KSL-TV is reporting on its website that Mike Ward, the younger brother of alleged shooter Kenneth James Ward, said his brother was mentally ill and felt wronged by the LDS Church – a church which he belonged to in the 1980s. His brother said Kenneth believed he had been "shunned to hell" by a bishop in 1988, and that is why he asked for a bishop when he went to the church in Visalia on Sunday.
The gun used in the violent act belonged to Ward's grandfather, Mike Ward said.
Mike Ward, a Bakersfield resident, told the Vasilia-Times Delta the shooting was not politically motivated or a result of Prop. 8. Mike said the Ward family is sorry for what happened.