A former Marine who killed at least four people and wounded eight at a church in Michigan in the northern United States “hated” Mormons, a White House official claims.
Speaking on Monday morning on the Fox News television show Fox & Friends, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said federal authorities are still investigating Sunday’s attack.
But she said investigators are looking into possible animus by the suspect towards members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, widely known as the Mormon church.
“Well, from what I understand, based on my conversations with the FBI director, all they know right now is this was an individual who hated people of the Mormon faith,” Leavitt said.
Leavitt said she was briefed by FBI Director Kash Patel on Monday.
Authorities were still working to determine why an ex-Marine drove his pickup truck into the church in Grand Blanc Township during a service, opened fire and set the building ablaze before he died in a shootout with police.
Hundreds of worshippers were inside the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints when the suspect rammed his pickup into its front doors on Sunday morning, officials said.
Two victims were shot to death, and two other bodies were discovered hours later in the rubble of the church, which officials said was deliberately set on fire.
Officials warned late on Sunday that some people remained unaccounted for and more bodies could yet be found as investigators sifted through the burned-out ruins of the building.
The suspect was identified as Thomas Jacob Sanford, 40, from the nearby town of Burton. US military records show Sanford was an Iraq War veteran who served in the Marine Corps from 2004 to 2008.
Authorities did not offer a possible motive, saying they would search the suspect’s home and phone. Grand Blanc Township, a suburb of Flint with a population of about 40,000, is 100km (60 miles) northwest of Detroit.
The Michigan violence came a month after a gunman fired through the stained-glass windows of a Catholic church in Minneapolis, Minnesota, killing two children and wounding 17 people.
Sunday’s rampage marked the 324th mass shooting in the US in 2025, according to the Gun Violence Archive, which tracks shootings in which four or more people are shot or killed, not including the shooter.
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