When a gunman attacked a Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints chapel in Michigan on Sunday, killing four people and injuring eight others, David Butler, a member of the Mormon church from Utah, said his initial reaction was that it was “an evil act.”
But after hearing the suspect, Thomas Jacob Sanford, who was killed in a shootout with police, left behind a wife and children, including a chronically ill son, Butler said he felt compelled to help them.
On Tuesday, Butler created an account on the crowdfunding site GiveSendGo, hoping, he said, to raise $10,000 for the alleged killer’s family. But as of Thursday afternoon, more than 7,600 people had donated more than $300,000 to the fund.
Asked why he set up the account for the family of a man who targeted members of his faith, the 53-year-old Butler told ABC News in a phone interview on Thursday, “It was actually pretty simple.”
“Jesus tells us that we should do this. We should love our enemies, that we should mourn with those that mourn, that we should care for the widow and the orphan,” said Butler, a lawyer and author of fantasy and science fiction books.
After the shooting, other crowdsourced donation campaigns were created on behalf of the victims who were killed and wounded, raising tens of thousands of dollars.
“It became obvious that nobody was doing anything to care for Sanford’s family, and it was obvious they were going to need it,” Butler said.
Investigators have said that the 40-year-old Sanford, a Marine veteran who served in the Iraq War, allegedly went on a rampage on Sunday morning, ramming his pickup truck through the front door of the LDS chapel in Grand Blanc Township, Michigan.
After crashing into the chapel, Sanford, armed with what authorities described as an “assault rifle,” unleashed a barrage of gunfire on hundreds of worshipers before setting the chapel on fire, burning it to the ground.
While investigators have yet to state a motive for the attack, friends of Sanford told ABC News that he harbored an animus against the faith after dating a Mormon woman in Utah several years ago and even considering converting to the religion.
“Yes, some of my people were murdered,” Butler said of the four people killed in the attack. “Yes, that was an awful and evil act.”
Butler said he didn’t know any of the victims or anyone who was in the chapel during the attack.
Butler said that since he started the crowdfunding account, he’s received blowback from people who he said have called him “evil” and “self-aggrandizing,” and told him he should “raise money for the real victims.”
“She did not send off her husband in the morning, saying, ‘Good luck killing the Mormons,’” Butler said of Sanford’s widow. “They’re victims, too. They lost their father. That’s going to be an economic detriment to them for years. They already have a chronically sick child.”
Butler said many of the people donating to Sanford’s family appear to be Latter-day Saints as well, offering prayers for the Sanford family.
“I don’t know what … number we’re at now, but at least 7,500 or so people looked at that and said, ‘Yeah, you were right. There is another set of victims here that we hadn’t thought about, and I want to help them.’”
Butler said he has yet to speak to Sanford’s widow, but added, “I’ve spoken to somebody else who’s close to her and it was a very hard conversation because they are suffering.”
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