Louisville police says no evidence of hate crime in Bungalow Joe's shooting deaths

https://www.courier-journal.com/story/news/crime/2020/09/21/louisville-police-bungalow-joes-shooting-no-evidence-about-race/5855986002/

Louisville police says no evidence of hate crime in Bungalow Joe's shooting deaths

Lucas Aulbach
Louisville Courier Journal

Louisville Metro Police Department Lt. Donny Burbrink has "heard the same thing everybody else has heard" about the suspect in the triple homicide Friday night at Bungalow Joe's Bar and Grill, but he's not ready to put a label on the case.

"We're exploring all options at this point, and I don't think that we want to pigeonhole ourselves and say that this is a hate crime or that this is racially motivated," the leader of LMPD's Homicide Unit said Monday afternoon.

"We don't have any evidence to say that at this point, and I don't want to fuel that fire by saying something that we do not have definitive proof that actually happened."

Michael E. Rhynes Jr., 33, has been charged with three counts of murder after police say he shot and killed three men — Steven Matthew Head, 24; Toreon Jermaine Hudson, 26; and William Scott Smallwood, 48 — who had gathered on the patio at the Highvi bar around 11:30 p.m.