Charleston shooting suspect Dylann Roof. | Photo: Facebook Authorities capture suspect in Charleston mass shooting

Authorities in North Carolina have captured the suspect in a mass shooting incident in Charleston, South Carolina, arresting him hours after he allegedly opened fire and killed 9 people, Attorney General Loretta Lynch confirmed Thursday.

“This is a crime that has reached into the heart of that community,” Lynch said in a news conference. “Acts like this one have no place in our country and no place in a civilized society,” she said, pledging that the suspect, identified by authorities as 21-year-old Dylann Storm Roof, “will be found and will face justice.”


Roof was apprehended by authorities in Shelby, North Carolina, according to multiple reports.

Thoughts and prayers, President Barack Obama said Thursday, do not suffice in expressing the gravity of the situation.

“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 declared.

“To say our thoughts and prayers are with them doesn’t say enough to convey the heartache and the sadness and the anger that we feel,” Obama said, with Vice President Joe Biden standing beside him. “I’ve had to made statements like this too many times. Communities like this have had to endure tragedies like this too many times. We don’t have all the facts, but we do know that once again, innocent people were killed in part because someone who wanted to inflict harm had no problem getting their hands on a gun.”

Obama said the American people must “come to grips” with its issue of gun violence.

“The fact that this took place in a black church obviously also raises questions about a dark part of our history. This is not the first time that black churches have been attacked, and we know that hatred across races and faiths pose a particular threat to our democracy and our ideals,” Obama said, adding that he was encouraged by the unified response by the Charleston community.

The Justice Department announced earlier in the morning that it is opening a hate-crime investigation into the attack, but Lynch called it “premature” to determine whether the case would ultimately be prosecuted by the state or the federal government. She declined to provide further details on the ongoing investigation.

On what appears to be his Facebook profile, which was active as of Thursday morning, Roof is pictured wearing a jacket with two patches, one of which is the flag of South Africa used until 1994, during apartheid. The other patch is the flag of the unrecognized African state of Rhodesia, which existed from 1965 to 1979, and was condemned by the United Nations as an “illegal racist minority regime.”

According to his profile, he lives in Columbia, South Carolina, and attended White Knoll High School in Lexington, South Carolina.

Emanuel AME Church is the oldest black congregation south of Baltimore, according to the National Park Service.

“This tragedy that we’re addressing right now is indescribable,” the police chief said, urging reporters to circulate the photo of the suspect who opened fire during a Wednesday night Bible study. “No one in this community will ever forget this night.”

The NAACP responded to the shooting on Thursday, sending “heartfelt prayers and soul-deep condolences” to the families and their victims.

“There is no greater coward than a criminal who enters a House of God and slaughters innocent people engaged in the study of Scripture. Today, I mourn as an AME minister, as a student and teacher of Scripture, as well as a member of the NAACP,” said the group’s President and CEO Cornell William Brooks in a statement.

Political officials and candidates alike reacted with shock to the shooting, which took the life of the church’s pastor, state Sen. Clementa Pinckney, who the Obamas knew personally.

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

“The only reason that someone could walk into a church and shoot people praying is out of hate,” Riley said, according to the AP. “It is the most dastardly act that one could possibly imagine, and we will bring that person to justice. … This is one hateful person.”

South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, in a statement said that “[w]e’ll never understand what motivates anyone to enter one of our places of worship and take the life of another.”

Presidential candidate and South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham canceled scheduled events in Philadelphia and New Hampshire to go back to his home state.

Other declared candidates expressed their condolences in various ways on Thursday.

In a tweet sent shortly after midnight, Democratic presidential contender Hillary Clinton called the shooting “heartbreaking,” while primary opponent Bernie Sanders was more blunt.

“The Charleston church killings are a tragic reminder of the ugly stain of racism that still taints our nation,” Sanders tweeted.

Martin O’Malley, Rick Santorum and Marco Rubio, like others, said they were keeping the community and the victims in their prayers.

Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush canceled his scheduled Thursday appearance in Charleston, and Clinton had been in North Charleston on Wednesday. Sen. Bernie Sanders postponed his Sunday campaign stop in Charleston.

Clinton, speaking at an event hosted by the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials, said, “We have to face hard truths about race, violence, guns and divisions.”

“How many people do we need to see cut down before we act?” she added.

Former Arkansas Gov. Huckabee, who is also a pastor, condemned the shooting in a Facebook post.

“All Americans join in the condemnation of the act, but for Christians, such a horrific act is especially painful in that a place for peace and prayer has been infected with a demonic violence that desecrates a holy place,” he wrote.

Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul spoke of a “sickness” in the country, at a Faith and Freedom Coalition summit in Washington. “There’s something terribly wrong but it isn’t going to be fixed by your government. It’s people straying away – it’s people not understanding where salvation comes from.”

Speaking at the same meeting, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz condemned the “sick and deranged person” who sat alongside parishioners for an hour before killing nine of them.

“Today, the body of Christ is in mourning,” Cruz said. “Believers across the world are lifting up the congregants at Emanuel AME.”

Donald Trump expressed his condolences on Twitter, calling the shooting “incomprehensible.”

Ben Carson, the retired neurosurgeon-turned-GOP candidate also addressed the tragedy.

“We must remember that we are a pluralistic society with many components and many beliefs. If we are to live together peacefully and with prosperity, we must learn the true meaning of tolerance, and that it goes in both directions,” he said in a statement.

Kyle Cheney contributed to this report.

An earlier version of this story misspelled Clementa Pinckney’s name. This has been corrected.

CORRECTION: Corrected by: Kat Borgerding @ 06/18/2015 07:20 AM CORRECTION: An earlier version of this story misspelled Clementa Pinckney’s name. This has been corrected.

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