Friend of alleged South Carolina church shooter Dylann Roof arrested by FBI

COLUMBIA, S.C. The man who gave shelter to Dylann Roof in the weeks before the June killings of nine African-Americans in a Charleston church has been arrested by the FBI.

Agents picked up Joseph “Joey” Meek Jr., 21, of Red Bank while he was at work Thursday afternoon, his girlfriend Lindsey Fry told The State newspaper Thursday.

Meek called her on his cellphone as it was happening, Fry said.

“He just said, ‘They want to talk to me, but I think I’m going to jail,’” Fry said.

Meek lives in a trailer in Red Bank with his mother, two brothers and Fry.

Meek was informed in an Aug. 6 letter from the U.S. attorney’s office in Columbia that he was a “potential target” of a federal criminal investigation concerning the Charleston shootings.

The letter stated that Meek was under investigation for possible misprision and allegedly making false statements to law enforcement. Both crimes are felonies.

Misprision, which means the concealment of knowledge about a crime from authorities, carries a maximum sentence of three years in prison. Making false statements carries a maximum prison sentence of five years, though that number rises to eight years when the false statements concern certain types of crimes, including international or domestic terrorism.

Meek told The State newspaper Tuesday he does not believe he has committed any crime. He said he called authorities as soon as he saw Roof’s image on television in a video taken from a security camera at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston.

Meek told State reporters in late June that on June 10, while he and Roof and their friend Christon Scriven were getting drunk on vodka, Roof announced plans to carry out a mass shooting seven days later at the College of Charleston.

Though they thought the talk was drunken bluster, Scriven and Meek were concerned enough that they went out to Roof’s car and took Roof ‘s handgun, hiding it until they all sobered up, Meek said.

They gave it back to Roof at Fry’s urging. She said Meek was on probation and she didn’t want him to get caught carrying a gun.

Roof faces state and federal murder charges in connection with the June 17 killings at the historic church. A manifesto he allegedly published online said Roof went there hoping to start a race war.

Authorities said they were worried Roof had something even bigger planned after The State reported on an encounter Roof had with law enforcement just before he bought his handgun.

A Columbia police officer reported March 13 that he found part of an AR-15 assault rifle and six 40-bullet banana-style ammo clips in Roof ‘s car during a routine encounter in a downtown Columbia park. Roof told the officer he wanted to buy an AR-15, which is the semiautomatic civilian version of the U.S. military’s M16 fully automatic assault rifle.

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