Police Chief Calls Kroger Shots as Hate Crime

LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Police registration is over and clients have returned to Kroger, Kentucky, where two people died last week, but the community still suffers and is still looking for answers.

Gregory Alan Bush, 51, is charged with the shooting death of Maurice Stallard, 69, and Vickie Lee Jones, 67. Bush is white; Stallard and Jones were black.

Here are the latest updates on the Kroger shoot in Louisville.

Jeffersontown Police Chief Sam Rogers told the congregation of the first Baptist Church on Sunday that the shooting was motivated by racism. He called it "the elephant in the room that some do not want to recognize in this case" and said it had to be addressed in the context of a broader dialogue.

"I will not stay here to pretend that none of us knows what could have happened if this evil man had entered the gates of this church," said Rogers, pointing out that the alleged gunman would have told a man "that whites do not kill whites" before his capture.

October 25th: Questions about the reason for the Kentucky Kroger shootout

Jeffersontown Mayor Bill Dieruf issued a similar note.

"I want you all to realize that, yes, we have a racial problem, yes, it is real," he said, pointing out that his city should not be defined by acts of violence. a single person. "It's up to us to solve the problem of racism."

According to the police, Bush reportedly attempted to break into the church called First Baptist, a predominantly African-American church, 10 to 15 minutes before the murder.

Kroger's shooting on Wednesday was followed by a group shootout at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh. The alleged gunman, identified as Robert Bowers, killed 11 people.

Shortly after the shooting, the Pittsburgh Public Security Director told reporters that the incident was being investigated for hate crime. This was not the case in Louisville.

The black leaders of Louisville were the subject of criticism Sunday because some of the most prominent politicians in the city and state have not decried any racial motivations.

"It was also an act of terrorism," said Truman Harris with Black Lives Matter Group of Louisville. "It's ridiculous that Mayor Fischer, Matt Bevin, that Mitch McConnell take as long as they recognize what he is. If that person was a black or brown terrorist, she would have been recognized on -field."

US lawyer Russell Coleman said last week that federal investigators "look at this issue from the perspective of federal criminal law, which includes potential human rights violations, such as hate crimes."

October 24th: Police: 2 people died in a shootout at the Kroger store in Kentucky; suspect in detention

On Monday, McConnell called the shooting in Kentucky a hate crime.

Speaking to a rally of the conservative federalist society in Kentucky, McConnell began by commenting on the "terrible shooting" in Pittsburgh and Louisville.

"There are no definitions of hate crimes, I do not know what is a hate crime," the senator said Monday in his speech. in front of the Kentucky Capitol in Frankfort. "I know it's a legal decision to be made by others, but it's certainly my opinion."

McConnell also pleaded for the application of the death penalty.

Currently, Bush is still in Metro Corrections with a $ 5 million bond. He is scheduled to appear in court on November 5.

Court records show that Bush has a history of mental health problems and violence, and at least one case where he used a racial insult.

In 2001, the ex-Bush woman, who is black, applied for an emergency protection order against Bush after he allegedly threatened her and had twice called a "bitch (of N-word)". A judge banned Bush from having or buying firearms as part of this order, which was in effect for three years.

And in a spousal abuse case involving his father in 2009, a judge ordered Bush to surrender his weapons and undergo mental health treatments.

Bush's father sought urgent protection from the courts after saying that Bush had lifted his mother from the ground and hit her jaw. He had threatened to shoot at his parents, with whom he was living, in the days leading up to the January 2009 aggression.

In court proceedings, Bush identified himself as suffering from schizoaffective disorder and his ex-wife also identified him in a different record as paranoid.

On Sunday, at St. Bartholomew's Church in Buechel and at the Church of the Living God of Russell, faithful mourned the deaths of Stallard and Jones.

They tried to ask themselves tough questions about why two members of their flock would be killed in a senseless act of violence.

After various Bible readings, Reverend Nick Brown of Buechel said that no one had answered the burning question: "Why do bad things happen?"

"The difficult answer to this question is, of course, that God really chose not to give us an answer," Brown said. "There is no answer in our scriptures or in our teachings of the church. There is no answer to the question of why bad things happen, we just know it happens. "

Patricia Fulce-Smith, the pastor's wife of the Church of God living in Russell, and two other women sang "God wants to heal you wherever you are hurt".

Fulce-Smith hesitated, stifling.

"You must sing tears for a few days," she said.

Contribute: The Associated Press. Follow Thomas Novelly on Twitter: @TomNovelly