The man accused of fatally shooting two people at a Kroger supermarket in Jeffersontown, Kentucky, on Wednesday attempted to enter a predominantly black church minutes before the attack, The New York Times reports.

Surveillance video at the nearby First Baptist Church showed Gregory Bush, a 51-year-old white man from nearby Louisville, unsuccessfully trying to pry open the church's front doors.

The suspect in a shooting that left two people dead at a Kroger supermarket in Jeffersontown, Kentucky, on Wednesday tried to enter a black church minutes earlier, The New York Times reported Thursday.

Gregory Bush, a 51-year-old from Louisville, Kentucky, was arraigned Thursday on charges of murder in the deaths of Vickie Lee Jones, 67, and Maurice E. Stallard, 69, in addition to 10 counts of wanton endangerment.

A witness cited by NBC News suggested the rampage may have been racially motivated. Bush is white, while Jones and Stallard were black. The unnamed witness said that after the shooting Bush told a bystander "whites don't kill whites."

Bush was arrested minutes after the shooting.

Surveillance footage at the First Baptist Church in Jeffersontown, roughly 2 miles from where the shooting took place, showed Bush trying to break into the church, Jeffersontown Police Chief Sam Rogers said at a news conference on Thursday.

Eight to 10 parishioners were inside the church when Bush tried to get in just after a midweek service, the church administrator Billy Williams told The Times.

"There were 70 people here at our weekly meeting service just an hour before he came by," Williams said. "I'm just thankful that all of our doors and security was in place."