A South Carolina man was arrested in connection with planning a violent white supremacist attack "in the spirit of Dylann Roof," the FBI said in a complaint Thursday. 
 
 Benjamin Thomas Samuel McDowell, 29, became known to federal agents after a series of Facebook posts were flagged in which he made threats and professed violent white supremacist ideologies, said Special Agent Grant Lowe of the FBI's office in Columbia. 
 
 Benjamin McDowell is charged with being a felon in possession of a firearm. Horry County Sheriff's Office via AP 
 
 McDowell, also known as Benji, met with an undercover FBI agent on Wednesday to purchase a gun at the parking lot of a Myrtle Beach Hampton Inn. He was arrested and charged with possession of a firearm, which is illegal due to his pre-existing status as a felon on unrelated charges. 
 
 The arrest came after several weeks of tracking and interacting with McDowell, the FBI said. 
 
 McDowell began posting on Facebook about a Myrtle Beach synagogue in late December, the complaint said. On Jan. 5, the feds say, he wrote a long, misspelled rant about Jews, the "white race" and Roof, who was found guilty in December of murdering nine black worshipers at a Charleston church in 2015. 
 
 McDowell also appeared to reference an early January video that showed four young black people beating a disabled white teen that was streamed on Facebook Live. 
 
 Related: Huge Growth in Anti-Muslim Hate Groups During 2016: SPLC Report 
 
 Soon after his post, Lowe said, McDowell contacted an undercover FBI agent that he believed “handled problems for the Aryan Nations.” In an instant message on Facebook, McDowell requested an “iron,” a code word for a firearm, the complaint against him said. 
 
 The agent, who is not identified by name in the testimony, said that McDowell complained about other white supremacists, “stating that screaming ‘white power’ was not getting the job done.’” 
 
 He allegedly expressed a desire to commit a terrorist act, telling the undercover agent: “I seen what Dylann Roof did and in my heart I reckon I got a little bit of hatred ... I want to do that sh*t.” 
 
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 During ongoing communication with the undercover agent, the testimony said, it was revealed that McDowell was talking on his mother’s landline and cellphone. The agent also allegedly agreed to pick McDowell up at his mother’s house, then drive to his grandfather’s home where he planned to borrow money to buy the gun. 
 
 McDowell was a known white supremacy extremist who had connected with white power gangs while serving time in prison, and had tattoos that indicated the affiliation, according to the Horry County Police Department. 
 
 NBC affiliate WFMB reported Thursday that McDowell’s police records show he has been arrested seven times in the past decade in South Carolina alone. The charges included malicious injury to animals, assault, violent second-degree burglary, littering, possession of marijuana, and a third-degree burglary for which McDowell served three years in prison, according to the station. 
 
 McDowell's next court date was set for Tuesday. ||||| Breaking News Emails Get breaking news alerts and special reports. The news and stories that matter, delivered weekday mornings. 
 
 / Updated By Halimah Abdullah 
 
 A grand jury has indicted Dylann Roof, the confessed gunman who killed nine people during a Bible study at a historic black church in Charleston, South Carolina on 33 federal counts including hate crime charges, Attorney General Loretta Lynch announced on Wednesday. 
 
 Roof, 21, went on what federal authorities are calling a "racially motivated" shooting spree during the June 17 rampage at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church. 
 
 Roof faces state charges including nine counts of murder, is being held without bond and has a tentative trial date of July 11, 2016. 
 
 He could face the death penalty in South Carolina, Lynch said adding that "no decision has been made whether to seek that penalty." The state of South Carolina does not have a hate crimes statute. 
 
 Lynch called Roof's act of "racially motivated violence" the archetype of "the original type of domestic terrorism." 
 
 "We think that this is exactly the type of case that the federal hate crimes statues were, in fact, conceived of to cover," Lynch said. 
 
 Mother Emanuel Chuch, Lynch noted, was Roof's destination because of its significance as a historically African-American church. 
 
