A mass shooting has occurred at a historic African American church in Charleston, South Carolina. The suspect is still on the loose and a bomb threat has now been made at the scene that is already swamped with police activity.

US OFFICIALS say they have taken a 21-year-old into custody after he allegedly shot nine people dead at a historic black church in the city of Charleston.

CNN said a number of authorities said they had caught Dylann Storm Roof alive and arrested him in Shelby, North Carolina, for the mass shooting at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church.

Police released a mugshot of Roof, who reportedly attended a bible study meeting and stayed for almost an hour before opening fire on the churchgoers.

Responding to the atrocity US President Barack Obama called on his country to look again at the easy availability of handguns in America.

“Now is the time for mourning and for healing, but let’s be clear - at some point, we as a country will have to reckon with the fact that this type of mass violence does not happen in other advanced countries,” the president said.

“It doesn’t happen in other places with this kind of frequency. And it is in our power to do something about it.”

The president’s point appeared to be underscored when the local Charleston newspaper was forced to issue an apology after it put an ad for a gun shop on its front page alongside the story of the shootings.

A Charleston Police wanted poster released on Twitter described Roof as 5 feet 9 inches (175cms) height and weighing 120 pounds (54 kilograms). It said the suspect was driving a dark-coloured 2000 Hyundai Elantra GS with the registration LGF330.

No other details were given though in one of the police mugshots Roof was seen wearing orange prison overalls, suggesting he may have been arrested before.

Shelby Police Chief Jeffrey Ledford said suspect was the “only occupant” of the vehicle when he was apprehended without a struggle at around 11am local time.

Charleston Police Chief Greg Mullen said the suspect was a “very dangerous individual.”

Initial security camera footage released by authorities showed a slender young white man with dark blond or brown hair in a distinctive bowl-type haircut and wearing a grey sweater.

A later photo of the gunman taken just as he prepares to enter the church shows some sort of black cloth or satchel hanging from underneath the front of his sweater, and what appears to be a strap over his right shoulder.

Accentuating the irrationality of the Charleston news, the paper puts an ad for a gun shop on the front page today. pic.twitter.com/GyAW4EcKF1 — Jonathan A. Neufeld (@jneuf) June 18, 2015

US authorities said they have opened a federal hate crimes investigation into the shootings, a Justice Department spokesperson said. The probe will be led by the Justice Department’s civil rights division and the FBI.

Chief Mullen told a news conference the victims of the Wednesday night shooting included six females and three males. He says names won’t be released until families are notified.

“This is a tragedy that no community should have to experience,” he said.

“It is senseless and unfathomable that somebody in today’s society would walk into a church and take their lives.

“I do believe this is a hate crime.”

The Post and Courier newspaper in Charleston reports a female survivor told family members that the gunman first entered the church and sat down for a bit before he stood up and started shooting, according to Dot Scott, president of the Charleston National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).

The gunman reportedly told the woman he was letting her live so she could tell everyone else what happened, Ms Scott said.

The massacre is one of worst mass shootings in the state of South Carolina’s history.

The church’s pastor, Democratic State Senator Clementa Pinckney, is among the dead.

Senator Pinckney, 41, was married with two children and had served in the state Senate since 2000.

“He never had anything bad to say about anybody, even when I thought he should,” State House Minority leader Todd Rutherford told The Associated Press.

“He was always out doing work either for his parishioners or his constituents. He touched everybody.”

Charleston Mayor Joseph P. Riley Jr. called the shooting “an unfathomable and unspeakable act by somebody filled with hate and with a deranged mind.”

“Of all cities, in Charleston, to have a horrible hateful person go into the church and kill people there to pray and worship with each other is something that is beyond any comprehension and is not explained,” Mayor Riley said. “We are going to put our arms around that church and that church family.”

The city has opened an assistance centre for families of the victims. City spokeswoman Barbara Vaughn says the centre will be based at a hotel and will be staffed by local, state and federal victim services personnel, as well as a group of Charleston-area chaplains.

Soon after Wednesday night’s shooting, a group of pastors huddled together praying in a circle across the street.

Community organiser Christopher Cason said he felt certain the shootings were racially motivated.

“I am very tired of people telling me that I don’t have the right to be angry,” Mr Cason said. “I am very angry right now.”

Earlier, Chief Mullen said the FBI would aid the investigation due to its designation as a hate crime.

Police investigated a possible bomb threat after the shooting, but several hours later gave the all-clear.

VIGIL evacuated for bomb threat at West End Community Center. pic.twitter.com/5XkLZHAhQg — Heidi (@heidiheilbrunn) June 18, 2015

Jim Curley, owner of AC’s Bar & Grill, which is located a few blocks from the church, said locals were shocked anyone would carry out an attack in the popular tourist area.

“This is absolutely bizarre,” Mr Curley said. “This is really completely out of the blue ... We have no idea what the motivation is.”

Reverend Thomas Dixon, a pastor with the activist group People United to Take Back Our Community, told NBC station WCBD of Charleston that a Bible study session would have been in progress at the church, when the shooting occurred.

Helicopter in the air over the area. Still waiting on more info from police #chsnews pic.twitter.com/VqAAOtyjjU — CS Tyson (@SamInteractive) June 18, 2015

“(My family) and I are praying for the victims and families touched by tonight’s senseless tragedy at Emanuel AME Church,” South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley said in a statement.

“While we do not yet know all of the details, we do know that we’ll never understand what motivates anyone to enter one of our places of worship and take the life of another.”

Police make public appeal to information on Charleston shooter Police in Charleston, South Caroline have delivered a press conference in the hope that it will see the mass shooter be brought to justice.

The Emmanuel AME church is a historic African American church that traces its roots to 1816, when several churches split from Charleston’s Methodist Episcopal church.

Because of the shooting, Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush cancelled campaign events that had been planned for tomorrow in Charleston.

“Governor Bush’s thoughts and prayers are with the individuals and families affected by this tragedy,” his campaign said in a statement.

Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton also tweeted her condolences. “Heartbreaking news from Charleston — my thoughts and prayers are with you all,” she wrote.

Known as “Mother Emanuel,” the church where the shooting took place is the oldest AME church in the South, having been founded in 1816.

The incident once again brings to the fore the racial tensions that persist in many communities in America, more than five decades after the Civil Rights Act was enacted to outlaw racial and other forms of discrimination.

High-profile police killings of unarmed black men have prompted riots, as well as much soul-searching and national debate in recent months as America grapples with its troubled racial past.

It also raises the spectre of gun violence in America where mass shootings are on the rise, an FBI report released last year found.

Investigators looked at 160 mass shootings between 2000 to 2013. While there was an average of 6.4 incidents in the first seven years of that period, the number soared to an average of 16.4 shootings over the last seven years.

The deadliest of these include the April 2007 Virginia Tech shooting, when 32 were killed, and the December 2012 Sandy Hook elementary school shootings in Newtown, Connecticut, when a total of 27 people died, including 20 children.

Speaking on Thursday President Obama, who has been strong advocate of tighter gun controls, said: “Once again, innocent people were killed in part because someone who wanted to inflict harm had no trouble getting their hands on a gun.”

He went on: “And at some point, it’s going to be important for the American people to come to grips with it and for us to be able to shift how we think about the issue of gun violence collectively.”

Charleston is known locally as “The Holy City,” due to its large number of churches and historical mix of immigrant ethnic groups that brought a variety of creeds to the southern city on the Atlantic coast.

The city is also known outside the United States for its namesake 1920s dance.