Suspected S. Carolina church shooter posed online in apartheid flags

Guests of the Courtyard Mariott on Calhoun Street watch the scene as police respond to a shooting at the Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina June 17, 2015. REUTERS/Randall Hill

REUTERS - The man suspected of fatally shooting nine people at a historically black South Carolina church on Wednesday can be seen in his Facebook profile picture in a jacket that bears the flags of apartheid-era South Africa and Rhodesia. The Federal Bureau of Investigation has identified the shooter at the church in Charleston as 21-year-old Dylann Roof. The U.S. Department of Justice said it will investigate the shooting as a hate crime, suggesting they believe the attack was motivated by racism. Roof's jacket in his Facebook profile page prominently bears the flags of South Africa and Rhodesia, now Zimbabwe, from when the African nations were ruled by the countries' white minorities. (Reporting by Emily Flitter; Writing by Jonathan Allen; Editing by James Dalgleish)