US city mourns black shoppers killed in ‘racist’ shooting

CHICAGO: The first of two African American grocery shoppers shot dead by a white gunman in an attack described by police as racially-motivated was to be laid to rest Tuesday.

Maurice Stallard, 69, and Vickie Lee Jones, 67, were gunned down on Wednesday last week at a suburban store in Louisville, Kentucky.

Their deaths came days before an anti-Semitic massacre in Pittsburgh and as a spate of mail bombs sent to high-profile liberals was fueling a national reckoning over deepening political and racial divisions.

Stallard’s funeral was due to take place at a church in southeast Louisville while Jones will be laid to rest in the city on Saturday.

The suspected gunman, 51-yearold Gregory Bush, allegedly tried but failed to get into the predominantly black First Baptist Church in the suburb of Jeffersontown.

He is then alleged to have headed to a nearby grocery store and opened fire multiple times on Stallard inside the story and Jones in the parking lot.

Jeffersontown police chief Sam Rogers told a Sunday service at the First Baptist Church the attack was “racist in nature.”

“I’m angered that we as a society continue to have issues of racism and violence,” he said.

Bush – who allegedly told a bystander that “whites don’t kill whites” – is in custody, charged with two counts of murder and 10 counts of wanton endangerment.

Stallard was remembered by friends as a central figure in their community. He was the father of a high-ranking official in Louisville’s city government.

“He’s just well-loved by many people,” friend Phil Fletcher told NBC-affiliated local television station WAVE. — AFP