A horrifying tragedy unfolded this weekend in Grand Blanc Township, Michigan, where one man’s rage and inner demons turned a Sunday into chaos and bloodshed.
Thomas Jacob Sanford—just 40 years old, a husband and a father—drove his pickup truck into the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He wasn’t aiming merely to cause a crash. After tearing into the church, Sanford opened fire on the congregation with a semiautomatic rifle and then set the building on fire. The latest reports indicate that four worshipers died, eight more were wounded, and the building was in smoky ruins. Investigators also uncovered improvised explosive devices at the scene, a grim indication of just how destructive Sanford’s intent had been.
This was not a story of political extremism. Despite the media’s favorite narrative, party politics did not radicalize Sanford. According to reports, his party affiliation isn't known, and it's unclear when he last voted, although reportedly there was a yard sign for Trump's campaign outside his home, which predictably attracted attention, even though there is no evidence tying it to this act.
What we do know, however, is that Sanford spent years battling the demons he brought home from war. He served as a Marine in Iraq between 2004 and 2008. By all accounts, when he came back, he carried more than scars. He carried memories, trauma, and struggles that never healed. Friends recall him battling drug addiction and post-traumatic stress disorder. Police records show brushes with the law, from burglary to operating while intoxicated. His hostility toward the Mormon faith, expressed in the anti-LDS rhetoric littered across social media, gave his anger a target. But the context here—the deeper root—is mental illness.
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We cannot ignore that pattern any longer. Sanford is hardly the first veteran to make headlines after wrestling with PTSD and losing control. And it’s not only veterans. In recent years, we’ve seen mentally unstable individuals, sometimes intoxicated by ideology, sometimes living in gender delusion, take innocent lives in mass shootings. Whichever group you point to—veterans broken by trauma, or individuals struggling with gender dysphoria and mental instability—we have to recognize that untreated, festering mental illness in a key factor. Yet despite endless talk, endless campaigns about “destigmatizing” depression, anxiety, and PTSD, despite the hashtags and awareness campaigns, the harsh reality is that nothing effective is being done.
Think about it: We hold parades for awareness. We change avatars. Politicians give speeches. Celebrities record PSAs. But you look at Sanford’s life—his arrests, his drug struggles, the PTSD that everyone knew about—and ask yourself, who intervened? Who helped him before this escalated to an act of domestic terrorism at a Sunday service? We’ve built an entire culture that celebrates “openness” about mental health, but that doesn’t translate into lives saved. If anything, our obsession with optics and destigmatization has placed style over substance. We’re aware—but still dangerously incapable of confronting the crisis in meaningful ways.
This issue should rise above partisanship. It shouldn’t take conservatives and liberals sniping at each other to admit that America is failing when it comes to mental health. If a man who once fought under our flag can return home so broken that he massacres a church full of worshipers, then we, as a nation, have failed him. We can’t keep pretending these problems don’t exist. And just as importantly, the rise in trans-violence should serve as a flashing red warning that mental health struggles must be treated—not blindly affirmed.
