File Photo: This security camera footage handout grab released by the Charleston (South Carolina) Police Department on June 18, 2015 obtained on the city of Charleston FaceBook page shows the suspect.(Agence France-Presse)
The gunman suspected of shooting dead nine people at a historic black church in Charleston has been identified as 21-year-old Dylann Roof, police said today.
Roof was still on the run early today, despite a massive manhunt launched by local police with federal back-up.
He was believed to be driving a black Hyundai, police in Berkeley County, South Carolina said on Twitter, urging anyone with information to call the FBI hotline.
Roof is from the area near Columbia, the South Carolina state capital, the Post and Courier newspaper reported. Columbia is about a two-hour drive from Charleston.
A picture on Roof's Facebook page showed him wearing a black jacket with patches of the apartheid-era South African flag and the flag of white-ruled Rhodesia, which is now part of Zimbabwe.