One Jersey City shooter had ties to Black Hebrew Israelite hate group, officials say
One of the two shooters who stormed a kosher grocery store in Jersey City and killed three people after murdering a veteran detective has ties to a Black Hebrew Israelite sect identified as a hate group, authorities said Wednesday.
David Anderson and Francine Graham were the shooters behind the daylight assault that left six dead, including the killers, and kept the Hudson County city on edge for much of Tuesday.
Officials said Anderson had a connection to the Black Hebrew Israelite movement, which has been designated as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center, a legal watchdog group that tracks such organizations.
The extent of Anderson’s involvement was unclear, but investigators found a manifestolike note with religious writings inside the stolen U-haul he and Graham drove to the scene.
Jersey City Detective Joseph Seals was shot to death shortly after noon on Tuesday as he approached the suspicious-looking van in Bayview Cemetery. The assailants drove off and continued their carnage about a mile away at the store.
A motive for the shooting has not been identified, and Jersey City Mayor Steven Fulop stopped short of calling the shooting a hate crime, although he did say the market, in a budding Jewish community, was targeted.
“It was a targeted attack on the Jewish kosher deli,” Fulop told reporters during a brief news conference Wednesday morning.
An incendiary device was later found inside the vehicle.
Officials also said there were online postings connected to Anderson’s social page with anti-police and anti-jewish writings, according to an NBC News report.
Anderson spent time in jail, and had an extensive criminal record, including weapons offenses in 2004, 2007 and 2011, according to New Jersey state records.
He also faced a criminal mischief charge in Ohio in 2009, according to court records.