SLAUGHTER AT THE SYNAGOGUE
11 killed in Pittsburgh gun rampage Shooter screams, ‘All Jews must die!’ Officials slap suspect with 29 charges
A gunman burst into a baby-naming ceremony at a Pittsburgh synagogue Saturday morning and opened fire, killing 11 people in the most deadly attack on Jews in US history.
Some three dozen worshippers had been attending services at the conservative Tree of Life Synagogue in the city’s Squirrel Hill neighborhood when the shooter, identified by authorities as Robert D. Bowers, barged in just before 10 a.m.
“All Jews must die!” Bowers screamed during the 20-minute siege, police sources told KDKA-TV in Pittsburgh.
At least six other people were wounded, including four police officers. Bowers, 46, exchanged gunfire with cops and was struck several times before he surrendered.
There were no children among the dead or injured, officials said.
The two wounded civilians were a 61year-old woman who was “doing well” and a 70-year-old man who suffered major organ damage and will need at least three surgeries, a hospital official said.
The injured man was identified in multiple reports Saturday night as Daniel Leger, described as married with two sons.
None of the wounded officers was seriously hurt.
Officials had yet to release the names of the dead Saturday night, but family members of congregant Daniel Stein, 70, a new grandfather, said he’d not been heard from since going to the synagogue alone that morning.
“It’s a very horrific crime scene. One of the worst that I’ve seen, and I’ve been on some plane crashes,” Pittsburgh Public Safety Director Wendell Hissrich told reporters, holding back tears.
The investigation will be led by the FBI in Philadelphia, and Bowers, who was hospitalized in fair condition, will likely face federal murder and hate-crime charges.
He’s been so far been hit with 29 charges, including violence and firearms offenses, along with violating federal civil-rights laws, the feds said Saturday night.
Pennsylvania’s attorney general, Josh Shapiro, said the shooting happened dur- ing the performance of a rite in which a child is given a Hebrew name.
The “shooter claimed innocent lives and injured first responders at a baby-naming,” Shapiro said.
Bowers, a bearded, heavyset Pittsburgh resident, was armed with an AR-15-style assault weapon and three handguns, officials said. He had a license to carry a firearm, law-enforcement sources told CNN.
He had 21 guns registered to his name, Rep. Mike Doyle (D-Pa.) told The New York Times.
Justice “will be swift, and it will be severe,” vowed Scott Brady, US attorney for the Western District of Pennsylvania.
The gunfire sent congregants scattering, many calling 911 after barricading themselves in the building, located in the city’s Jewish enclave.
Rabbi Stephen Weiss was in mid-prayer when the shooting began, his son, Zachary, 26, told BuzzFeed News.
“He was the son said, using a Hebrew word for praying. “All of a sudden there was a loud boom.”
When his father arrived at home, “I gave him a big, big hug,” the son said.
Bowers continued spewing anti-Semitic slurs even as officers arrived.
“Suspect talking about all these Jews need to die,” one first responder was recorded saying on a police radio.
“The suspect is talking about killing Jews. He doesn’t want any of them to live,” another officer added.
Bowers, in a white shirt and jeans, crawled on his hands and knees as he surrendered at about 11 a.m., according to reports.
He still had “a pistol in his waistband and one strapped to his ankle,” local reporter Ross Guidotti tweeted.
Bowers remained hospitalized Saturday night.
The shooting was “an attack not just on the Jewish community but on America as a whole,” said World Jewish Congress President Ronald S. Lauder.
The Anti-Defamation League called it the deadliest attack on the Jewish community in the history of the United States.
In online posts, Bowers described himself as right-wing but virulently anti-President Trump and anti-Semitic.
“Jews are the children of satan. (john 8:44),” read his bio on Gab, an alt-right version of Twitter where he went by the handle @onedingo.
Regarding Trump, he said, “For the record, I did not vote for him nor have I owned, worn or even touched a maga hat.”
Hours before the shooting, he railed against HIAS, the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, a nonprofit that advocates for refugees worldwide.
“HIAS likes to bring invaders in that kill our people,” he posted. “I can’t sit by and watch my people get slaughtered. Screw your optics, I’m going in.”
His account was taken down shortly after the shooting, and the site itself had closed by evening, but his posts were preserved by Web sites including Heavy.com.
Michael Eisenberg, the immediate past president of the synagogue who lives about a block from the building, said he was getting ready for services when by phone he heard about the shooting.
“I ran out of the house without changing,” Eisenberg said. “It was a surreal scene. And someone yelled, ‘Get out of here!’ I realized it was a police officer along the side of the house . . . I am sure I know all of the people, all of the fatalities. I am just waiting to see.”
He said he knew of no threats made against the synagogue before the shooting.
Another of the synagogue’s rabbis, Jeffrey Myers, had lamented mass shootings and called for gun control in a blog post just three months ago.
Trump denounced the gunman as “a madman, a wacko” and a “maniac” and urged a national return of the death penalty.
“We condemn the historic evil of antiSemitism and every other form of evil,” he said.
Vice President Mike Pence joined Trump in calling for the death penalty.
“What happened in Pittsburgh today was not just criminal — it was evil,” Pence said.
The ADL’s CEO, Jonathan A. Greenblatt, called the attack “unconscionable.”