People gather at the site as smoke and fire rise, following an incident in which a man crashed his vehicle through the front doors of a Michigan church and opened fire with an assault rifle and set the church ablaze, in Grand Blanc, Michigan, U.S., September 28, 2025, in this screengrab obtained from social media video. Heem Vaniawala/via REUTERS

(Reuters) -Authorities on Monday called the weekend's deadly attack on a Michigan church "an act of targeted violence" but said they were still trying to determine precisely why an ex-Marine crashed his pickup truck into the church during a Sunday service, opened fire and set the building ablaze, killing four people.

Hundreds of worshippers were inside the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Grand Blanc, Michigan, when the suspect rammed his vehicle into the front doors on Sunday morning, officials said. Two victims were shot to death, and two other bodies were discovered hours later in the rubble of the church, which officials said was deliberately set on fire.

Eight victims were wounded, and everyone else has been accounted for, Grand Blanc Township Police Chief William Renye said at a news conference on Monday afternoon.

"The FBI is investigating this as an act of targeted violence, and we are continuing to work to determine a motive," said Reuben Coleman, the acting special agent-in-charge of the FBI's Detroit field office.

The suspect in the shooting was identified as Thomas Jacob Sanford, 40, from the nearby town of Burton. U.S. military records show Sanford was an Iraq War veteran who served in the Marine Corps from 2004 to 2008.

The suspect had been arrested in the past, Renye said, without offering further details.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told Fox News' "Fox and Friends" program earlier on Monday that she had recently spoken with FBI Director Kash Patel about the attack.

"All they know right now is this was an individual who hated people of the Mormon faith, and they are trying to understand more about this, how premeditated it was, how much planning went into it, whether he left a note," she said, using a common term for the church.

A city council candidate in nearby Burton told the Detroit Free Press that he had spoken with Sanford about a week ago, and that the suspect described members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints as "the antichrist."

The candidate, Kris Johns, told the newspaper that the two men did not discuss politics, but that he saw a campaign sign for President Donald Trump on the suspect's fence. An image from Google Maps also shows a Trump sign at an address listed online as the suspect's residence.

Separately on Monday, a 21-year-old man was taken into custody after driving his car through a barricade that had been set up near the church. The police chief said authorities were still investigating whether that incident was related to Sunday's attack.

SPATE OF MASS SHOOTINGS

Grand Blanc Township, a suburb of Flint with a population around 40,000, is about 60 miles (100 km) northwest of Detroit.

The Michigan violence came a month after a gunman fired through the stained-glass windows of a Catholic church in Minneapolis, killing two children and wounding 17 other people.

Sunday's assault marked the 324th mass shooting in the U.S. in 2025, according to the Gun Violence Archive, which tracks shootings in which four or more people are shot or killed, not including the shooter.

Coincidentally, another 40-year-old Marine veteran who served in Iraq is a suspect in a North Carolina shooting that killed three people and wounded five others less than 14 hours before the Michigan incident.

Police in Southport, North Carolina, accused Nigel Max Edge of firing on a waterfront bar from a boat on Saturday night. Edge has been charged with three counts of first-degree murder and five counts of attempted murder, police said.

A federal lawsuit that Edge had filed against the U.S. government and others described him as a decorated Marine who suffered severe wounds, including traumatic brain injury, in Iraq. The lawsuit, which was dismissed, showed Edge was previously known as Sean William DeBevoise before changing his name.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, based in Utah, follows the teachings of Jesus but also the prophecies of Joseph Smith, a 19th-century American. It is informally known as the Mormon Church, a term that its leadership discourages.

"Places of worship are meant to be sanctuaries of peacemaking, prayer and connection," Doug Andersen, a church spokesman, said in a statement. "We pray for peace and healing for all involved."

(Reporting by Rebecca Cook in Grand Blanc and Andrew Hay in Taos, New Mexico; Writing by Joseph Ax and Daniel Trotta; Editing by Frank McGurty, Bill Berkrot and Nick Zieminski)