White Man Who Shot And Killed Two Black People In Kentucky Kroger Sentenced To Life In Prison

By Zack Linly

Gregory Alan Bush — the white man who walked into a Louisville, Ky., area Kroger super­mar­ket in 2018 and fatal­ly shot two elder­ly Black peo­ple — plead­ed guilty to mur­der on Tuesday and will spend the rest of his life in prison with­out the pos­si­bil­i­ty of parole. Bush — who is report­ed­ly schiz­o­phrenic and was unmed­icat­ed at the time of the shoot­ing, accord­ing to his attor­ney — is also fac­ing fed­er­al hate crime charges, because while men­tal ill­ness might some­what explain why he walked into a gro­cery store and opened fire, mur­der­ing two peo­ple, men­tal ill­ness doesn’t make a per­son racist and there is lit­tle doubt that race played a part in the sense­less killings.

The Associated Press reports that Bush “plead[ed] guilty but men­tal­ly ill” in Jefferson Circuit Court to two counts of mur­der, crim­i­nal attempt­ed mur­der and wan­ton endan­ger­ment. He was sen­tenced to two life terms to be served concurrently.
From AP

Pleading guilty but men­tal­ly ill means the Kentucky Department of Corrections must pro­vide Bush with treat­ment and med­ica­tion dur­ing his term, accord­ing to Jeff Cooke, a spokesman for the commonwealth’s attorney’s office. Under a plea agree­ment, Bush also was set to plead guilty to fed­er­al hate crime charges in February. Federal pros­e­cu­tors alleged the shoot­ing of Maurice Stallard, 69, and Vickie Jones, 67, was racial­ly moti­vat­ed, though Attorney General William Barr agreed not to seek the death penalty.

According to WDRB-TV, Angela Elleman, one of Bush’s attor­neys, said in a state­ment that Bush’s “schiz­o­phre­nia was not med­icat­ed, so he was tor­tured by voic­es that threat­ened to kill him and his family.”

“He act­ed out of his psy­chosis and his ill­ness, while at the very same time his elder­ly par­ents were down­town seek­ing a men­tal inquest war­rant to hos­pi­tal­ize him for everyone’s safe­ty,” Elleman said, adding that Bush’s actions that day “are not keep­ing with his char­ac­ter when med­icat­ed. Mr. Bush has agreed to spend the remain­der of his life in prison where he can be safe­ly treat­ed and medicated.”

But, again, lack of med­ica­tion doesn’t explain why Bush seem­ing­ly tar­get­ed Black peo­ple in his ter­ror­is­tic attack. As The Root pre­vi­ous­ly report­ed, just before Bush head­ed to Kroger to begin his ram­page, he tried to enter the his­tor­i­cal­ly Black First Baptist Church in Jeffersontown, which thank­ful­ly, was locked at the time.

As Bush was exit­ing Kroger after the shoot­ing, he report­ed­ly told a white man who was crouched behind a car hold­ing a gun, “Don’t shoot me. I won’t shoot you. Whites don’t shoot whites.”

According to court records, Bush also has a his­to­ry of mak­ing racist com­ments, includ­ing alle­ga­tions that he repeat­ed­ly called his ex-wife, who is Black, “a nig­ger bitch.”

WDRB reports that the fam­i­ly mem­bers of Bush’s vic­tims spoke at his sen­tenc­ing hearing.

“I just don’t under­stand why you select­ed any­one — It can’t be just for the col­or of their skin,” Charlotte Stallard, Maurice’s wife, said. “To me, it has to be more than that. You can’t hate some­one that much for the col­or of their skin. You have ruined my life. I’d like to just have an idea why?”

Kelly Watson, Stallard’s daugh­ter — whose son was with Stallard at the time of the shoot­ing — said in court, “That day replays in my head constantly.”

“The man whose life you took, he gave and he loved every­body around him,” Watson said. “He was there for every­body, and I hope that while you are sit­ting in jail, you are able to rec­on­cile your own life and think about what you did. And I’m grate­ful you will nev­er be able to hurt any­one else.”