JEFFERSON, Ken. (WAVE) – Customers at a Jeffersontown, Kentucky Kroger may not have been the original targets of the gunman who killed two people there earlier this week.
Jeffersontown Police Chief Sam Rogers said suspect Gregory Bush was seen 15 minutes earlier on security video attempting to enter the First Baptist Church of Jeffersontown, a predominantly black church.
“It just shocked me, kind of blew me away that something that happened at Kroger’s also could have happened here at First Baptist,” church administrator Billy Williams said.
Had the suspect arrived at First Baptist an hour and fifteen minutes earlier, he would have found mid-week services wrapping up with 70 people inside.
Williams said the congregation at First Baptist began taking safety precautions after the 2015 mass shooting at an African American church in Charleston, South Carolina. The precautions include locking doors, security cameras and firearms carried by properly trained church members.
The suspect’s attempt to enter the church supports the possibility of a racially-motivated crime.
The son of an eyewitness in the Kroger parking lot said the suspect walked by his father and said “whites don’t kill whites.”
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