A friend of the white, 21-year-old man suspected of massacring nine people at a historic black church in Charleston, South Carolina told The New York Times that he remembered the suspect as “a racist.”
Dalton Tyler, who said he was a friend of Dylann Roof, told the newspaper about one incident where he and Roof were driving to a strip club and Roof referred to a black woman he saw using a racist word.
“I’ll shoot your ass,” Roof then said in reference to the black woman, according to Tyler.
Tyler, who in other news accounts was identified as Roof’s roommate, told The Times that he didn’t take the suspect’s language too seriously at the time.
“I was just like, ‘You’re stupid,’” Tyler told the newspaper. “He was a racist; but I don’t judge people.”
Tyler told ABC News on Thursday that he believed Roof had been planning the attack on the downtown Charleston church, Emanuel AME, for about six months.
