11 killed, several wounded, in Pittsburgh synagogue shooting -God be with these poor, poor victims. #SaturdayThoughts washingtonpost.com/nation/2018/10…
2/"BREAKING: Eleven dead and six others shot by gunman at Pittsburgh synagogue, city official says. More details will follow. A gunman attacked a Pittsburgh synagogue during Saturday-morning services in what the Anti-Defamation League called "likely the deadliest attack on the
3/"Jewish community in the history of the United States.” Law enforcement officials said Robert Bowers — a 46-year-old man with a history of making anti-Semitic statements online — surrendered to police after a gun battle and is expected to face hate crime charges. A death toll
4/"was not immediately available, but several law enforcement officials told The Washington Post that many were killed inside the synagogue. Pittsburgh officials said at least six people were injured in the incident, four of them police officers. “It’s a very horrific crime scene
5/"" Pittsburgh Public Safety Director Wendell Hissrich told reporters in the afternoon, after Bowers had been apprehended. “One of the worst that I’ve seen. And I’ve been on some plane crashes.” The suspect interrupted a baby-naming service at about 10 a.m, Pennsylvania’s
6/"attorney general told the Associated Press. Witnesses told police he burst in shouting anti-Semitic slurs and began firing. Stephen Weiss recalled hearing gunshots and fleeing the building through the sanctuary. “We had services going on in the chapel when we heard a loud
7/"noise in the lobby area," he told the Tribune-Review. KDKA reported that police confronted the suspect near the synagogue entrance. Witnesses said one office was wounded in an initial firefight, and two more were shot when they tried to corner the gunman upstairs.
8/"The man ranted about needing to kill Jews during a brief standoff, police dispatchers said on the radio. He surrendered to police around 11 a.m., an hour or so after the shooting began. Dispatchers said he had a pistol on his ankle and another in his waistband, and had been
9/"injured. KDKA reported that he came out crawling. Gab, a social media platform that has attracted many far-right users, released a statement on Saturday, saying the company had suspended an account that “matched the name of the alleged shooter’s name." “We then contacted the
10/"FBI and made them aware of this account and the user data in our possession,” the statement continued. “It looks definitely like it’s an anti Semitic crime," President Trump told reporters Saturday afternoon. "That is something you wouldn’t believe could still be going on.”
11/"The Tree of Life synagogue is located in a leafy residential enclave near Carnegie Mellon University — one of the larger predominantly Jewish neighborhoods in the United States. Its “traditional, progressive and egalitarian” congregation, formed in 1864, is Pittsburgh’s
12/"oldest Jewish congregation. It’s the “center of Jewish life on Shabbat morning," said Rabbi Aaron Bisno of the Rodef Shalom Congregation, two blocks away. It is unclear how many were in the synagogue at the time of the shooting. According to an online calendar, there would
13/"have been a Shabbat service scheduled for 9:45 a.m. Saturday. The synagogue’s main sanctuary, a cavernous space with soaring stained-glass windows that depict the story of creation, can hold up to 1,250 guests, according to the Tree of Life’s website.
14/" “This is an absolute tragedy,” Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf (D) wrote on Twitter. “These senseless acts of violence are not who we are as Americans.” Police in Washington, New York, Chicago and Los Angeles all said they were increasing patrols at synagogues and other houses of
15/"worship following the Pittsburgh attack as precautionary measures. Speaking to reporters later at Joint Base Andrews, President Trump said the shooting was “far more devastating than anybody originally thought” but did not offer details. “It’s a terrible, terrible thing,
16/"what’s going on with hate in our country, frankly, and all over the world, and something has to be done,” he said. When asked if he should revisit gun laws, Trump said: “This has little to do with it, if you take a look. If they had protection inside, the results would have
17/"been far better.” Trump has frequently suggested that more armed people could deter mass shootings, making the comment after shooting rampages in Parkland, Fla., and Orlando in recent years. Armed law enforcement officers were present at both of those mass shootings and
18/"others that have still occurred. It’s unclear whether the synagogue had security measures in place. In a July blog post for the synagogue titled “We Deserve Better,” Rabbi Jeffrey Myers criticized elected leaders for their lack of action in enacting gun-control legislation in
19/"the wake of the Parkland school shooting. “Unless there is a dramatic turnaround in the mid-term elections, I fear that that the status quo will remain unchanged, and school shootings will resume,” Myers wrote. “I shouldn’t have to include in my daily morning prayers that
20/"God should watch over my wife and daughter, both teachers, and keep them safe. Where are our leaders?” The shooting comes during an sharp spike in anti-Semitic activities in the U.S., according to an Anti-Defamation League report released earlier this year. From 2016 to 2017,
21/"instances of anti-Semitic harassment, vandalism and assault increased 57 percent, the largest single-year jump since ADL began tracking the data in the 1970s. “This is close to an all-time high,” Greenblatt told The Post’s Tara Bahrampour then. "We’re living in a time where
22/"extremists feel emboldened and they’re increasingly taking action. They feel empowered; they almost feel like they’ve been mainstreamed.” Ben Opie, 55, who lives across the street from Tree of Life, said his wife was leaving for a volunteer duty at about 11 a.m. when police
23/"shouted at her to get back inside the house. Officers banged on neighbors’ doors and told them to stay locked inside. Two hours later, after many of the police vehicles had left the neighborhood, Opie said he’s still shaking. “It’s just,” Opie said, pausing, his voice
24/"trembling. “Sorry, it’s shaking me more than usual." By Saturday afternoon, members of the synagogue were gathering at a grief center waiting to hear about friends and family members caught in the shooting.
25/"“It’s one of my biggest fears,” said Chuck Diamond, who worked as a rabbi at Tree of Life for seven years. “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." ~WaPo, 10/27/18
