The Brief Governor Gretchen Whitmer wants to bring down the rhetoric after a church mass shooting. One day after a mass shooting and an intentionally set fire at a Genesee County church killing four people, Governor Gretchen Whitmer is cautioning the public against pointing fingers. Whitmer said as a state, we know the pain of a mass shooting aftermath all too well. Whitmer said the soft-target nature of the nation's mass shooting incidents is disturbing. "I'm also here as a fellow Michigander whose heart is breaking by another mass shooting in a place that is supposed to be defined by togetherness and a close-knit community," Whitmer said.