By Steve Neavling
ticklethewire.com
The FBI has launched a civil rights investigation into the mass shooting that killed one woman and wounded eight others at a church in Nashville, Tenn., on Sunday.
“The Memphis FBI Field Office’s Nashville Resident Agency, the Civil Rights Division, and the US Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of Tennessee have opened a civil rights investigation into the shooting at the Burnette Chapel Church of Christ in Antioch, Tennessee,” David Boling, spokesman for the U.S. attorney in Nashville, said in a statement.
“The FBI will collect all available facts and evidence. As this is an ongoing investigation we are not able to comment further at this time.”
Police identified the attacker as Emanuel Kidega Samson, 25, a legal U.S. resident who came to the U.S. from Sudan and lived in Murfreesboro, Tenn.
Authorities were still unsure of a motive Sunday evening, but church members told investigators that Samson attended the church a few times in the past year or two.
Samson first opened fire in the parking lot at the Burnette Chapel Church, fatally shooting a woman who was walking to her car. Samson then walked into the church with two pistols, shooting six people. Samson also was injured from a self-inflicted gunshot to the chest and was hospitalized for several hours before he was taken into police custody.
He is expected to be charged today with murder and other related charges.