 Related: FBI Says Dylann Roof Should Not Have Been Sold Gun 
 
 "On that summer evening, Dylann Roof found his targets, African Americans engaged in worship," Lynch said. "Met with welcome by the ministers of the church and its parishioners, he joined them in their Bible study group. The parishioners had Bibles. Dylann Roof had his .45 caliber Glock pistol and eight magazines loaded with hollow point bullets." 
 
 The victims' family members were informed earlier of the indictment. 
 
 The FBI recently announced that a background check failure allowed Roof to illegally purchase a .45-caliber Glock handgun on April 11, eight days after he turned 21, at Shooter's Choice in West Columbia, South Carolina. Roof had previously acknowledged drug possession, according to the FBI. 
 
 Law enforcement officials had previously said the transaction was entirely legal, despite his pending drug charge. The weapon was purchased at the gun store, which is 25 miles from his home. 
 
 FBI director James B. Comey called that assessment "a mistake in a matter of heartbreaking importance." 
 
 "We are all sick this happened," Comey said at the time of the announcement. "We wish we could turn back time." ||||| Charleston, S.C., church shooter Dylann Roof, center, is escorted from the Shelby, N.C., police department in 2015. (Chuck Burton/AP) 
 
 Before Elizabeth Lecron bought black powder and hundreds of screws for a pipe bomb, authorities say, she wrote letters and sent Nazi propaganda to a man who had carried out the kind of act she revered: Charleston church shooter Dylann Roof. 
 
 Lecron, 23, was charged with transportation of explosives and explosive material for the purposes of harming others and property, the U.S. attorney’s office in the Northern District of Ohio said Monday in a news release. Investigators painted her as a would-be mass killer inspired by perpetrators of the past — who had made the chilling additional step of reaching out to the man who killed nine black church parishioners in a hate-filled shooting in South Carolina. 
 
 “This defendant bought black powder and hundreds of screws that she expected would be used to make a bomb,” Justin E. Herdman, U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Ohio, said in the news release. “Through her words and actions, she demonstrated that she was committed to seeing death and destruction in order to advance hate.” 
 
 Authorities began scrutinizing Lecron’s actions this year after one of her associates “expressed a desire to conduct a violent act,” the release said. That’s when they discovered her adoration of mass murderers. She had posted “voluminous” numbers of pictures of the Columbine shooters and Roof on the photo-sharing site Tumblr. 
 
 After that account was shut down because of its objectionable material, she started a new Tumblr profile. She called it “CharlestonChurchMiracle.” 
 
 It included photos and GIFs of mass murderers like Ted Bundy, Nikolas Cruz and Adam Lanza. 
 
 But her actions weren’t just anonymous virtual musings, authorities said. She and the associate had flown to Denver to visit Columbine High School, and around the same time she had “began corresponding with Roof and attempted to send him Nazi literature,” according to the news release. 
 
 The Toledo Blade reported on Tuesday that her boyfriend, Vincent Armstrong, was detained in connection with the case. 
 
 Michael Tobin, a spokesman for Herdman, declined to confirm the news over email but said that Armstrong had not been charged. 
 
 Roof, 24, a self-described white supremacist, was sentenced to death after being convicted on federal hate crime charges for killing nine black parishioners at a historic Charleston church in 2015. 
 
 During Roof's trial on the charges the following year, jurors and relatives of the victims heard his lack of remorse for the horror he unleashed at the Emanuel AME Church. After gunning down parishioners during a Bible study, Roof would write in a jailhouse journal that he did "not regret what I did," adding: "I am not sorry. I have not shed a tear for the innocent people I killed." 
 
 He was convicted on all federal counts in December 2016. Not long after, he was sentenced to death. He also faced murder charges in state court, but in April 2017 he pleaded guilty to avoid a second trial. 
 
 In Lecron’s case, the FBI used undercover agents and confidential sources to figure out what she was planning. In August, authorities say, she said she wanted to commit an “upscale mass murder” at a bar in Toledo. The bar, she allegedly told the informant, had only two exits, which would be a tactical advantage when officers arrived. 
 
