Dylann Roof, seen entering the church in surveillance footage.
Dylann Storm Roof, 21, was arrested on Thursday morning for opening fire and killing nine at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina on Wednesday night. Roof was found some 220 miles north from Charleston, according to reports.
Roof sat with the group for an hour through Bible study, and allegedly asked to sit next to the pastor. He is reported to have said, "I have to do it. You rape our women and you're taking over our country. And you have to go."
Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church is known to have been established by a former slave in 1816.
"The fact that this took place in a black church obviously raises questions about a dark part of our history," said President Barack Obama. "Once again, innocent people were killed in part because someone who wanted to inflict harm had no trouble getting their hands on a gun."
Reverend Clementa Pinckney, South Carolina's senator and Emanuel AME Church's pastor, was among those killed. Four others were also pastors, and one was a recent college graduate.
Sen. Marlon E. Kimpson told CNN that Pinckney said he needed to leave early from a debate in order to attend a church meeting on Wednesday night.
"... That shows you the measure of a man that was not only committed to senate work by day but also he was committed to his church 24/7," Kimpson told CNN. "He drove two hours to be there with his parishioners … it's a sad day in South Carolina. We've lost a giant and a legend of a man."
The incident is being investigated on whether Roof was motivated by racial prejudice. Roof is known to have many friends on Facebook that are black. According to John Mullins, who went to high school with Roof, "I never heard him say anything, but just, he had that kind of Southern pride, I guess some would say. Strong conservative beliefs," he told the Daily Beast.
"He made a lot of racist jokes, but you don't really take them seriously like that. You don't really think of it like that," he continued.
Mullins added that Roof used drugs. "He was like a pill popper, from what I understand. Like Xanax, and stuff like that," he told the Daily Beast.
Roof was previously arrested for drug possession, when he was caught with Suboxone, and was charged in April for trespassing a mall that he was banned from accessing after being arrested for the drug possession.
Carson Cowles, Roof's uncle, said that Roof "stayed in his room a lot of the time," and told Reuters that he was concerned about him, but "nobody in my family had seen anything like this coming."
