About The times. (Gainesville, Ga.) 1972-current | View Entire Issue (Oct. 26, 2018)
6A Friday, October 26, 2018 The Times, Gainesville, Georgia | gainesvilletimes.com NATION DEAN SENSUII Associated Press Debris is scattered after Super Typhoon Yutu hit the U.S. Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, Thursday, Oct. 25, in Garapan, Saipan. Super Typhoon Yutu devastates island territory Police: White man kills 2 black customers at grocery store TIMOTHY D. EASLEY I Associated Press Employees wait outside the entrance of a Kroger grocery following a shooting that left two people dead and a suspect in custody, Wednesday, Oct. 24, in Jeffersontown, Ky. BY CALEB JONES AND JENNIFER SINCO KELLEHER Associated Press HONOLULU - Resi dents of the Northern Mari ana Islands braced Friday for months without electric ity or running water after the strongest storm to hit any part of the United States this year devastated the U.S. territory, killing one person, officials said. Even after Super Typhoon Yutu had moved away from the Pacific islands, emer gency management officials warned residents to stay indoors because downed power lines blocked road ways and winds were still strong enough to make driv ing dangerous. A 44-year-old woman tak ing shelter in an abandoned building died when it col lapsed in the storm, a post on the governor’s office Facebook page said. Offi cials couldn’t immediately be reached for additional details. The territory will need significant help to recover from the storm that injured several people, said Grego rio Kilili Camacho Sablan, the territory’s delegate to Congress. He said Thursday that there were reports of injuries and that people were waiting to be treated at a hos pital on the territory’s largest and most populated island, Saipan. He could not provide fur ther details or official esti mates of casualties. “There’s a lot of damage and destruction,” Sablan said in a telephone interview with The Associated Press from Saipan. “It’s like a small war just passed through.” The islands’ emergency management agency was “deploying resources to clear our roadways so first responders can begin assist ing residents who have lost their homes and for those who need transport to seek medical attention or trans portation to the nearest shel ter,” spokeswoman Nadine Deleon Guerrero said in a statement. Sablan said he has not been able to reach officials on the islands of Tinian and Rota because phones and power are out. “It’s going to take weeks probably to get electricity back to every body,” he said. BY DYLAN LOVAN Associated Press JEFFERSONTOWN, Ky. — A white man with a history of violence fatally shot two African-American customers at a Kroger gro cery store and was swiftly arrested as he tried to flee, authorities said Thursday. The Courier Journal of Louisville reported that the suspect made a racial com ment to a man he encoun tered on his way out. The FBI announced that it “is evaluating the evi dence to determine if there were any violations of fed eral law.” An arrest report says Gregory Alan Bush walked into the store outside Louis ville, pulled a gun from his waist and shot a man in the back of the head, then kept shooting him multiple times “as he was down on the floor. ’’The report says Bush then reholstered his gun, walked outside and killed a woman in the parking lot. Bystander video shows a white man in a distinc tive neon-yellow shirt try ing to drive away while an officer chases after him on foot. Many more officers converged on the scene and made the arrest on Wednesday afternoon. Bush, 51, was jailed on $5 million bond Thursday on two counts of murder and 10 counts of felony wanton endangerment. Jeffersontown Police Chief Sam Rogers said in an initial news conference at the scene that “we have no idea” what motivated the shootings. Ed Harrell was quoted by the Courier Journal as saying he was waiting on his wife in the parking lot when he heard gunshots and grabbed his revolver. As he crouched down, he said he saw the gunman walk “nonchalantly” by with a gun by his side. He said he called out to ask what was going on, and the gunman replied: “Don’t shoot me. I won’t shoot you. Whites don’t shoot whites.” The local coroner’s office identified the victims as Maurice Stallard, 69, and Vicki Lee Jones, 67. Stallard is father of Kellie Watson, the chief racial equity officer for Louisville Mayor Greg Fischer. The mayor shared his out rage Thursday over what he called an “epidemic of gun violence” that “hit close to home.” “Somehow, a few have become so beholden to poli tics that they place a higher value on that than on the lives of our fellow Ameri cans,” said Fischer, a Demo crat running for re-election. “People getting shot at a grocery store, a school, out side a church. Can’t we all agree that that is unaccept able?” Fischer said at a news conference. Bush’s criminal record shows he threatened his ex- wife and punched a deputy sheriff during a family court hearing years ago. An arrest record from May 2009 says Bush became “irate” and shouted obsceni ties and threats at his ex- wife. When deputies tried to subdue him, he fought off attempts to handcuff him and he punched a deputy twice. He was charged with several counts, including assault, resisting arrest and disor derly conduct. Bush also was marked as a “suicide risk” on the arrest sheet, which noted that his ex-wife had a protec tive order against him. In a 2003 incident, Bush was charged with menacing for following a 15-year-old into a movie theater bath room and putting his hands around her waist. Bush told the girl he “thought we were family” and the girl pushed him away, according to the arrest record. Bush’s attack on customers caused chaos at the Kroger. Eric Deacon, who iden tified himself as an emer gency medical technician, told The Associated Press that he was in the store’s self-checkout lane when he heard the first shot, in the pharmacy area. 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