This is the moment suspected ‘killer’ Dylann smiled at cameras as he was led away in chains after his capture.
The 21-year-old was seen later at 6.20pm wearing a pinstripe jumpsuit as he was escorted onto a plane back to Charleston with chains around his ankles and his hands handcuffed behind his back.
He was caught in Shelby, North Carolina, 250 miles from the church where he allegedly gunned down nine black people attending a bible study group and prayer meeting.
One survivor described how he reloaded his gun -given to him for his 21st birthday – five times as he shot down his victims Myra Thompson, 59, Clementa Pinckney, 41, Tywanza Sanders, 26, Sharonda A. Coleman-Singleton, 45, DePayne Middleton, 49, Cynthia Hurd, 54, Ethel Lance, 70, Susie Jackson, 87, and Reverend Daniel Simmons.
The story so far
- Nine dead, including church’s pastor who was a state senator
- Suspect spent hour with church group before opening fire
- Shooter believed to have said ‘you rape our women and you’re taking over our country’ before opening fire
- Reported to have received gun for 21st birthday
- Snapchat video emerges of killer in church
- Suspect arrested, US attorney general opens hate-crime probe
- Attack evokes ‘dark part of our history’, Obama says
Dylann Roof, from Lexington, was arrested after he was identified by his own uncle Carson Cowels, 56, who recognised him on CCTV footage released by police.
Cowels said his nephew had received a gun for his birthday in April. It’s not yet known if the .45 calibre pistol was the gun used in the attack.
CNN broadcast a Snapchat video taken from inside the church during the study session, which appeared to show Roof before the massacre.
Before opening fire on the church congregation, Roof is reported to have said: ‘You rape our women and you’re taking over our country.’
The shooting is being investigated as a hate crime.
Greg Mullen confirmed the arrest during a press conference. The Charleston Police Chief said: ‘This case could not have been cleared at quickly as it has been if not for all the investigation involved in the operation. I can’t say how grateful I am. Some of them have worked tirelessly.’
Mayor Joseph P Riley added: ‘We’ve had extraordinary cooperation. Because of all of that work, we can announce that that awful person – the terrible human being who went into a place of worship when they were playing would kill them – is in custody.’
The shooting marks one of the most notorious attacks on a black church in the South since the 1963 bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama, which killed four girls and helped galvanize the U.S. civil rights movement. The bombing was tied to the Ku Klux Klan.
The bloodshed in Charleston follows a wave of racial tension and protests stirred by recent police killings of unarmed black men in cities across the country, that have sparked a renewed civil rights movement under the banner of ‘Black Lives Matter.’
In one such case in neighboring North Charleston, a white police officer was charged with murder after he shot Walter Scott, an unarmed black man, in the back.
MORE : Did Charleston victim post Snapchat of ‘killer’ in the Bible group moments before shooting?
MORE : Pictured: These are the nine victims of the Charleston massacre
MORE : Charleston shootings: A five-year-old girl survived attack by playing dead
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