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Charleston Church Shooter Dylann Roof Hinted of Attack, Friend Says

The white man accused of gunning down nine people at a historic black church allegedly mentioned carrying out an attack a week before the murders.
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By Mark Potter and Phil Helsel

The white gunman who fatally shot nine people at a historic black church in Charleston, South Carolina, on Wednesday hinted that he was going to carry out a shooting a week before the massacre, a friend told NBC News.

"He said that he was going to the college, to shoot the college up," Christon Scriven, 22, told NBC News
"He said that he was going to the college, to shoot the college up," Christon Scriven, 22, told NBC News

"He said that he was going to the college, to shoot the college up," Christon Scriven, 22, said. "I think that because that college campus is so hard to get onto … maybe he couldn’t get into that school, and he settled on that church."

Dylann Roof, 21, confessed to opening fire on a Bible study group at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church, one of the nation's oldest African-American churches, just after 9 p.m. Wednesday, killing nine people, sources said.

Authorities told NBC News that Roof targeted the church because of its significance to the black community. Police have said they believe the attack was a hate crime.

RELATED: Dylann Roof's Family Expresses 'Shock, Grief' After Killings

Scriven and another friend, Justin Meek, 17, said Roof told them he recently bought a handgun and he was the registered owner of the firearm. Law enforcement sources confirmed Friday that Roof bought the gun used in the killings.

Scriven, who is black, said he never heard Roof use racial slurs or complain about African Americans. A relative of one of the victims said she was told by a survivor that the gunman said the shootings were motivated by race. A police affidavit released Friday said Roof "uttered a racially inflammatory statement" to a witness before leaving the scene of the killings.

Scriven said that when Roof mentioned shooting up a school last week, he thought the statement was a joke, and Roof didn’t bring it up again. "He just said on Wednesday, everything was going to happen. He said they had seven days," Scriven said.

Scriven said he was shocked when he learned that Roof was identified as the gunman. "I just ran through my head that he did it," he said. "Like, he really went and did what he said he was going to do."

Mark Potter

Mark Potter is an NBC News correspondent based in Miami where he reports for NBC Nightly News With Lester Holt, TODAY, MSNBC and NBCNews.com. He joined NBC News as a staff correspondent in 2004.

During his more than 40-year journalism career, Potter has reported from all over the United States, South America, Central America and the Caribbean, including Haiti, Cuba and  Mexico.  He has also worked in NBC's London and Hong Kong Bureaus, and has reported from China, the South Pacific, the Philippines and Israel. Much of his career was spent with investigative units  at both the national and regional levels, and he has reported on topics including politics, narcotics,  immigrant smuggling, environmental issues, natural disasters, international conflicts and numerous high-profile court cases.

Among the stories he has covered are the Cuban Mariel boatlift, the Grenada invasion, the arrest and trial of Panama's General Manuel Noriega, the Mexican and Colombian drug wars, the Haitian immigration crisis, the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, the Hezbollah-Israeli war, the 1980's Miami riots and cocaine crisis, the Theodore Bundy murder trial, the Oklahoma City and  Atlanta Centennial Park bombing investigations, the regime of Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet, the Everglades Valujet crash, scores of hurricanes, the Armero volcano disaster in Colombia, the Central American conflicts, the Elian Gonzalez legal battle, several Papal trips, the right-to-die case of Terri Schiavo, the Gianni Versace murder, the U.S. heroin epidemic, the Southwest border-security debate, the U.S.-Cuban political opening and the dramatic prison-tunnel escape of Mexican kingpin Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman.

For 15 years, prior to working at NBC News, Potter was a correspondent for ABC News, reporting for World News Tonight with Peter Jennings, Nightline and Good Morning America. He also worked for CNN, where among other duties he served as contributing correspondent for the Emmy-Award winning magazine show, CNN and Time.

Potter is the recipient of the Alfred I. DuPont-Columbia Award, a Robert F. Kennedy Award, an Investigative Reporters and Editors Award, National Headliner Awards, the 2011 national Emmy Award for "Mexico: The War Next Door," a 2015 Emmy Award for "Hooked: America's Heroin Epidemic," numerous Emmy nominations, and six regional Emmy Awards. He also received a 2015 National Association of Black Journalists Salute to Excellence Award. 

Potter has often appeared as a guest lecturer in journalism classes at the University of Miami, the University of Missouri and the University of Kansas. His work is also featured in "Square Grouper," a 2011 documentary film about South Florida marijuana smugglers, and in “Cocaine Cowboys Reloaded,” a 2014 documentary about drug-related violence in Miami and Colombia.

Potter was graduated from the University of Missouri’s School of Journalism and then worked for three local television stations in Evansville, Ind., and Miami before joining network news in 1983.

Phil Helsel

Phil Helsel is a reporter for NBC News.