Armed attack on a Mormona church in the US. Credit Line: Jeff Kowalsky / AFP / Profimedia
At least four people were killed and eight others were injured in a reinforced incident at a Mormon church in Grand Blanc, in Michigan, according to a new balance announced by the police, CNN reports.
A total of four people were killed in the Sunday morning attack on a chapel of the Church of Jesus Christ of the last days of Michigan, said the Chief of the Grand Blanc Police, William Renye, in a press conference held on Sunday evening.
Renye had announced earlier that two people died from the wounds caused by bullets, while a first balance indicated a dead man. In the evening, Renye said that “a few other bodies” were discovered in the chapel, which the suspect set on fire after the armed attack. The chapel is “completely destroyed,” said William Renye. Investigators are still investigating the debris and “working without ceasing to find other corpses,” he said.
Authorities say that an armed man entered the car in front of the church during a major job, began to shoot and then set intentionally fire that soon turned into a large fire. Police believes he could still find victims in the burnt building.
The police officers had a fire exchange with the armed man and killed him.
The investigators identified the man as Thomas Jacob Sanford, 40 years old, from Burton, nearby.
Grand Blanc is a suburb of Flint, Michigan, and is about an hour's north of Detroit.
The FBI runs the investigation into Sunday morning attack, said Reuben Coleman, the special agent in charge of the FBI office in Detroit, which covers the whole Michigan state. The office investigates the incident as an “act of targeted violence,” he said.
The Michigan attack is the second mass attack in less than 24 hours that would have been committed by a veteran of the Iraq war.
Thomas Jacob Sanford, the 40 -year -old man who, according to the police, entered the Michigan's chapel was a veteran of the Navy who served between 2004 and 2008, a spokesman for the United States Marine Pucca Corps told CNN. Sanford has served as a mechanic and vehicle recovery operator, the spokesman said. He was detached for one year in the “Freedom” operation in Iraq – the invasion of Iraq that started in 2003.
Just over 12 hours before the armed incident in Michigan, another veteran of the Navy who served in the “Iraqi Freedom” operation, Nigel Edge, would have opened the fire in a bar on the seafront in Southport, North Carolina. Three people were killed and eight were injured. Edge, who spent six years in the navy and received a Purple Heart medal, was accused of murder, attempted crime and aggression with a deadly weapon with the intention of killing. (News.ro)
