Louisville, November 2 (RHC)-- In the U.S. city of Jeffersontown, Kentucky, a white man arrested for shooting and killing two African-American customers at a grocery store last week was seen unsuccessfully trying to enter a predominantly Black church shortly before his rampage.
Police say 51-year-old Gregory Bush was captured on a surveillance camera trying to force open the doors of the First Baptist Church of Jeffersontown for several minutes, before turning his attention instead to a nearby Kroger supermarket, where he opened fire and killed two African Americans -- Maurice Stallard and Vickie Lee Jones.
Gregory Bush has a history of making racist slurs and has a long rap sheet of misdemeanor charges, including domestic violence, menacing and making terroristic threats.
In 2009, a judge ordered Bush to surrender his guns and undergo mental health treatment, after his parents claimed Bush threatened to shoot them in the head. Bush’s father said his son “carries a gun wherever he goes.”
It’s not clear whether Bush’s guns were returned when the court order expired in 2011. Gregory Bush will face two counts of murder and 10 counts of wanton endangerment at a court hearing scheduled for November. Prosecutors are investigating the murders as a “possible hate crime.”
