Amid Calls for Hate Crime Charges in Kroger Killings, Prosecutors Say It’s Complicated

One of the two black grandparents killed by a white gunman on Oct. 24 at a Kroger supermarket in a suburb of Louisville, Ky., was buried on Tuesday. A funeral for the other is scheduled for Saturday. 在此期间, calls continue to grow for hate-crime charges to be filed in their deaths. But the state prosecutor in the case, Thomas B. Wine, said Tuesday that a hate crime is not a separate offense under Kentucky law. 而, a judge can apply the label to a charge during the sentencing process. It could stop a convict from gaining parole or probation.

Witnesses said the suspect, Gregory Alan Bush, fatally shot Maurice E. Stallard, 69, inside the store, and then killed Vickie Lee Jones, 67, in the parking lot. He had no known connection to either victim, or to the store, and had tried and failed to enter a nearby black church moments earlier.

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