By Darrell Smith @ SacBee.com, April 26

Sunnyvale police say Isaiah Joel Peoples, the Army veteran with Sacramento ties plowed through a group in a busy crosswalk Tuesday because he believed some of the people were Muslim.

“Based on our investigation, new evidence shows that the defendant intentionally targeted victims based on their race and his belief that they were of the Muslim faith,” Sunnyvale police Chief Pham Ngo said, according to San Francisco television station KPIX.[....]

The victims include a critically hurt and comatose 13-year-old girl with a life-threatening brain injury, according to court document [....]

Sunnyvale police had sought to determine why Peoples, a Department of Defense auditor believed to be driving meals to his waiting Bible study group, gunned his Toyota Corolla through the busy South Bay intersection and plowed through the eight people crossing there. But witnesses said Peoples repeatedly said, “Thank you, Jesus,” after the apparent road attack.

In a Sacramento interview Thursday, Peoples’ mother described a son who struggled with post-traumatic stress disorder after he completed his tour of duty in Iraq, suffering seizures and blackouts [....]