SOUTH CAROLINA -- The mother of a South Carolina man accused of planning a Dylann Roof style attack is speaking out.
The FBI says 29-year-old Benjamin Thomas Samuel McDowell tried to buy a gun from an undercover agent.
Authorities believe he was trying to carry out a shooting at a Jewish synagogue.
His mother, Joann Clewis, says she had no idea he was plotting an attack, but he did praise Roof's South Carolina church shooting.
"He just said, 'You know, that boy was brave. And he made headlines as a white boy. But he was wrong to go in the church and shoot up the way he did.' And he said, 'He stood up for the white people.'"
Authorities believe McDowell connected with a white supremacist group while he was in jail.