Details from the Charleston terrorism suspect's life emerges
Dylann Storm Roof is accused of killing nine parishioners on Wednesday night
![Children look on the memorial after the shooting that look nine lives in Charleston, South Carolina.](https://static.independent.co.uk/s3fs-public/thumbnails/image/2016/02/02/22/GettyImages-478217456.jpg)
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Louise Thomas
Editor
Details from the Charleston terrorism suspect's unsettling personal life have emerged.
The roommate of 21-year-old Dylann Roof said that the suspect planned Wednesday's attack leading up to the massacre that claimed nine lives at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church.
Dalton Tyler said that Roof planned the attack for the entire seven months they’d known each other.
“He was big into segregation and other stuff,” he told ABC News. “He said he wanted to start a civil war. He said he was going to do something like that and then kill himself.”
Derrick D "Gutta" Pearson, a former classmate of Mr Roof’s at White Knoll High School, told The Independent that he was barely an acquaintance of the suspected shooter. However, he noted that Roof was quiet in school and mostly kept to himself.
Roof, a resident of Lexington County, South Carolina, was caught by police Thursday afternoon. The US Department of Justice announced they will pursue domestic terrorism and hate crime charges against the suspect.
Editor's note: This story previously cited false reporting from The Intercept. The piece has since been retracted.
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