Michigan shooting: church on fire, multiple shot; gunman dead

And I'm going to give you a little bit of background on what's going on here. Let's go ahead and get started. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you. the victim. Good morning. I'm chief officer of the LAPD. I'm here to give you some preliminary details on an incident that happened earlier today. At 1025 AM within grambling Township.

First off, I'd like to say our thoughts and prayers go out to the victims of this incident, which is completely unnecessary and avoidable. The incident that we're going the victim. And the victim's family. And the victim's family. The incident that we're going

to talk about here today. As I said was happened at 1025 AM at the church of Jesus Christ of light latter-day Saints which is located at 42 85 mccandless road. During this incident. What we know right now is that a 40 year old suspect from Burton. He's a male. He drove his vehicle through the front doors of the church.

He then exited his vehicle firing several rounds at individuals within the church. 10 gunshot victims have been transported to local hospitals at this time, including one who has been deceased. Officers who were trained immediately responded to the area. One was a DNR officer, and then one was a Grand Blanc Township officer, where they met the suspect,

and they engaged in gunfire with that particular individual, neutralizing that suspect, and that suspect is no longer with us. As I said, it is a 40 year old male from Burton. During all this incident as well, there was a fire that occurred and we believe that that was deliberately

set by the suspect. We do believe that we will find additional victims once we have that scene secure. That fire was just extinguished by the Grambling Township Fire Department within the past hour. So where we go from here is we have investigators. We're going to do search warrants on the suspect's residence. We're going to find out if there was a motive. We're going to do search warrants on the suspects' residents. We're going to find out if there was a motive.

We're going to go through cell phone records, things like that. We had the FBI, you know, they're devoting 100 agents to this area because as you can imagine, there's a lot of witnesses that were within the church and that is a lot of witness information statements that we have to obtain. So I'd like to thank all the agencies who responded. The city of Grand Blanc, Genesee County, Oakland County Sheriff's Office, Flint Township Police Department, the DNR, the State Police, and the ATF. I will provide additional information for you at 5 PM,

but I am willing to take any questions that you have that I could possibly answer right now. Chief, can you talk about the kind of the progress of events? Did the suspect set the fire

that he back inside of his vehicle and never ran the front door or did it all happen at the same time? So from what I understand, and again, this is just a

preliminary investigation right now from what I have been briefed on is that he ran the vehicle through the front door, exited, then started firing shots. We are still trying to determine

exactly when and where that fire ended up coming from and how it the fire. And we're still trying to determine exactly when and where that fire ended up coming from and how it got started. So we believe it was

deliberately set, though, by the suspect.

Were they in an active service when this happened? Yes. The service was active.

There was hundreds of people

within the church. Are you sure it's only one suspect at this point? Or is it possible other people helped set an empire or what have you?

Yes, it is one suspect that we know of at this point. We do not believe that there's a threat to the public. We believe that we have the guy who did this.

Sir.

Could you comment on the severity of the injuries?

We have a couple in critical condition. Like I said, one is deceased. The rest of them are in stable condition. So company three or two. I'm sorry, one and one deceased. The suspect is deceased as well, and then multiple victims are

in critical condition. We do believe that we will find some additional victims once we find area where the fire was. Any word on the weapon yet? An assault rifle.

As far as ammunition, did he have live ammunition?

That I don't know of yet, and I could get you later.

Okay. Hi Bill.

Hi.

Was the suspect known to authorities and did he have any connection to anyone who was in that church?

Right now we don't have any of that information but I'm confident that our investigators along with the FBI we're going to end up uncovering all that information and provide that at a

later time for you. Chief to clarify you said there may be additional victims like inside the fire. And so we're hoping that we can get some more information out there. And we'll be able to get that information out at a

later time for you. Chief to clarify. You said you're maybe additional victims like inside the church. Yes, where the fire was so and the reason why we

don't we can't confirm that just yet is because it was a large fire and we do believe that there was people up there that were. Near that that we will find additional victims once we're able to search that once there's no signs of a fire reigniting. So do you believe that the victims

that are still there? They succumb to fire injuries or gunshots, or you're not sure that I'm not sure, but I could provide all that information.

Hopefully at 5 PM. The chats were fired in the shots were

fired. He said he had no idea

how many though.

At this point, no idea how many at this time. Yeah, sure.

Describe the church. Is there like a worship area and then like a gathering space or something like that?

I mean, can you?

That I have not been in, so I can't tell you to lay out. Chief, can you kind of describe the process of how things change for tactical response, whether it's an active fire. Every training I've seen, it's always been a building that has not been on fire. So how do you then deal with an active shooter when you have that situation happening as well? Well, we are here at Grand Blanc Township and there's a lot of agencies within the state of Michigan. We are specifically trained to go right to the threat

situation and I'm proud o who responded to this scen took that suspect out. So victims. So it was a great

Okay, so I understand it

officer that neutralized t

there is two law enforcement officers involved. I will be back here at 5 PM to give you additional information and hopefully answer some of the questions that you guys went over here today. So, OK. Supervisor Bennett.

If I could just go sit in here. I'm so sorry. Thank you so much.

Sorry.

Well, Scott Bennett, Grand Blanc Township Supervisor. Scott, S-C-O-T-T, Bennett, B-E-N-N-E-T-T. First, let me say we are heartbroken. This kind of violence doesn't happen in our community. And we are heartbroken that it came to Grambling Township. And we're going to do everything we can to support the families, the victims, and our community getting through this situation.

And it's something that no community ever wants to have. And we're going to do our best to do everything we can. We appreciate the outpouring of support from our elected leaders from both national and state in offering their assistance. And we probably will take them up on their offer.

So we appreciate that very much. And we appreciate the community reaching out to us also. So the details are yet to come. As chief Rennie has said, and we'll wait for a little bit later today when we when we have

the rest of the situation assessed. But it may take a little while to do that, but thank you for all the support and I'm sure that the families and the victims are going to need that. It's a tragedy that nobody

wants to to encounter. Thank you, Chief. Before you step out,

can you go over the process of family

members where you want them to go?

They should call to get more

information and reunification.

Yeah, so those family members, they are in a secure area right now. They have. Ben taken over to Trillium, so that's where the FBI will interview them and then release them from there. Home is not there. Who wants to check in to see if their

loved one is OK? Is there a number of places you want to go? Yes, you could call the Grambling Township Police Department 810-424-2611. Township Police Department 810-424-2611. Thank you.