Gunfire kills 11 people in synagogue
Pittsburgh attack called ‘unspeakable act of hate’
PITTSBURGH — A gunman who is believed to have spewed anti-Semitic slurs and rhetoric on social media opened fire at a Pittsburgh synagogue Saturday, killing 11 people in one of the deadliest attacks on Jews in U.S. history.
The 20-minute attack at Tree of Life Congregation in the Squirrel Hill neighborhood also left six people wounded, including four police officers who dashed to the scene, authorities said.
The suspect, Robert Bowers, traded gunfire with police and was shot several times, authorities said. Bowers, who was in fair condition at a hospital, was charged late Saturday with 29 federal counts, including hate crimes and weapons offenses. It wasn’t immediately known if Bowers has an attorney to speak on his behalf.
“Please know that justice in this case will be swift and it will be severe,” Scott Brady, the chief federal prosecutor in western Pennsylvania, said at a late-afternoon news conference, characterizing the slaughter as a “terrible and unspeakable act of hate.”
The shooting began just before 10 a.m. after authorities say Bowers entered the large synagogue with an assault-style rifle and three handguns. Three separate Jewish congregations were
conducting Sabbath services in different areas of the large building at the time of the attack, according to Michael Eisenberg, the immediate past president of the Tree of Life.
The Pennsylvania attorney general’s office said it was told by victims that a brit milah — a ritual circumcision ceremony at which a baby boy also receives his Hebrew name — was also taking place. Law enforcement officials later said no children were among the dead or wounded.
“It is a very horrific crime scene,” said Wendell Hissrich, the Pittsburgh public safety director. “It’s one of the worst that I’ve seen.”
President Donald Trump on Saturday ordered flags at federal buildings throughout the United States to be flown at half-staff in “solemn respect” for the shooting victims and said he planned to travel to Pittsburgh.
He called the shooting a “wicked act of mass murder” that “is pure evil, hard to believe and frankly something that is unimaginable.”
“It looks definitely like it’s an anti-Semitic crime,” he said Saturday afternoon. “That is something you wouldn’t believe could still be going on.”
Earlier Saturday, Trump suggested that armed security at the synagogue might have prevented the attack.
In a statement, Gov. Tom Wolf of Pennsylvania said “these senseless acts of violence are not who we are as Americans.”
“We must all pray and hope for no more loss of life,” he said. “But we have been saying ‘this one is too many’ for far too long. Dangerous weapons are putting our citizens in harm’s way.”
The mass shooting raised immediate alarm in Jewish communities around the country. Authorities in New York City, Chicago and elsewhere increased security at Jewish centers.
Bob Jones, head of the FBI’s Pittsburgh office, said worshippers “were brutally murdered by a gunman targeting them simply because of their faith,” though he cautioned that the shooter’s full motive was not yet known.
In a statement, Attorney General Jeff Sessions said the Justice Department intended to file hate-crime and other charges against Bowers.
Bowers, who had no apparent criminal record, expressed virulently anti-Semitic views on a social media site called Gab, according to an Associated Press review of an archived version of the posts made under his name.
The cover photo for his account featured a neo-Nazi symbol, and his recent posts included a photo of a fiery oven like those used in Nazi concentration camps to cremate Jews during World War II.
Other posts referred to false conspiracy theories suggesting that the Holocaust — in which an estimated 6 million Jews perished — was a hoax. He also wrote of a Jewish “infestation,” using a slur for Jews, the review showed.
Gab confirmed that Bowers had a profile on its website, which is popular with far-right extremists. The company archived the account before taking it offline and released a statement saying it was cooperating with law enforcement officials.
Before the shooting, a poster believed to be Bowers wrote that “HIAS likes to bring invaders in that kill our people. I can’t sit by and watch my people get slaughtered. Screw your optics, I’m going in.”
The Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, known as HIAS, is one of nine organizations that works with the federal government to resettle refugees in American communities.
Mark Hetfield, president and chief executive of the organization, has no formal relationship with the Tree of Life Synagogue but has helped hundreds of refugees resettle in the Pittsburgh area in recent years.
“Our agency is the oldest refugee agency in the world, and we’ve seen some horrible dark periods in our time, and we’ve seen plenty of hate, and refugees by definition are fleeing hate,” Hetfield said. “But the United States is supposed to be a place of refuge, and a synagogue is supposed to be a place of refuge.”
Jonathan Greenblatt, chief executive officer of the Anti-Defamation League, said the group believes Saturday’s attack was the deadliest on the Jewish community in U.S. history.
“Our hearts break for the families of those killed and injured at the Tree of Life Synagogue, and for the entire Jewish community of Pittsburgh,” Greenblatt said.
The survivors of the shooting included Daniel Leger, 70, a nurse and hospital chaplain who was in critical condition after undergoing surgery, his brother, Paul Leger, told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Daniel Leger was scheduled to lead a service Saturday morning, he said.
More than 1,000 people, some holding candles, gathered for a street vigil in the Squirrel Hill neighborhood Saturday night to honor the victims, whose names were not immediately released.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he was “heartbroken and appalled” by the attack.
“The entire people of Israel grieve with the families of the dead,” Netanyahu said. “We stand together with the Jewish community of Pittsburgh. We stand together with the American people in the face of this horrendous anti-Semitic brutality. And we all pray for the speedy recovery of the wounded.”
The Tree of Life synagogue dates back to 1864 and was originally in downtown Pittsburgh, said Alvin Berkun, a former rabbi at Tree of Life and now rabbi emeritus, who stayed home from services Saturday to tend to his sick wife.
Tree of Life moved to the current site, in the Squirrel Hill neighborhood, in 1952, where it now takes up most of a block.
“Squirrel Hill is really an amazing, safe community,” he said. It is the heart of Jewish Pittsburgh with kosher restaurants and bakeries and a Jewish community center. “I lived for a while in Israel and I know what security can mean, but the truth is the two safest neighborhoods I know are Squirrel Hill and Jerusalem. I’ve lived in both.”
Chuck Diamond, a former rabbi at the synagogue who retired more than a year ago, said the building is locked during the week and is outfitted with security cameras. “But on Sabbath it’s an open door,” he said.
“It’s one of my biggest fears,” Diamond said. “When I was leading the congregation, I always had in the back of my mind that something like this will happen. It’s a terrible thing to feel.”
Eisenberg, the former synagogue president, said officials at Tree of Life had not gotten any threats that he knew of before the shooting. But he said security was a concern, and the synagogue had started working to improve it.
“You know, you’re always worried that something would happen,” said Myron Snider, head of the cemetery committee for New Light Congregation, which meets at Tree of Life. Snider just got out of the hospital Thursday and missed Saturday’s service.
“But you never dream that it would happen like this,” Snider added. “Just never ever dream that it would happen like this.” Information for this article was contributed by Mark Scolforo, Mark Gillispie, Eric Tucker, Michael Balsamo, Claudia Lauer, Gene Puskar, Marc Levy, Allen G. Breed and Michael Kunzelman of The Associated Press; by Deanna Paul, Avi Selk, Amy B. Wang, Mark Berman, Joel Achenbach, Devlin Barrett, Wesley Lowery, Abby Ohlheiser, Kristine Phillips, Mike Rosenwald and Katie Zezima of The Washington Post; and by Campbell Robertson, Christopher Mele and Sabrina Tavernise of The New York Times.