The FBI has identified the gunman in the deadly shooting at a Charleston, South Carolina, church as 21-year-old Dylann Roof, the Charleston Post and Courier newspaper said on its website.
Reuters could not immediately confirm the suspected shooter's identification. The Post and Courier, citing an FBI spokeswoman, said Roof is from the Columbia, South Carolina, area.
In an interview with Reuters, Roof’s uncle Carson Cowles said his “introverted” nephew was given a gun by his father as a 21st birthday present in April:
Cowles said he recognized Roof in a photo released by police, and described him as quiet and soft-spoken. Roof’s father gave him a .45-caliber pistol for his birthday this year, Cowles said.
“Nobody in my family had seen anything like this coming,” Cowles said. “I said, if it is him, and when they catch him, he’s got to pay for this.”
He said he had told his sister, Roof’s mother, several years ago that Roof was too introverted.
“I said he was like 19 years old, he still didn’t have a job, a driver’s license or anything like that and he just stayed in his room a lot of the time,” Cowles said.
A photograph from a Facebook profile page believed to belong to the suspect shows him wearing a jacket with two flags on the front: one is Rhodesia’s (now Zimbabwe) and the other is Apartheid-era South Africa’s.
The suspect is not yet in custody, the Charleston PD have told the Guardian.
The Lexington County Solicitor’s office has also confirmed that Roof was arrested on 2 March for possession of a controlled substance.
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