This police booking photo released Thursday, Feb. 16, 2017 by the Horry County Police Department in Conway, S.C., shows Benjamin McDowell. McDowell is charged with being a felon in possession of a firearm. According to a sworn FBI statement, agents began investigating McDowell after he threatened a synagogue on Facebook and told an undercover agent he wanted to commit an attack in the “spirit of Dylann Roof.” (Horry County Sheriff’s Office via AP)
(The Associated Press)
COLUMBIA, S.C. – Authorities say a 29-year-old white supremacist and convicted felon bought a gun from an undercover FBI agent in South Carolina that he said he wanted to use in “the spirit of Dylann Roof.”
The FBI arrested Benjamin McDowell shortly after he bought the gun Wednesday for $109 in Myrtle Beach. McDowell is charged with being a felon in possession of a firearm.
According to a sworn FBI statement, agents began investigating McDowell after he threatened a synagogue on Facebook.
The statement says McDowell posted statements online praising Roof, but did not appear to have formulated any specific attack plans. Roof faces the death penalty for killing nine black worshippers in a Charleston church.
McDowell doesn’t have an attorney. No one answered the phone at his mother’s home where he lives.
