 MYRTLE BEACH, SC (WMBF) – The Conway man arrested after an undercover FBI investigation revealed he was allegedly planning an attack in Myrtle Beach “in the style of Dylann Roof” has an extensive criminal background. 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. Benjamin Thomas Samuel McDowell, 29, has been arrested at least seven times in South Carolina since 2007, and has spent multiple years in prison, according to records obtained by WMBF News. 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.
– 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.