With Charleston church shooting suspect Dylann Roof under the watch of authorities in South Carolina, details surrounding the 21-year-old gunman have come to the surface. A roommate says that Roof upheld racist ideals and planned the Mother Emanuel AME Church shooting for months.
Wednesday’s (Jun. 17) shooting, which claimed the lives of nine people, is still being investigated by authorities looking to uncover the steps leading up to Roof’s decision to unload his weapon in the church. National and local outlets have kept an unwavering focus on the case and ABC News broke the details of how Roof planned the church attack.
From ABC News:
Dalton Tyler, who said he has known Roof for seven months to one year, said he saw the white, 21-year-old suspect just last week.
“He was big into segregation and other stuff,” Tyler said. “He said he wanted to start a civil war. He said he was going to do something like that and then kill himself.”
Tyler said that Roof had been planning the shooting around the past six months. Another friend, Joey Meek, told the Associated Press that he and Roof got drunk one night on vodka. Meek claims Roof told him that he felt Black people were taking over the world and that he was going to commit an act to stop them.
Roof’s parents reportedly bought him a gun but was only allowed to take it out of the house last week. The AP reports that Meek was the person who called the FBI and gave them Roof’s name after recognizing him from video footage.
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Photo: South Carolina State Police
