'This cannot change us'
PITTSBURGH — On any given Saturday, the predominantly Jewish neighborhood of Squirrel Hill bustles with locals having brunch, shopping or sitting down for a hot drink at the locally owned café, the Coffee Tree.
On this Saturday, the neighborhood is an eerie ghost town, with not a soul dotting the main shop-lined street, Forbes Avenue.
Just a couple blocks away, the bodies of 11 people lie dead within the Tree of Life synagogue, a house of worship for three separate congregations located right in the heart of the community.
Six people were rushed to local hospitals with injuries.
The alleged killer is Robert Bowers, 46. It is believed he acted alone.
Standing on a street corner, his face etched with disbelief, Roger Zimmerman says he and his family moved to the area in the spring and already feel deeply part of it.
“Jonathan Perlman is a friend of ours, so is his wife and daughter,” he says of Rabbi Perlman, whose New Light congregation holds services at Tree of Life.
“This community welcomes you very quickly. It is a very tight Jewish community. I feel deeply affected by this.”
Zimmerman is among several neighbors gathering along nearby Murray Avenue, some looking for answers, most looking for comfort from other neighbors and even strangers, grasping each other in their grief. Many are unable to talk, but feel the need to hold on to something better than what has just happened here.
David Johnson lives just a couple of blocks from here. A longtime news anchor, he was one of the first on the scene to cover it live for the local NBC affiliate, WPXI.
Walking away from his onair update, he is barely able to hold in the grief and uncertainty he feels for his fellow Jewish friends.
Suddenly, his composure breaks under the weight of the news. The tears flow, his voice waivers. “Thinking of all of this, all of this, makes me want to cry right now.” And he does. “I know I’m going to know somebody. I know I am. And I don’t know who it’s going to be. And my heart breaks for that.
“I think of all the people around America and around the world when something terrible happens, and they’re waiting to find out if their family is in there. I know my family is not in there, but I know I know friends. The feeling that people have when there’s some mass event like this . . . they’re waiting for an airline or a police department or an agency to tell them what’s going on and that sort of dread. I feel it now,” Johnson says. “I feel it now.” Onlookers stare blankly as news organizations close down their staging area to move to county headquarters for the next update. A home decorated with child-like Halloween zombies takes on a grotesque backdrop as members of the SWAT team march in single file back to their vehicles.
Oddly, Squirrel Hill was once home for Fred Rogers, best known as “Mister Rogers.” It was his literal neighborhood.
Paul Klein, who is standing on Murray Avenue watching the scene, says, “This cannot change who we are.”
The University of Pittsburgh professor had his bar mitzvah at Tree of Life as a young man and has lived in the neighborhood since he was born.
Filled with the same uncertainty, the same sense of doom as his neighbors, knowing people he cared about were present when the gunman opened fire, he says it again.
“This just cannot change us.”