complete.”

Attorneys for both Dedmon and Rice say there’s little evidence to back up the DA’s “hate crime” label.

But CBS explains some of the testimony they’re up against.

“Jackson Police Detective Eric Smith has testified that Dedmon had been robbed by a black man in the weeks before Anderson's death and was looking for ‘some sort of revenge’ when the group left a party in Rankin County, allegedly in search of a random black person ‘to mess with.’”

Finally, a contributor for The Huffington Post says -- the case is a sobering reminder that race relations in the state of Mississippi -- still need a lot of work.

“Daryl Dedmon and his friends didn't come up with the idea to go to Jackson and mess with the first ‘n*****’ they saw out of a vacuum. No, that seed was planted in their minds a long time ago and was watered with the bloody history of Mississippi lynchings.”

The Jackson Clarion-Ledger notes -- if the district attorney goes ahead with the charges -- it would be Mississippi’s first prosecution under the state’s 1994 hate crime laws.

Transcript by Newsy.