WICHITA, KANSAS (ANS) -- A suspect in Sunday's killing of Dr. George Tiller, whose women's clinic in Kansas was the center of the state's battles over abortion for nearly two decades, was in police custody Sunday afternoon, authorities said.

CNN reported that Tiller, 67, one of the few U.S. physicians who still performed late-term abortions, was killed Sunday morning by a single gunshot at the Lutheran church he attended in Wichita, police said.

Authorities on Sunday afternoon took a man into custody near Kansas City after stopping a car that matched a description of the killer's getaway vehicle.

No charges had been filed and no motive for the killing was immediately known, but CNN said Wichita police Detective Tom Stoltz told reporters, “We think we have the right person arrested.”

He added, “We will investigate this suspect to the Nth degree -- his history, his family, his associates -- and we are just in the beginning stages of that.”

CNN reported that the killing, which came about 16 years after Tiller survived a shooting outside his Wichita clinic, took place shortly after 10 a.m. Sunday at Reformation Lutheran Church. Tiller was dead at the scene, police reported.

Witnesses reported Tiller's killer left the scene in a powder-blue Ford Taurus and were able to provide a license number, said Gordon Bassham, a Wichita police spokesman.

Tiller's slaying drew condemnation from supporters, from some of those who tried to shut down his practice and from President Obama, who just two weeks ago urged Americans to seek “common ground” on the issue of abortion.

“However profound our differences as Americans over difficult issues such as abortion, they cannot be resolved by heinous acts of violence,” CNN reported Obama said in a statement issued by the White House.

Tiller had been practicing medicine for nearly 40 years, said Peter Brownlie, president of the Kansas City-based regional Planned Parenthood office. His patients were “almost always in circumstances where something had gone horribly wrong with a pregnancy,” and where a woman's health would be endangered if the pregnancy continued, Brownlie said.

He and his staff had been picketed for years, with some activists distributing leaflets around his neighborhood, CNN reported Brownlie said. His clinic suffered serious damage from a bomb in the mid-1990's, and he was shot through both arms in 1993 by an anti-abortion activist who is currently serving time in federal prison.

“He endured that kind of stuff on a very frequent basis,” Brownlie said. “As recently as early this month, the clinic sustained serious vandalism that put them out of commission for a week or so.”

Tiller had armed security at his clinic and a “pretty rigorous” security procedure at home, he said. But he “made an effort to live his life as normally as possible knowing he could be a target at any time,” Brownlie said.

CNN said that in a statement issued through Tiller's lawyers, his family -- a wife, four children and 10 grandchildren -- said their loss “is also a loss for the City of Wichita and women across America.”

“George dedicated his life to providing women with high-quality health care despite frequent threats and violence,” his family said in a written statement. “We ask that he be remembered as a good husband, father and grandfather and a dedicated servant on behalf of the rights of women everywhere.”

CNN said in March, Tiller was acquitted of 19 counts of performing procedures unlawfully at his clinic. In 2008, a probe initiated by abortion opponents who petitioned state authorities to convene a grand jury ended without charges.

CNN said that leading pro-life groups condemned Sunday's shooting, emphasizing they wanted to shut down Tiller's practice by legal means.

The National Right to Life Committee, the largest U.S. pro-life group, said it “unequivocally condemns any such acts of violence regardless of motivation. The pro-life movement works to protect the right to life and increase respect for human life,” it said. “The unlawful use of violence is directly contrary to that goal.”

Robin Abcarian in a story for the LA Times reported that Rev. Pat Mahoney, a prolife activist, called the shooting “tragic.” He said, “The probability is that someone who opposed abortion did this. The reason we are pro-life is because we hate violence on any level. I don't know of one legitimate pro-life leader who would not unequivocally condemn this.”

Mahoney said he had scheduled a news conference with pro-life groups Monday morning on the steps of the Supreme Court to condemn the killing.

“One of my main concerns here is that the Obama administration and Democratic leaders don't make the same mistake that the Clinton administration made, and don't use this isolated episode to demonize an entire movement and try to take this tragedy for political gain,” the LA Times reported Mahoney said. “If they overreach, then they put pressure on peaceful people who are trying to peacefully change the climate on abortion in a way that President Obama talked about at Notre Dame.”

Troy Newman, the head of pro-life group Operation Rescue, who moved to Kansas from California to try to put Tiller out of business, said he was “shocked, horrified and numb.”

“It's a horrible day,” the LA Times reported Newman said. “Nobody wants anything to end like this. We want to bring abortionists to justice through the proper channels, through legal means.”

However, CNN reported that Operation Rescue founder Randall Terry, who is no longer affiliated with the group, called Tiller “a mass murderer.”

“We grieve for him that he did not have time to properly prepare his soul to face God,” Terry said in a written statement. “I am more concerned that the Obama administration will use Tiller's killing to intimidate pro-lifers into surrendering our most effective rhetoric and actions. Abortion is still murder, and we still must call abortion by its proper name.”

The LA Times reported that Tiller, who was born and raised in Wichita, was the son of a physician. He took over his father's practice when he died in a 1970 airplane crash that also claimed the lives of his mother, sister and brother-in-law. At the time, Tiller was finishing medical school and had an internship at Camp Pendleton. He had planned to become a dermatologist, but when he returned to Kansas to close up his father's practice, patients pleaded with him to stay.

Eventually, his clinic evolved from family practice to abortions, and in the late 1980's and 1990's, protests became increasingly violent. Tiller testified that he was the subject of frequent death threats, that he was harassed at his church and that members of his staff were picketed at their homes.

“The heroes in our practice,” the LA Times said he testified, “are the courageous men and women who come to work every day in spite of threats and harassment.”

Jeremy Reynalds is a freelance writer and the founder and CEO of Joy Junction, New Mexico's largest emergency homeless shelter, http://www.joyjunction.org He has a master's degree in communication from the University of New Mexico, and a Ph.D. in intercultural education from Biola University in Los Angeles. His newest book is "The Face of Homelessness." Additional details are available at http://www.HomelessBook.com. Reynalds' latest book is "We All Need a Little Help." It was released on October 3 2008. He lives in Albuquerque, New Mexico. For more information contact: Jeremy Reynalds at jeremyreynalds@comcast.net. Tel: (505) 400-7145.