At least five dead and others missing after Mormon church set on fire during mass shooting

A man who crashed his vehicle through the front doors of a Michigan church opened fire with an assault rifle and set the church ablaze, killing at least four people and wounding at least eight others before dying in a shootout with police, officials said.

Police said the perpetrator, identified as Thomas Jacob Sanford, 40, a former US Marine from the nearby town of Burton, deliberately set fire to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which was engulfed in flames and billowing smoke.

Two of the shooting victims died and eight others were hospitalised, officials said. Several hours after the shooting, police reported finding at least two more bodies in the charred remains of the church, which had not yet been cleared and may contain other victims.

“There are some that are unaccounted for,” Grand Blanc Township Police Chief William Renye told a press conference.

An official with the US Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives said investigators believe the shooter used an accelerant - probably gasoline - to fuel the fire, and that some explosives were recovered. The FBI said it was leading the investigation of what it considered “an act of targeted violence.”

Hundreds of people were in the church when Sanford drove into the building, Mr Renye said.

Two law enforcement officers rushed to the scene within 30 seconds of receiving emergency calls and engaged the suspect in an exchange of gunfire, shooting him dead in the parking lot about eight minutes after the incident began, Mr Renye said.

Investigators will search the shooter’s home and phone in search of a motive, Mr Renye said.

US military records show Sanford was a US Marine from 2004 to 2008 and an Iraq war veteran.

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.

According to court records, a federal lawsuit that Edge had filed against the US government, and others, describes 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.

In Michigan, one witness told WXYZ television she heard “a big bang and the doors blew.”

“I lost friends in there and some of my little primary children that I teach on Sundays were hurt. It’s very devastating for me,” said the woman, who gave her name as Paula.