“At least four people are dead and several others were injured after a gunman opened fire at a church in central Michigan during Sunday service and set fire to the building,” reports Yahoo News:
The suspect was identified as Thomas Jacob Sanford, a 40-year-old from the neighboring city of Burton, according to Grand Blanc Township Police Chief William Renye. Sanford died after exchanging gunfire with responding officers in the church’s parking lot.
Hundreds of people were attending the service at The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Grand Blanc, a suburb of Flint, Michigan, when the suspect rammed a pickup truck into the church, Renye said at an earlier news conference. He then exited the vehicle and fired “several rounds” at people inside the church with an assault rifle, Renye said.
Police believe the suspect also “deliberately” set the building on fire, which was extinguished by the Grand Blanc Township Fire Department, according to Renye. Videos on social media and local television stations showed flames and smoke billowing from the church.
Ten people suffered gunshot wounds, including two who were pronounced deceased. Seven of the hospitalized victims are stable, and one is in critical condition, Renye previously said.
Two more bodies were discovered in the church, Renye said during an 8 p.m. ET news conference. Earlier, the police chief said authorities believed they would find more victims once they found the area where the fire was.
Earlier this year, an ISIS suicide bomber killed dozens of people in a church in Damascus. And an airstrike on a Baptist church in Sudan killed at least a dozen people.
Many people were massacred in an attack on a church in Burkina Faso.
During the Biden administration, the Department of Justice (DOJ) allowed a transgender activist to escape jail time despite vandalizing a church and assaulting a woman.
