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CHARLESTON, S.C. — Police have captured Dylann Roof, the suspect in a fatal shooting at a historic black church in downtown Charleston.

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Charleston Police Chief Greg Mullen said Roof was caught during a traffic stop around 11 a.m. Thursday in Shelby, North Carolina — almost 400 kilometres from Charleston.

Nine people, including the pastor, were killed when a gunman opened fire during a prayer meeting inside the church on Wednesday night.

U.S. President Barack Obama said Thursday shows the need for a national reckoning on gun violence in America.

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

The president said that all too often innocents killed by those “who had no trouble getting their hands on a gun.”

“I’ve had to make statements like this too many times,” he said.

Officials say they don’t know the motive for the shooting, but the Charleston Mayor Joseph Riley Jr. calls it “pure, pure concentrated evil.”

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