“Obviously, I don’t think you drive a car into an LDS church and unload and start throwing out IEDs if you don’t have some kind of hatred for Mormons,” Bowyer said. “So I think it’s safe to say that that exists.” He added, “What exactly was the motive? Was there people that he had interacted with? His politics? I know there’s been some speculation.”
Bowyer noted the challenge of pinning down political leanings in Michigan. “Remember in Michigan you don’t have partisan voter registration, so it’s a little bit more difficult to determine who a person is based off of their registration,” he explained. Still, there have been rumors about political motives. “There have been some suggestions based off of some kind of loosely posted pictures that he had some kind of axe to grind against Republicans or Trump. We just don’t really know that quite yet. I think it’s far more likely that religion played a factor in this, given that was the target here.”
Posobiec pointed to new reporting to underscore the religious angle. “I’m actually seeing it—the Detroit Free Press has an article up saying that a Burton City Council candidate said that he spoke to the man. I guess he had knocked on his door about a week prior,” Posobiec said, noting the encounter happened while the candidate was out canvassing. “Somebody knocked on his door potentially to either get him a ballot for one of the ongoing elections.”
That brief exchange, according to the council candidate, quickly turned into a rant. “He actually went on this tirade against the LDS Church, described Mormons as ‘the Antichrist,’” Posobiec recounted. The candidate described the man as “outgoing, polite, and extremely friendly,” but said his animosity toward the church was unmistakable. “It was very much the standard anti-LDS talking points that you’d find basically online,” Posobiec explained. “He said this wasn’t something that I would forget. Again, didn’t say anything specific, but that’s the latest as of an hour ago.
