Dylann Roof Ο δράστης της ομαδικής δολοφονίας στο Τσάρλεστον

Dylann Roof Ο δράστης της ομαδικής δολοφονίας στην εκκλησία των Μεθοδιστών της κοινότητας των μαύρων στο Τσάρλεστον της Νότιας Καρολίνας αναμείχθηκε με το πλήθος των πιστών και παρέμεινε ανάμεσά τους επί μία ώρα πριν ανοίξει πυρ.Ο "πολύ επικίνδυνος" ύποπτος Dylann Roof "παρέμεινε επί μία ώρα μαζί με την ομάδα των πιστών που μελετούσε τη Βίβλο στην εκκλησία πριν ανοίξει πυρ, διευκρίνισε ό αρχηγός της αστυνομίας του Tσάρλεστον Γκρέγκορι Μάλεν, κατά τη διάρκεια συνέντευξης Τύπου.Για την καταδίωξή του η αστυνομία έχει ζητήσει τη συνδρομή του FBI και της αστυνομίας της Ουάσινγκτον.Η αστυνομία του Τσάρλεστον ανακοίνωσε στο Τwitter ότι αναζητεί έναν ύποπτο άνδρα, λευκό, ηλικίας 21 ετών, δίνοντας φωτογραφίες του δράστη από βίντεο κλειστού κυκλώματος ασφαλείας.

Law enforcement officials in Charleston, South Carolina, were searching on Thursday for a 21-year-old white gunman who killed nine people in a historic African-American church including a black state senator in an attack the U.S. Department of Justice called a hate crime.

The FBI identified the shooter as Dylann Roof of Columbia, South Carolina. An uncle of Roof's said he recognized the man in the surveillance photo as his nephew.

"The more I look at him, the more I'm convinced, that's him," Carson Cowles, 56, told Reuters in a phone interview.

Law enforcement agents were present at Roof's home, Cowles said, adding he believed the shooter's father had recently bought him a .45-caliber handgun as a birthday present.

The victims, six females and three males, included Reverend Clementa Pinckney, who was the church's pastor and a Democratic member of the state Senate, according to colleagues.

The U.S. Department of Justice opened a hate crime investigation into the shooting, which follows a string of racially charged killings that have prompted waves of protest across the United States over the past year and sparked the "Black Lives Matter" movement.

Roof sat with churchgoers inside Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church for about an hour on Wednesday before opening fire, Police Chief Gregory Mullen said.

He reloaded five times even as victims pleaded with him to stop, a relative of Pinckney's said. Sylvia Johnson, a cousin, told MSNBC that a survivor told her the gunman reloaded five times during the attack. Pinckney tried to talk him out of it, she said.