Charleston shooting suspect Dylann Roof 'was given gun for his 21st birthday'

His uncle worried he was cooped up in his room too much. The few images of him found easily online suggest he had a fascination with white supremacy, publicly embracing its symbols. And for his birthday this year, his father bought the young man a pistol, the uncle said.

Dylann Roof, a 21-year-old white man, was arrested on Thursday on suspicion of having fatally shot nine people at a historic African-American church in South Carolina. The US Department of Justice is investigating Wednesday’s attack as a hate crime, motivated by racism or other prejudice.

Those who know Roof described a withdrawn, drifting young man. Roof himself told a police officer who was arresting him earlier this year for illegal possession of prescription painkillers that his parents were pressuring him to get a job.

Roof’s uncle, Carson Cowles, recalled telling his sister, the suspect’s mother, several years ago that he was worried about Roof, and that the “quiet, soft-spoken boy” was too introverted.

“I said he was like 19 years old, he still didn’t have a job, a driver’s licence or anything like that and he just stayed in his room a lot of the time,” Cowles said.

Roof appears to have had difficulties at school. He had to repeat his first year at White Knoll High School but left midway through his second attempt, according to the local school district. He then went to Dreher High School in a different district for the final three months of the academic year before leaving in 2010. Neither district had records of him completing high school.