An acquaintance of the man accused of a shooting massacre inside a historic black church in the US says Dylann Storm Roof had complained that "blacks were taking over the world."
Joey Meek, a former friend who reconnected with Roof a few weeks ago, said that while they got drunk on vodka, Roof declared that "someone needed to do something about it for the white race."
Roof, 21, is accused of fatally shooting nine people during a Bible study at The Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina, on Wednesday night.
Police captured Roof in Shelby, North Carolina, after a motorist spotted him at a traffic light on her way to work. Roof was back in Charleston on Thursday night with a bond hearing pending, authorities said.
US President Barack Obama called the tragedy yet another example of damage caused by guns in America.
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NAACP President and CEO Cornell William Brooks said "there is no greater coward than a criminal who enters a house of God and slaughters innocent people."
"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," said Mayor Joseph Riley. "We are going to put our arms around that church and that church family."
Surveillance video showed the gunman entering the church Wednesday night, and initially didn't appear threatening, Charleston County Coroner Rae Wilson said.
"The suspect entered the group and was accepted by them, as they believed that he wanted to join them in this Bible study," she said. Then, "he became very aggressive and violent."
Meek called the FBI after recognising Roof in the video, down to the stained sweatshirt he wore while playing videogames in Meek's home the morning of the attack.
"I knew it was him," Meek told The Associated Press after being interviewed by investigators.
During their reunion a few weeks ago, Roof said he had bought a .45-calibre Glock pistol and that he had "a plan," Meek said. Meek said it scared him enough that he took the gun out of Roof's car and hid it in his house until the next day.
It's not clear whether Roof had any connection to the 16 white supremacist organisations operating in South Carolina.
On his Facebook page, Roof displayed the flags of defeated white-ruled regimes, posing with a Confederate flags plate on his car and wearing a jacket with stitched-on flag patches from apartheid-era South Africa and Rhodesia, which is now black-led Zimbabwe.
His police record includes misdemeanour drug and trespassing charges.
