The white man accused of shooting and killing two black shoppers at a Louisville, Ky., area supermarket was indicted Thursday by a federal grand jury on hate crimes and firearm charges.
MSNBC reports that 51-year-old Gregory Alan Bush is charged with shooting and killing two of his victims because of their race and color and shooting a third man because of his race and color.
As previously reported by The Root, Bush allegedly told a man outside of the store that “whites don’t shoot whites.”
Bush is also charged with using and discharging a firearm during the commission of and in relation to the previously noted crimes of violence. The indictment also alleges that Bush’s crimes were premeditated and that he took substantial time to plan them out. He is accused of killing more than one person in a single criminal episode and “knowingly” creating “a grave risk of death to others on the scene.”
The maximum penalty Bush faces as a result of these charges is death, but the Justice Department will determine whether or not to seek the death penalty at a later date.
Maurice Stallard, 69, was inside the Jeffersontown Kroger on Oct. 24, when Bush reportedly walked up behind him and shot him in the back of the head.
Bush then allegedly went outside the store and shot 67-year-old Vicki Lee Jones in the parking lot.
Surveillance video later revealed that prior to heading to the Kroger, Bush attempted to enter the doors of a black church nearby.