Assailant in Mormon church attack allegedly bashed Latter-day Saints, had Trump sign in yard

A city council candidate who spoke to Thomas Jacob Sanford, the suspected shooter of a Mormon church in Michigan, while canvassing last week, said he saw a Trump 2024 sign on Sanford's fence and that he bashed the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

On Sunday, 40-year-old Thomas Jacob Sanford allegedly rammed his pickup truck bearing two American flags into the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Grand Blanc, Mich., then started shooting and set fires to the church. Federal authorities confirmed that improvised explosive devices were found at the scene, the Detroit Free Press reported. Two people died from being shot, while two others died from the fire, and eight were wounded.

Sanford, a former Marine who served in Iraq, was killed during a gunfight with officers, Grand Blanc Township Police Chief William Reyne said.

The motive of the attack is still being investigated.

The FBI took the lead in investigating the shooting and is treating it as “an act of targeted violence,” said Reuben Coleman, the acting special agent in charge of the bureau's Detroit office.

Burton City Council candidate Kris Johns told the Detroit Free Press that he recognized Sanford from the suspected shooter's photo, which was circulating online. He said he then contacted and spoke to the Michigan State Police and the FBI.

Johns said that he met Sanford last week while canvassing, and that Sanford was outgoing, polite, and "extremely friendly."

During the roughly 20-minute conversation, Johns said Sanford told him that he had moved to Utah at one point to plow snow and had a relationship with a woman there whose family was Mormon.

Sanford has a wife and told Johns that his child has a serious health condition.

After Sanford asked Johns if he believed in God, the candidate said, "yes," and that he's Christian and a member of Solid Rock Community Church, Sanford asked him how he felt about Mormonism, the Mormon bible, the role Jesus plays in the religion, the history of the LDS church, and Joseph Smith, Jr., the founder of Mormonism.

Sanford eventually said Mormonism is "the antichrist," according to Johns. The candidate said that Sanford's animosity toward the church didn't seem violent — “it was very much standard anti-LDS talking points that you would find on YouTube, TikTok, Facebook.”

Google Maps taken in June of Sanford's home in Burton, Mich., show the Trump-Vance sign on a fence, propped up above a stop sign, The Guardian reported. 

Also, a family photo posted on Facebook shows Sanford posing with his wife and 10-year-old son wearing a Re-elect Trump 2020 T-shirt. The shirt has the logo “Make Liberals Cry Again.”

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told the "Fox & Friends" TV show, “From what I understand, based on my conversations with the FBI director, all they know right now is this was an individual who hated people of the Mormon faith.”

Democratic consultant Mark Grebner told the Bridge Michigan that Sanford had signed two political petitions: one for the 2021 “Unlock Michigan” effort to repeal the pandemic emergency powers of the state’s Democratic governor Gretchen Whitmer, and another for a 2020 push by the group Right to Life Michigan to restrict abortion in the state.