Racist who Practiced Racism by Intentionally Murdering 2 Black Shoppers at Krogers Gets a 2nd Life Sentence plus 10 yrs for hate crimes. Neuropeon w/ Virus in His Mind said "Whites Don't Shoot Whites"

From [HERE] In an emotional hearing in federal court Thursday, Gregory Bush received confirmation that he will never leave prison for murdering two Black shoppers at the Jeffersontown Kroger simply because of the color of their skin.

But not before he heard from the family of his victims, Vickie Lee Jones and Maurice Stallard.

Both were Black. Bush is white.

"You are a rabid dog,” Kevin Gunn, Jones' nephew, told the 53-year-old. “And you deserve everything you got coming to you.”

"I hope your soul burns in hell," said a sister of Stallard's.

Bush had already been sentenced to life without parole after pleading guilty but mentally ill to state charges related to the Oct. 24, 2018, murders. On Thursday, U.S. District Judge Claria Horn Boom added a federal sentence of life in prison along with 10 years of additional confinement for gun and hate crimes.

The judge also ordered Bush to pay more than $23,000 in restitution to cover the two families' funeral costs.

Boom told Bush she hopes he learns to "reject" the "hate and bigotry" that led to the murders.

Stallard and Jones "were targeted specifically because of the color of their skin," Boom said.

Given the chance to speak, Bush said he was "so sorry that this happened. I'm so sorry" 

Bush, who has been diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder, said he was off his medication and "hearing voices" and "demons" that told him to kill his biracial son.

He noted his ex-wife is Black and added his son has been "having a hard time" since the 2018 shooting. 

But Stallard and Jones' relatives said they have been, too.

Stallard's widow, Charlotte, said "it is difficult to put into words" how the loss of her husband of 50 years has affected her family. She added she struggles to sleep and that she and other family members continue to receive counseling.

Bush was facing a minimum punishment of 30 years in prison but not the death penalty after pleading guilty this year to two counts of a hate crime resulting in death, three counts of using a firearm in relation to a crime of violence and one count of a hate crime with attempt to murder. 

The hate crime charges revolved around the fact that Bush, who is white, shot two Black shoppers whom he had never met.

Police and prosecutors had previously confirmed that Bush also told an armed person outside the store to not "shoot me (and) I won’t shoot you. Whites don’t shoot whites."

And minutes before driving to the Kroger to shoot Stallard and Jones, Bush tried to enter the First Baptist Church of Jeffersontown, a predominantly Black congregation, by yanking on its locked doors while several members were inside, police previously said. 

This month federal prosecutors revealed in a sentencing memorandum that Bush mentioned the name, "Dylann Roof," the man who shot and killed nine African American church members in Charleston, South Carolina, in 2015 after he was arrested. He also shouted Roof’s name while in a police station interview room, according to the document. 

After driving to the grocery store, Bush walked inside and used a pistol to shoot Stallard while Stallard's 12-year-old grandson stood next to him. They were shopping for poster board for a school project.

Bush then reholstered his weapon and calmly walked back through the store as panicked shoppers fled, not firing at anyone until he encountered Jones in the parking lot and fatally shot her.

He also exchanged gunfire with an armed Black shopper in the lot before getting in his car, driving a short distance and then having police stop and arrest him on Hurstbourne Parkway.

Stallard was a 1967 Male High School graduate, Air Force veteran and retired GE employee remembered as a generous family man who moved his family to suburban Jeffersontown for a middle-class life.

He was also a member of the Newburg Tennis Association and St. Bartholomew Catholic Church on Buechel Bank Road.

Jones was the widow of a military veteran and herself retired from the VA Hospital, where she worked as an office administrator. Her family said she loved to travel and was a faithful member of the Church of the Living God on West Madison Street.

Jones was also the caretaker for her elderly mother and had gone to the Kroger that day to buy food for her loved one, according to family.

Bush's state and federal cases had previously been held up over questions regarding his mental state and diagnosis, but a Jefferson Circuit Court judge ruled last summer that he was competent to stand trial after taking medication while incarcerated for several months.

He will receive mental health treatment in prison and likely serve the state and federal sentences at the state prison in La Grange, where Bush has been held as his criminal cases were pending, the judge and attorneys said.

Though the criminal cases may have now concluded, the families of Stallard and Jones along with a customer inside the store at the time of the 2018 shooting have also sued Kroger and Bush in civil cases that remain ongoing in Jefferson Circuit Court.

The lawsuits each claim Kroger had no policy in place to prevent Bush from carrying and using a loaded firearm in its store.

In September 2019, the Cincinnati-based supermarket chain asked its customers to stop openly carrying guns in its stores following a string of mass shootings around the country.