 She also said she wanted to form a team of anarchists and possibly damage a livestock farm to set the animals free, investigators said. She told an undercover agent that her workplace could also be a target. Investigators say her chosen weapon of mass destruction was a pipe bomb. 
 
 This month, investigators said, Lecron grew more serious about building a bomb and agreed to buy the explosive powder necessary to make it. According to authorities, on Dec. 8, she entered a sporting-goods store and bought two pounds of Hodgdon Triple Seven Muzzleloading Propellant. She then went to another store in Perrysburg and bought 665 screws, some as long as three inches. 
 
 “So I guess I’ll talk to you when the deed is done?" she told an unidentified FBI source after making the purchase. “I’m very excited.” 
 
 [An Indiana educator survived the mass shooting in Las Vegas — and then a shooting at her school] 
 
 Her family members told the Toledo Blade that they were shocked by the accusations against her. 
 
 “Nothing like that has ever happened in our family,” grandfather Robert Lecron told the Blade. He said he hadn’t seen his granddaughter in a year and a half. 
 
 “I guess I’m going to have to see it through a little bit and figure it out,” he said. “I don’t know what’s going to happen to Elizabeth.” 
 
 Experts who have researched mass killers say they tend to have certain things in common, including a sense of victimization and patterns of seeking negative attention. They also seek the infamy that can result from carrying out such attacks. 
 
 Some mass killers have also researched their predecessors, looking to their actions as well as the response to the carnage they unleashed, experts have found. Researchers have found that people who carry out attacks in public places had often concerned the people around them, in some cases making references to previous attackers, according to a Secret Service report released this year. 
 
 Paul E. Mullen, an Australian researcher, studied five mass shooters for a 2004 article and found that they spoke unnervingly of their desire for fame. One spoke of “going for the record” with his violence, while others spoke of knowing that they would die during their attacks but believing that “death brings them fame together with an aura of power and evil.” 
 
 These references have also become macabre links in a chain. According to authorities, a man accused of opening fire in a Tennessee church last year, killing one person and wounding six others, had a note referencing possible revenge for the Charleston attack. A man accused of killing a Virginia reporter and cameraman on live television in 2015 also allegedly referred to “the church shooting” as well as the Virginia Tech attacker who killed 32 teachers and students in 2007. That attacker, in turn, had made a reference to the Columbine shooters, investigators say. 
 
 Grim videos released earlier this year captured Nikolas Cruz, who has been charged with the school massacre in Parkland, Fla., speaking of his “goal” to kill “at least 20 people” during his attack. He also referred to himself as “the next school shooter of 2018.” 
 
 In other cases, attackers carefully looked at previous mass killings and spoke gruesomely of wanting “to beat” them. 
 
 According to authorities, a teenager who was charged with opening fire on an elementary school playground — killing a 6-year-old — had written about studying other school shooters and documenting how many victims they left behind. He wrote about his hopes to “most likely kill around 50 or 60. If I get lucky maybe 150.” 
 
 Eli Rosenberg contributed to this report. 
 
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– The FBI busted a South Carolina man after he bought a gun with the alleged intent to pull off a massacre "in the spirit of Dylann Roof." Agents arrested Benjamin McDowell, 29, at a sting in which he thought he was getting a weapon from someone affiliated with the white supremacist Aryan Nations, reports NBC News. McDowell had come to the attention of the feds after a series of online posts in which he ranted against Jews and minorities. Before the arrest, he allegedly professed his admiration for Roof to an undercover agent. "I seen what Dylann Roof did and in my heart I reckon I got a little bit of hatred and ... I want to do that s---," McDowell said, per the federal complaint He added that he wanted to do a "big-scale" attack and then write his ode to Roof's spirit on the wall. He didn't seem to have settled on any specifics for where and when, however. For now, he faces felony charges for possession of a firearm—a previous string of arrests for burglary and other crimes, detailed at WMBF, bar him from owning a gun. The Daily News has examples of his online rants, often riddled with misspellings: "All they wanne do is stay loaded on drugs the Jews put here to destory white man and they fest on the drugs," he wrote on Jan. 5, per the FBI complaint.