Kentucky Police Chief Finally Acknowledges That The Kroger Killings Of Two Black People Was A Hate Crime

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Kroger Killings Motivated By Hate According To Police

In case witness accounts of the killer saying “whites don’t kill whites” wasn’t enough…

Officials in Jeffersontown are finally calling the incident in Kroger, where two innocent Black people were shot in killed, a hate-motivated crime. On Wednesday, Gregory Alan Bush opened fire at a Kroger supermarket in the Louisville, Kentucky, suburb of Jeffersontown and killed two black people on Wednesday, he tried unsuccessfully to enter a predominantly black church in the same area, police said. 69-year-old Maurice Stallard was shot in the back of the head. As Stallard lay on the ground, presumably dying, Bush shot him several more times. Bush then allegedly walked outside and shot Vickie Lee Jones, 67, several times as well, killing her.

According to Courier Journal, Police Chief Seth Rogers stood before the congregation at First Baptist Church on Sunday and said that while some people don’t want to acknowledge “the elephant in the room,” the fact that the shooting was motivated by racism needed to be addressed as a part of the larger dialogue.

Jeffersontown Mayor Bill Dieruf had a similar message about the crimes, asking folks not to define the city by one hateful person’s actions.

“I want you all to realize that yes, we have a race problem. Yes, it is real,” he said, arguing his city shouldn’t be defined by one person’s actions. “It’s up to us to solve the problem of racism.”