Kentucky shooting investigated as a hate crime

The FBI is investigating last week’s supermarket shooting in Kentucky as a possible hate crime, a U.S. official announced on Friday. Prosecutors have charged 51-year-old Gregory Bush with murder in the deaths of Maurice Stallard, 69, and Vicki Lee Jones, 67, at a Kroger in Jeffersontown on Wednesday. Both victims were African-American.

Bush reportedly walked into the store, pulled a gun from his waist, and shot Stallard in the back of the head and then multiple times once Stallard had fallen to the ground. Bush then walked outside, where he shot Jones in the back of the head at arm’s length. A bystander in the parking lot exchanged fire with Bush, who allegedly told him not to shoot because “whites don’t shoot whites.” Jeffersontown Police Chief Sam Rogers said investigators are aware of those statements. “We’re pursuing all avenues of the investigation, no matter where that takes us or what it involves,” he said, adding that Bush has a history of mental illness, and that his ex-wife, who is African-American, took out protection orders against him after he used racial slurs during violent outbursts. He was also charged in 2009 with assaulting his elderly parents.

Surveillance video showed Bush trying to enter Jeffersontown First Baptist Church, a historically black church, about 10 minutes before the supermarket shooting.