What We Know About the Grand Blanc Mormon Church Shooter
Thomas Sanford signed two political petitions, one an anti-abortion petition and the other an anti-pandemic shutdown petition. He also voted in every November election since 2016.
There is no known motive yet for the mass shooting in a Grand Blanc, Michigan Mormon church that killed at least four worshippers, wounding eight others.
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We do, however, have a few pieces of information about the shooter, and because we have seen the Trump administration erase uncomfortable histories of shooters, it’s important to establish facts. These facts are not an indication of motive, but they matter, not least because if they aren’t established, it won’t be long until a vulnerable person will be blamed with reckless disregard for accuracy and for safety.
The 40-year-old deceased suspect’s name is Thomas Jacob Sanford. Sanford had a political sign for Donald Trump hanging outside of his small brick home, as first reported from Google images by the Daily Beast. Michigan Bridge added it was a 2016 sign.
While White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt claimed that they don’t know anything other than this person hated people of the Mormon faith, there is more known about the shooter.
Yes, he reportedly called the Mormon religion “the antichrist,” according to the Detroit Free Press. And he also has a history of political engagement.
Sanford signed two political petitions, one an anti-abortion petition and the other an anti-pandemic shutdown petition. He also voted in every November election since 2016, according to reporting by Paula Gardner, Mike Wilkinson and Jonathan Oosting for Bridge Michigan.
Sanford did sign two recent petitions, Grebner said, one for the so-called Unlock Michigan efforts to repeal the governor’s pandemic emergency powers and another supporting Right to Life Michigan’s efforts to restrict abortion in the state.
The “unlock” efforts were a reaction to Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s executive orders which called for lockdowns, school closures and mask mandates in 2020 and 2021.
Sanford was a veteran who grew up in a military household. He was a former Marine, he graduated in 2003 from Goodrich High School, he was a hunter and the father of a 10-year-old. A Clarkston News article cited by Michigan Bridge “indicated he came from a military family.”
They added that Sanford “was previously arrested for suspected burglary and operating while intoxicated,” according the Grand Blanc police chief.
Elected officials including US Senator Elissa Slotkin, Democratic US Rep. Kristen McDonald Rivet and Republican state Reps. Mike Mueller and David Martin “urged the public to stand in solidarity with victims and condemn violence without devolving into political divisiveness.”
(It would probably do more good to aim that at the President and his people who rush to judge and condemn and blame without evidence when it suits their political agenda.)
A family photo shared to Facebook “shows Sanford posing alongside his wife and 10-year-old son wearing a Re-elect Trump 2020 T-shirt. The shirt from when the first of Trump’s two presidencies ended in defeat to Joe Biden carries the logo ‘Make Liberals Cry Again’,” according to The Guardian.
Sanford rammed his pickup truck, with two American flags attached to it as we often see in Trump country, into The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and then opened fire on the congregation and intentionally set the building on fire.
The attack resulted in four deaths and eight injuries before Sanford was killed in a shootout with police.
Donald Trump rushed in to announce this was “another targeted attack on Christians,” which while an improvement on his recent rhetoric in which he blamed the entire left without any evidence for another tragedy, still leaves much to be desired as it stokes a persecution complex that is already raging on the right.
This shooting is just miles from the Oxford School shooting on November 30, 2021.
They will say it’s politicizing this tragedy to repeat the facts about the shooter, because the facts suggest the shooter was a Trump supporter. But there is no evidence that his political ideology was the motive for the attack. Two things can be true at the same time.
However, there was no concern about politicizing a tragedy when the most powerful man in the world rushed in without evidence to blame “Democrats” and “the Left” for the murder of Charlie Kirk, words that are still causing harm and fear for people all around the United States because many of his supporters believe his words.
Unlike the president and many of his enablers, this is not a game for most people. This is not a scoreboard of political points untethered to loss and grief and horror. But facts matter and we will stay rooted to them all the more when there is such pressure to abandon them.
We do not know yet why this person chose to murder worshippers at their church. We do know that this only happens this often in this country, where guns are so easy to get and in a political environment frothing with conspiracy theories and hatred.
What do you think? Share your thoughts in the comments below.
The common thread in all the mass shootings is mentally ill angry white men with guns and opportunity. Where is the movement among the men of Murica to openly deal with male derangements of ego such as Trump, Putin, Steven Miller as well as mass murderers, rapists, domestic violence abusers. Their ideology is secondary to their illness. They were all developmentally challenged boys who needed help early and often.
I would not call the current US president the most powerful man in the world. He has shown himself to be a bully of neighbouring countries, to vacillate, hesitate, do repeated 180 degree turns, and kow tow to despots. These are not attributes of power or strength of character.
On the contrary, Donald J Trump is an exceptionally weak man (and a sociopath to boot) who occupies one of the most powerful offices in the world.