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Oct. 31 (UPI) -- A man charged with killing two people at a grocery store in Kentucky was indicted by a Jefferson County grand jury on Wednesday. Gregory Bush, 51, was indicted on two counts of murder, one count of criminal attempted murder and two counts of first-degree wanton endangerment for the shooting last week at a Kroger near Louisville, the Courier-Journal reported.
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He was charged with attempted murder by "manifesting extreme indifference to human life" for exchanging gunfire with a man, who was identified as Dominic Rozier in an indictment Wednesday, while others were nearby.
No one was hurt in the exchange of gunfire and Commonwealth Attorney Tom Wine said Rozier wouldn't be charged.
The two murder charges come after Bush shot and killed Maurice Stallard, 69, inside the store and Vickie Lee Jones, 67, in the parking lot.
Bush was also charged with wanton endangerment for placing Rozier's wife and Stallard's 12-year-old grandson in danger with his gunfire.
Wine said it was still to early to determine whether his office would pursue the death penalty in the case.
"We have a process that we set up ... part of that process includes talking with the survivors, the victims family members, and quite frankly it is too early to talk about that," he said. "We need to allow them some time to bury the dead, their loved ones, allow them some time to grieve."
On Monday, Jeffersontown Police Chief Sam Rogers said Bush, a white man, was motivated by race when he shot and killed Stallard and Jones, who were both black.
Prior to carrying out the shooting at the grocery store Bush attempted to enter the First Baptist Church of Jeffersontown, whose congregation is predominantly black, and witnesses said he told another man at the scene "whites don't kill whites" before he was arrested.
U.S. Attorney Russell M. Coleman confirmed Wednesday that the United States Department of Justice was investigating the shooting as a hate crime.
"The United States Attorney's Office, DOJ Civil Rights Division, and the FBI have an open and active federal hate crimes investigation that will be thorough and prompt, aimed at collecting the evidence necessary to meet the standards required for charging under the federal hate crimes and related laws," Coleman said.
Wine said the attack hadn't officially been considered a hate crime, as a hate crime is not a separate charge in Kentucky.
"Hate crime is a status and it only comes up at at the time of sentencing," he said. "The judge makes a determination by preponderance of the evidence -- 51 percent more likely than not that this individual acted out of hatred toward another individual because of their race, gender or any other type of immutable characteristic. So Kentucky's hate-crime statute really does not help us at all."
