In a video uplink from the detention center to the courtroom, Dylann Roof appears at Centralized Bond Hearing Court, June 19, in North Charleston, S.C.(Photo: Pool photo)
A man accused in a deadly shooting rampage at a historic South Carolina church was
indicted Tuesday on nine murder charges, three attempted murder charges and a weapon offense.
Dylann Roof, 21, is accused in the June 17 massacre that left nine people dead at Charleston's predominantly black Emanuel AME<span style="color: Red;">*</span>Church. The victims had at an evening Bible study, and Roof apparently joined them for several minutes before he drew a gun and began shooting.
Survivors told police that Roof, who is white, shouted racist epithets during the massacre. Roof reportedly told at least one survivor that she was letting her live so she could tell others what happened.
The church's pastor and a state senator, the Rev. Clementa Pinckney, was among those killed.
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Roof fled the scene, but friends and family identified him from surveillance video at the church. A manhunt followed, and the next day police were tipped off after a florist in North Carolina spotted a black Hyundai with South Carolina plates that matched the description of Roof's car.
Roof was arrested in Shelby, N.C., 245 miles from Charleston, about 14 hours after the attack. Charleston Police Chief Gregory Mullen said Roof was cooperative when Shelby police took took him into custody.
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Roof has already been charged by state warrants with the murder counts and possessing a weapon during commission of violent crime. The attempted murder charges are new and relate to three victims who survived the attack, Solicitor Scarlett Wilson said in a statement.
The shooting, and Roof's fondness for the Confederate flag, sparked a push to remove a Confederate battle flag from the grounds of the state Capitol. The South Carolina Senate earlier Tuesday formally approved and sent to the House a bill removing the flag, where it has flown either atop the Capitol or on a nearby flagpole for 54 years.
A white supremacist manifesto purportedly written by Roof to explain why he targeted the church says he had "no choice" but to target African Americans, whom he derided as "stupid and violent."
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