Since most colleges are gun free zones, any such attack would have been devastating.

The Associated Press reported.

Man Accused of Church Killings Spoke of Attacking College

A black drinking buddy of the white man accused of killing nine people at a Charleston church says the suspect told him a week earlier that he planned to shoot up a college campus in the city.

The friend, Christon Scriven, told The Associated Press on Friday that he thought Dylann Roof’s statements were just drunken bluster. Still, Scriven said he was concerned enough that he and another friend, Joey Meek, went out to Roof’s car and retrieved his .45-caliber handgun, hiding it in an air-conditioning vent of a mobile home until they all sobered up.

“He just said he was going to hurt a bunch of people” at the College of Charleston, said Scriven, 22.

“I said, `What did you say? Why do you want to hurt those people in Charleston?'”

He just said, “In seven days, they all got seven days.'”

A week later, on Wednesday, authorities say the 21-year-old Roof went into Charleston’s historic Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church, sat for nearly an hour at a Bible study class, and then opened fire on the participants.

The exchange recounted by Scriven matches accounts from other friends of Roof who have been interviewed by the AP.

They described him as a troubled and confused young man who alternated between partying with black friends and ranting against blacks to his white friends.