What we know about Michigan church shooting and arson attack

Investigators are searching for a motive after a gunman opened fire at a Mormon church in Michigan and set the building on fire, killing four people.

Officials said the attack on the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Grand Blanc, a town 60 miles (100km) northwest of Detroit, happened during a Sunday service attended by hundreds of people.

They have named the suspect, Thomas Jacob Sanford, 40, from Burton, Michigan, who was killed by police soon after the shooting.

Speaking at a news conference on Monday, officials said the incident was a “targeted act of violence”, but said they had not yet ascertained Sanford’s motive.

Officials have not named the four people who were killed in the shooting, or the eight others who were injured, including one who was in critical condition.

Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer urged residents not to speculate about the motive as officials conducted their investigation.

“Speculation is unhelpful and can be downright dangerous, so I just ask that people lower the temperature of the rhetoric,” she said.

The shooting began at around 10:30 EST (15:30 BST) on Sunday, when a gunman crashed his vehicle into the building and then began shooting at congregants.

One man told CBS News that he and others went outside the church after hearing a “loud boom” of the vehicle crash, before seeing the suspect begin to fire a weapon at the building.

“It was just so unexpected,” said the congregant, Paul Kirby. “Once I saw the gun and start hearing him start shooting it, it was just a lot of fear.”

Soon after, the shooter set the church ablaze using gasoline or another accelerant, officials said. They also found the suspect’s makeshift explosive devices, said James Deir, an agent of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

Less than 10 minutes after the shooting, the gunman died in a shootout with police, officials said.

Investigators said on Monday that they had interviewed over 100 victims and witnesses as a part of the investigation and spent the whole night processing the scene of the crime.

Though officials have not given a motive, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told Fox News that Sanford was “an individual who hated people of the Mormon faith”.

Officials have said the suspect was a former Marine who was once deployed to Iraq.

Sanford told local outlet Clarkston News that he was a sergeant in the Marines and was deployed to Fallujah in Iraq in 2007.

“I’m excited to go,” he told the newspaper. “There are many changes we are making in the Middle East, we are making progress.”

Sanford had previous arrests for a burglary and operating a vehicle while intoxicated, officials said on Monday.

Not much information is available about the suspect’s political beliefs, but his Facebook profile features a photo of him in 2019 wearing what appears to be a shirt promoting the re-election of Donald Trump in 2020.

A Google Street View image of a property linked to Sanford also appears to show a pro-Trump sign outside of the house.

Sanford also appeared to be a father of a son who had serious health issues, according to posts from his family and a fundraising page.

Sanford is from a suburb of Flint of about 30,000 people, just a few miles away from Grand Blanc Township.