Authorities yesterday called the deadly attack on a Michigan church ‘an act of targeted violence’ but said they were still trying to determine precisely why an ex-Marine crashed his pickup truck into the church during a Sunday service, opened fire and set the building ablaze, killing four people.
Eight victims were wounded, and everyone else has been accounted for, Grand Blanc Township Police Chief William Renye said at a news conference yesterday.
“The FBI is investigating this as an act of targeted violence, and we are continuing to work to determine a motive,” said Reuben Coleman, the acting special agent-in-charge of the FBI’s Detroit field office.
The suspect in the shooting 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.
The suspect had been arrested in the past, Renye said, without offering further details.
White House Press secretary Karoline Leavitt told Fox News’ Fox and Friends programme earlier that she had recently spoken with FBI Director Kash Patel about the attack.
“All they know right now is this was an individual who hated people of the Mormon faith, and they are trying to understand more about this, how premeditated it was, how much planning went into it, whether he left a note,” she said, using a common term for the church.
A city council candidate in nearby Burton told the Detroit Free Press that he had spoken with Sanford about a week ago, and that the suspect described members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints as ‘the antichrist’.
The candidate, Kris Johns, told the newspaper that the two men did not discuss politics, but that he saw a campaign sign for President Donald Trump on the suspect’s fence. An image from Google Maps also shows a Trump sign at an address listed online as the suspect’s residence.
A 21-year-old man was taken into custody yesterday after driving his car through a barricade that had been set up near the church.
The police chief said authorities were still investigating whether that incident was related to Sunday’s attack.
The Michigan violence came a month after a gunman fired through the stained-glass windows of a Catholic church in Minneapolis, killing two children and wounding 17 other people.
Sunday’s assault 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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