GRAND BLANC, Michigan — The chaos, gunfire and conflagration that killed at least four people and wounded eight others here on Sunday morning began like any sacrament meeting of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints anywhere in the world.
Members of the Grand Blanc Ward were fasting when they arrived at their decades-old home of worship because the monthly fast-and-testimony meeting held on the first Sunday of each month had been moved up a week because of the church’s upcoming international general conference.
The meeting began with a hymn, a prayer and the sacrament service, which consisted of another hymn and prayers on the bread and water that represent the saving Atonement of Jesus Christ.
After each church member took the sacrament, Brother Ben Hougaboom stood up to bear his testimony of Christ, after which he normally would invite others to the pulpit to testify. Before he could finish, the chapel was rocked by what sounded like an explosion.
A massive dent appeared in the wall behind Hougaboom and the choir seats, and the wall began to crack.
Brian Taylor was one of about 125-150 people in the congregation. He first assumed a car had malfunctioned and accidentally jumped the curb, sped over the grass and slammed into the brick front of the church facing McCandlish Avenue.
“He couldn’t have been going less than 50 mph to get over that curb and still hit the wall that hard,” Taylor told the Deseret News.
He and other men hurried from the chapel and out the west side of the building. When they did, a woman yelled at them. She had left the meeting a minute before to retrieve fruit snacks from her car for her little children.
“He did it on purpose!” she screamed.
The next 10 hellish minutes filled with dread, panic and death caused by bullets and fire. They are minutes Taylor and others say they cannot stop replaying in their heads.
Taylor and the other men ran around to the front of the building and saw a beat-up Chevy Silverado truck bearing two American flags with a collapsed fender right under the familiar engraved name of the church and the words, “Visitors Welcome.”
Bricks from the wall were spread across the truck’s hood and on top of the cab.
The church members reached an immediate and fateful decision. They decided the crash was intentional.
Unaware that the driver had a gun and intended to shoot to kill, the men still sprang into what proved to be lifesaving action. They ran back into the building and began to usher everyone out of the chapel.
Taylor and others encouraged everyone to evacuate through the back of the building to cars or across the vast field behind the meetinghouse and into the forest surrounding Smith Lake.
As he escorted the elderly and families to the back of the building, Taylor stopped in the east foyer to lock the glass doors in case the driver tried to enter the church.
Then a father’s fear suddenly gripped his chest. Taylor’s teenage son had been assigned before the meeting to help people in the west foyer. On the east side of the building, Taylor heard automatic gunfire on the west side.
Pop-pop-pop. Pause. Pop-pop.
The sound was coming from where he knew his son had been.
“Sheer panic,” said Taylor, who is a member of the Grand Blanc Stake high council — a group of leaders who help the stake president oversee the area’s seven Latter-day Saint congregations.
The alleged shooter, Thomas Jacob Sanford, entered that west foyer and shot at least one child and other church members. He poured out gasoline and set the building on fire, police and eyewitnesses said.
Unable to see or get to his son, Taylor continued to shepherd people down the long east hallway and out of the building into the parking lot. He had found his wife and two older women who couldn’t run across the field. The couple helped the women into their sedan while Taylor called his son.
The boy answered and told them he was hiding in another car in the parking lot and felt safe there and too scared to get out and join his family in their car.
Taylor looked over to the building and saw Sanford coming out of the west-side back door. Then he saw Sanford raise his gun.
In another interview, Taylor said Sanford started to fire when he saw Taylor “put the pedal to the metal.”
He was mortified by the decision he had to make next. Only one avenue was available to put distance between the women in his car and the weapon was to turn the car so that the passenger side faced the shooter.
“I was conscious I was putting my wife on the shooter’s side, but I didn’t have any other way out,” Taylor told the Deseret News. “It was pure panic for five seconds as I wondered, have I put her in harm’s way?”
“I took a U-turn south along the building,” he said. “Then gunshots hit the windshield and glass exploded inside the car.”
Taylor started to bleed from his face and arms. There was so much blood, his wife thought he’d been shot.
“I didn’t know if I was or wasn’t because of the adrenaline,” he said.
Seconds later, Taylor and his passengers were safely across the street, where they parked in a neighborhood and found people readily willing to shelter them.
At the same time, an officer from the Michigan Division of Natural Resources and another from the Grand Blanc Township Police Department confronted and killed Sanford.
Taylor immediately returned to the church to reunite with his son, and they watched as the fire consumed the Grand Blanc Stake Center, the headquarters for seven Latter-day Saint congregations that make up what is known as a stake.
“I can’t get that smell out of my nose,” Taylor said 11 hours later, long after he’d showered and changed clothes.
The police took possession of the family sedan because it was evidence.
Most of the congregation of about 125 went to the Trillium theater in Grand Blanc to be interviewed by police and the FBI. The police interviewed Taylor at the scene.
Since then, the Taylors and other ward members have been messaging each other on the Latter-day Saint Gospel Living app, checking on their friends and ward family.
Four are dead. Eight are wounded. Several remain unaccounted for. Sanford was shot and killed by law enforcement.
Everyone in the ward is concerned for the families of those who have died and for those injured and missing.
Some, like Taylor, keep playing back what happened.
“What-else-could-I-have-done thoughts keep pouring through your head,” he said.
He knows, rationally, that he is wrong to think this way, but his mind wanders to whether he might have been able to grab Sanford before he emerged from his truck.
Truthfully, he is on the list of those called heroes by Grand Blanc Township Police Chief Bill Renye.
“They were shielding the children who were also present within the church, moving them to safety,” the chief said. “Just hundreds of people just practicing their faith, just extreme courage, brave — and that’s the type of community that we are.”
“It’s just scary,” Taylor said. “I’m super grateful the church is sending trauma and grief counselors. We’ll probably take advantage of that. My son knows his parents were shot at.”