The Kentucky Kroger shooting suspect now faces three hate-crime charges and three firearms charges, courtesy of a federal grand jury in Louisville, the Associated Press reports.
U.S. Attorney Russell Coleman said Gregory Bush is charged with killing two people based on their race and attempting to kill a third person based on his race. Bush also was indicted on three firearms charges.
Police said Bush walked into a Kroger grocery store with a .40-caliber handgun on Oct. 24 and shot one person, and then killed another in the parking lot before exchanging fire with an armed man before fleeing.
Bush, 51, was previously indicted in Jefferson County on October 31 on two counts of murder, one count of criminal attempted murder and two counts of first-degree wanton endangerment. All charges are related to the Oct. 24 murders of Maurice Stallard and Vickie Lee Jones, and the attempted murder of survivor Dominic Rozier, who engaged Bush outside of the grocery store.
Bush is white; all three victims are black.
Jefferson Commonwealth's Attorney Tom Wine said he does not anticipate filing charges against Rozier.
"There is no indication that he acted other than in self-protection for himself and for others," Wine said.
The wanton endangerment charges come from Bush's gunfire that could have struck Rozier's wife, Kiera Rozier, as well as Stallard's 12-year-old grandson, prosecutors said.
Authorities were slow to call the Kroger shooting a hate crime, for one reason or another, sparking sharp criticism from the black community. The story itself seems to have been slightly lost nationwide, happening as it did in a week that included a pipe-bomb panic and the death of 11 at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh.
While people across the country may have been able to quickly move past these precious black lives cut short; not so for the community terrorized by Bush, who allegedly attempted to pull a Dylann Roof and bust into a black church before settling for shooting shoppers instead. In Jefferson County, the devastation, and the race-based hate that fueled it, remains fresh and raw.
Sadiqa Reynolds, president of Louisville’s Urban League, said after the U.S. Attorney’s announcement Thursday that “we cannot live in a community with hate, and there must be severe consequences for that.”
“Racism is real and we see that our country is very, very divided,” Reynolds said. “That is not going to go away.”
Bush has pleaded not guilty to all charges, and is being held on a $5 million bond. Prosecutors have yet to announce if they’ll seek the death penalty.