The gunman who rammed his truck into a Mormon church and opened fire on worshippers was an Iraq war veteran who had previously shown support for Donald Trump.
Thomas Jacob Sanford, 40, from suburban Michigan, killed at least four people in the attack on the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Grand Blanc Township on Sunday.
Police are still combing through the wreckage after he set the building ablaze.
The ex-Marine was killed by police after he shot at least 10 people with an assault rifle in what the FBI described as an “act of targeted violence”. Authorities have yet to provide a motive.
Sanford, who also went by the name of Jake, graduated from a nearby high school in 2004 before joining the Marine Corps.
His recent political views remain unclear, but he was seen wearing a camouflage Trump 2020 campaign shirt, emblazoned with the words Make Liberals Cry Again, in a picture posted on social media in 2019.
An image of Sanford’s home, taken on Google Street View in June, showed a Trump-Pence sign attached to his garden fence.
Sanford rammed his pick-up truck into the church before firing at worshippers – Lukas Katilius/The Flint Journal
Other images showed him to be an avid hunter, posing with killed deer and other game in the back of a silver truck that appeared similar to the one used to storm the church.
In 2016, he married a woman who had gone to the same high school, and they had a son.
According to a GoFundMe page from 2015, the family appealed for donations to help pay for the medical care of their son, now 10, who was born with congenital hyperinsulinism, a rare genetic disorder in which the pancreas releases too much insulin, forcing numerous surgeries and hospital stays.
“Don’t ever take having healthy kids for granted,” Sanford was quoted as saying in a local news article. “We are proud of our child. I spent four years in the Marine Corps and was in Iraq, and this is still the most unique thing to deal with.”
Ryan Lopez, a former classmate from Goodrich High School – 12 miles from the shooting site – said he had seen Sanford two weeks earlier at the gym, when nothing had seemed out of the ordinary.
“He was happy to see me, he just seemed normal,” Mr Lopez told The New York Times.
Sanford allegedly opened fire on the congregation at a Sunday service – Katy Kildee/Detroit News
On Sunday, a bomb squad deployed a robot, a drone and a tank-like vehicle outside Sanford’s home, while a police helicopter circled overhead. It is unclear if anything was found.
A neighbour, Randy Thronson, said Sanford would clear the snow off his neighbours’ driveways in the winter for free, but that they hadn’t spoken in two years, adding: “He seemed like a nice guy. Something must have happened, snapped somehow.”
Sanford served in the Marines for four years, rising to the rank of sergeant and receiving several medals. He was deployed to Iraq for seven months between 2007 and 2008 as part of Operation Iraqi Freedom.
While serving, he specialised in handling military vehicle equipment. He left the corps a few months after his deployment.
After the military, he appeared to have a series of different jobs including landscaping, snow removal and working as a truck driver for Coca Cola.
Investigators said it could take a while to determine why the proud American and family man had carried out the attack on the Mormon church. “We can’t come to those kinds of conclusions for some time,” Lt. Kim Vetter, of Michigan State Police, said on Sunday.
Investigators said it could take a while to determine why the proud American and family man had carried out the attack on the Mormon church – David Guralnick/Detroit News
Sanford drove a pickup truck with two US flags strapped to its back into the side of the church at 10.25am local time.
He opened fire on the congregation during the Sunday service in the Flint suburb, police said. The gunman was killed eight minutes later by police in a gunfight in the church’s car park.
Two people were killed from gunshot wounds, and two bodies were later recovered from the debris of the burned-down church. Eight were wounded, one of whom was in critical condition.
Authorities said the attacker used an accelerant, believed to be gasoline, and set fire to the church deliberately. Some suspected explosive devices were found but it was unclear whether they were used to start the fire, they added.
Credit: Heem Vaniawala via Reuters
After the killing, Mr Trump demanded that the “epidemic of violence in our country must end, immediately”.
Sunday’s attack came after a series of high-profile shootings, including the assassination of Charlie Kirk, the Right-wing activist, in Utah and a shooting at a Texas immigration facility last week.
Political divisions have grown deeper in the wake of the attacks, with Mr Trump launching a campaign targeting Left-wing groups he has accused of being “domestic terrorists”.
Last month, a mass shooting took place at a Catholic church and school in Minnesota, in which two children were killed while attending Mass, and several others were severely wounded.
Founded in 1830, the Mormon church, based in the western US state of Utah, considers itself a Christian body but bases its doctrines on the Book of Mormon, a text its followers say contains a fuller version of the words of Jesus Christ than that recorded in the Bible.
There are Mormon churches all over the world, with 17 million members globally.
