Police have identified and captured 21-year-old Dylann Roof from Columbia South Carolina.   A drug abusing meth head.  Court records reveal that a February drug charge cited Roof’s possession of methamphetamine, cocaine and LSD

(Via Daily Mail)  The 21-year-old Columbia-area man–who friends describe as a frequent abuser of prescription drugs–was arrested twice this year, Lexington County court records reveal, on charges of trespassing and drug possession.

Roof, who became the focus of a massive manhunt after he fled the church in downtown Charleston, was given a gun by his father as a 21st birthday present in April, his uncle told Reuters on Thursday.

In the hours after the bloodbath, the Southern Poverty Law Center, a civil rights group that tracks hate organizations and extremists, said it was not aware of Roof before the rampage. And some friends said they did not know him to be racist.

‘I never thought he’d do something like this,’ said high school friend Antonio Metze, 19. ‘He had black friends.’

A young man with a blunt sugar-bowl haircut, Roof used to skateboard in a Lexington suburb in South Carolina when he was younger and had long hair then.

Childhood friend Joey Meek had seen him as recently as Tuesday, said Meek’s mother, Kimberly Konzny. She said she didn’t know why he was in Charleston and was not aware of his being involved in any church groups or saying anything racist.

‘I don’t know what was going through his head,’ Konzny said. ‘He was a really sweet kid. He was quiet. He only had a few friends.’

Joey Meek alerted the FBI after he and his mother instantly recognized Roof in a surveillance camera image that was widely circulated after the shooting.

In the image, Roof had the same stained sweatshirt he wore while playing Xbox video games in their home recently, Konzny said. It was stained because he had worked at a landscaping and pest control business, she said.

Roof attended ninth grade at White Knoll High during the 2008-09 school year and went there for the first half of the following academic year, district spokeswoman Mary Beth Hill said. The school system gave no reason for Roof’s departure and said it had no record of him attending any other schools in the district.

According to CBS News, school records show that between fourth and ninth grade, Roof attended six different schools, and repeated the ninth grade.  (read more)

‘He was pretty smart, though,’ Metze said. ‘I can’t believe he’d do something like it.’

Meanwhile, Roof’s friend Christon Scriven, who is black, told the New York Daily News that his friend had told them his plans to for a mass killing.

‘He flat out told us he was going to do this stuff,’ said Scriven. But, he said, ‘He’s weird. You don’t know when to take him seriously and when not to.’

Law enforcement officers were at the home of Dylann Roof’s mother on Thursday morning, the uncle, Carson Cowles, said in an interview.

Cowles said he recognized Roof in a photo released by police, and described him as quiet and soft-spoken. Roof’s father gave him a .45-caliber pistol for his birthday this year, Cowles said.

Authorities caught up with Roof in Shelby, North Carolina, over 200 miles from the carnage he allegedly left behind, before noon on Thursday.

‘Nobody in my family had seen anything like this coming,’ Cowles said. ‘I said, if it is him, and when they catch him, he’s got to pay for this.’  (read more)