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Shooter kills at least four, wounds eight at Mormon church in Michigan

A man who crashed his vehicle through the front doors of a Mormon church in Michigan opened fire with an assault rifle and set the church ablaze, killing at least four people and wounding at least eight others before dying in a shootout with police, officials said on Sunday, September 28.

Police said the perpetrator, identified as Thomas Jacob Sanford, 40, a former US Marine from the nearby town of Burton, deliberately set fire to the church, which was engulfed in flames and billowing smoke.

Two of the shooting victims died and eight others were hospitalized, officials said. Several hours after the shooting, police reported finding at least two more bodies in the charred remains of the church, which had not yet been cleared and may contain other victims.

"There are some that are unaccounted for," Grand Blanc Township Police Chief William Renye told a press conference.

Hundreds of people were in the church when Sanford drove into the building, Renye said.

Two law enforcement officers, one from the state Department of Natural Resources and another from Grand Blanc Township, rushed to the scene within 30 seconds of receiving calls and engaged the suspect in an exchange of gunfire, shooting him dead in the parking lot about eight minutes after the incident began, Renye said.

ABC AFFILIATE WXYZ / REUTERS

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Transcript
00:00First time I'm Schachtman.
00:04The second time I'm here is Dallas-Dalning,
00:08you can also go to Malloy.
00:12No matter how much of your country is,
00:17I can't believe that you're staying today.
00:22Your name is Dallas-Dalning,
00:26I have a couple updates for you.
00:48There is a couple additional bodies that we've discovered in the church.
00:52So that makes our total victim count up to four victims.
00:59As I said before, there has already been the suspect who is deceased as well.
01:05So we have five deceased persons from this tragic incident.
01:10I can confirm at this time that the FBI is now leading the investigation and is investigating
01:15this as an act of targeted violence.
01:18We're working tirelessly to find additional bodies.
01:23So to answer your question, the entire church has not been cleared because it's a total loss
01:28due to the fire.
01:29So these first responders right now, they're in recovery mode.
01:32They're trying to fight through all the debris from the fire.
01:37So no, we have not cleared the entire church just yet.
01:42No, I don't know how many people are unaccounted for at this time.
01:46We do know that there are some that are unaccounted for.
01:50All indications on this investigation are the suspect used an accelerant of some sort, we
01:55believe gasoline, and lit the church on fire.
01:58I will confirm that there were some suspected explosive devices that were located.
02:04But as far as using them to initiate the blaze, I can't say that.
02:11I'm going to see you on the issue.
02:27I'm going to see you on the issue.
02:34Beep!
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