{"id":460258,"date":"2025-09-29T11:15:15","date_gmt":"2025-09-29T11:15:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/460258\/"},"modified":"2025-09-29T11:15:15","modified_gmt":"2025-09-29T11:15:15","slug":"bbc-verify-live-footage-being-shared-shows-israeli-action-focused-on-western-gaza-city","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/460258\/","title":{"rendered":"BBC Verify Live: Footage being shared shows Israeli action focused on western Gaza City"},"content":{"rendered":"

What we know about the suspect in the Michigan church shootingpublished at 11:13 BST<\/p>\n

11:13 BST<\/p>\n

Kayleen Devlin, Emma Pengelly and Joshua Cheetham<\/strong>
BBC Verify<\/p>\n

Media caption, <\/p>\n

Watch: Drone footage shows fire at Michigan church<\/p>\n

After authorities in Michigan named the suspect in yesterday\u2019s Mormon church attack, in which at least four people were killed, we began searching for information about him and his family.<\/p>\n

The suspect, 40-year-old Thomas Jacob Sanford, was a US Marine Corps veteran. <\/p>\n

A 2007 article in a local Michigan newspaper reported he had been stationed in Japan and was soon due to join his battalion in Fallujah, Iraq – as well as noting that both his uncle and grandfather served in the military.<\/p>\n

A photo of a truck at the scene of the shooting covered in rubble, showed a numberplate with \u201cIraq\u201d written across it, which matched images posted on his mother\u2019s Facebook page where the words \u201cIraq veteran\u201d can be clearly seen. <\/p>\n

She also shared photos of Sanford in uniform in 2023, noting he served from 2004 to 2008 and was an \u201cIraq veteran\u201d.<\/p>\n

No motive has yet been identified and we found no evidence Sanford had ties to the Mormon church. His Facebook page has since been removed, but other accounts linked to family members suggest support for President Donald Trump. <\/p>\n

In 2019, an image was posted of Sanford in a Trump re-election shirt – and in 2021 his wife used the hashtag \u201cbring back Trump\u201d.<\/p>\n

We also identified Sanford\u2019s residence. Street view images from June 2025 show a Trump campaign sign outside the property.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"What we know about the suspect in the Michigan church shootingpublished at 11:13 BST 11:13 BST Kayleen Devlin,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":460259,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[12,26],"class_list":{"0":"post-460258","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world","8":"tag-news","9":"tag-world"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115287302109941209","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/460258","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=460258"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/460258\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/460259"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=460258"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=460258"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=460258"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}