Synagogue attack

Officials: Shooter in synagogue attack spoke of killing Jews

By BRENT D. GRIFFITHS

Local and federal law enforcement officials said Sunday that the man accused of killing 11 people at a Pittsburgh synagogue entered the building Saturday morning making statements about genocide and his desire to kill Jewish people as congregants were in the middle of worship.

“A place of worship is a sacred place. It is a place of peace. It is a place of grace. It is a place where a community comes together to celebrate what they hold most dear and most sacred," Scott Brady, U.S. attorney for the Western District of Pennsylvania, told reporters during a Sunday morning news conference of the attack at Tree of Life Synagogue in a neighborhood known as the center of Pittsburgh’s Jewish community.

Brady and law enforcement officials said Robert Bowers, 46, entered the Tree of Life Synagogue on Saturday armed with three Glock handguns and an AR-15 assault rifle. Brady said Bowers shouted about his desired to “kill Jewish people,” and, around 9:45 a.m., began shooting for about 20 minutes.

Multiple media reports said Bowers maintained social media profiles rife with anti-Semitic views on which he reportedly wrote that Jews are “enemies of white people.” Brady said law enforcement officials are treating the murders as a hate crime.

Those killed Saturday ranged in age from 54 to 97. They included a husband and wife, Sylvan and Bernice Simon, and brothers Cecil and David Rosenthal. The oldest victim was 97-year-old Rose Mallinger.

Karl Williams, chief medical examiner of Allegheny County, said his office is working closely with local rabbis to try to release the bodies to their families as quickly as possible. It is the custom of observant Jews to attempt to bury the deceased within 24 hours.

“I’ve seen this room a lot of times on TV, and I never thought I would be at this podium,” said Jeffrey Finkelstein, CEO of the United Jewish Federation of Pittsburgh. “We’re going to do everything we can to help the families and we’ll be there for them.”

Bowers was charged Saturday night with 29 federal crimes, including 11 counts of obstructing the exercise of religious beliefs resulting in death and 11 counts of use of a firearm to commit murder. He also faces state charges. Brady pointed out that many of those counts carry the possibility of the death penalty.

According to the Anti-Defamation League, the shooting is the deadliest attack on Jewish Americans in the nation’s history.

The synagogue is located in Squirrel Hill, a Pittsburgh neighborhood known as a Jewish enclave. A 2017 survey by the Jewish Community Foundation of Greater Pittsburgh called the neighborhood the “center of Jewish life” and found it is home to 26 percent of the city’s Jewish households.

Four police officers were injured responding to the shooting. One was released on Saturday, and it was hoped that another would be released Sunday. The other two officers will remain hospitalized for a longer time period. Brady, Pittsburgh Mayor Bill Peduto and others praised the officers’ actions as heroic. Robert Jones, special agent in charge of the FBI’s Pittsburgh Field Office, said that, had officers not intervened, it is “likely additional violence would have occurred.”

Peduto praised his city’s resilience and said the response of its residents and others since the shootings shows him that society wants to move beyond the hate that appeared to have motivated the attack.

“There is a commonality throughout the world of people who have had enough of this type of hate based upon somebody’s practice of religion or somebody’s national origin,” he said. “There is an outpouring that is being heard through the people of Pittsburgh right now of where people want to see society move towards.”