Police release report on church massacre suspect

COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) – Three months before the deadly shooting rampage at Charleston’s historic Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church that killed nine people, Dylann Roof was questioned by a Columbia police officer who found AR-15 magazines in his trunk, according to a police document released Friday. Roof was spotted March 13 loitering in his car in a Columbia park by an off-duty police officer. It was the same officer who had arrested Roof a month earlier at a Columbia mall on a misdemeanor charge of possessing the drug Suboxone, a narcotic used to wean people from opiate addiction, the police report said. The officer who arrived at the scene asked Roof why he was in the park and asked if he could search the car. Roof agreed and the officer found six 40-round magazines as well as part of an AR-15. Roof was questioned, but he was not charged. The 21-year-old Roof has been charged with nine counts of murder in the deadly attack at the Charleston church last week. Police say he used a .45-caliber semi-automatic handgun in the attack. Friends say Roof bought the gun in April with money he got for his birthday.