Friday, December 13, 2019

Jersey City Gunmen May Have Targeted Yeshiva Next Door With 50 Children


Jersey City shooting survivor says attackers looked well-trained, 'came to kill'


A survivor of the deadly shooting at a kosher supermarket in Jersey City, New Jersey, said Friday that he had narrowly escaped death and that the shooters had clearly come into the store to kill people.
“The way they came in, they came to kill, to shoot,” David Lax told CNN news.
The shooters killed three people Tuesday in the JC Kosher Supermarket before being killed by police. Authorities said the attackers were motivated by anti-Semitism.
Lax owns an appliance repair shop in the same neighborhood and had stopped in the supermarket for lunch.
When the shooting started, he dove under the store’s refrigerated salad bar, until the male shooter moved past him.
Lax then stood up and encountered the female attacker, who entered the store second.
“The second she starts pivoting herself, I just went right in and push back her arm and just run right out of the store,” Lax said.
The woman, later identified as Francine Graham, fired at him as he fled, Lax said.
Lax dashed across the street to safety in a dramatic escape that was captured on surveillance footage.
In a separate interview Thursday with NBC news, Lax said the two shooters appeared well-prepared for the assault. NBC confirmed with the US military that the male shooter, David Anderson, had served in the US Army Reserve.


Jersey City Mayor Steven Fulop said Friday that he believes that the two gunmen who attacked a kosher store in the city, killing three people inside, were actually planning to target a yeshiva next door that had 50 children inside at the time of the assault.
“My opinion is that as more info comes out it’ll become increasingly clear that the target was the 50 children at the Yeshiva attached to that store.” Fulop, who is Jewish, tweeted:  “We will never know 100% but the doorway to the yeshiva was 3 feet away + it seems he goes in that direction 1st.”
Fulop said that if police had not managed to trap attackers in store, the result would have been much worse.
“This is a horrible tragedy but even in so much darkness with lives lost there is some light in that without question had the bravery/quick response of the police not trapped them in the store this could have been much much worse,” he said.
On Thursday Attorney General Gurbir Grewal said the attack was driven by hatred of Jews and law enforcement and is being investigated as an act of domestic terrorism.
The two killers were armed with a variety of weapons, including an AR-15-style rifle and a shotgun that they were wielding when they stormed into the store in an attack that left the scene littered with several hundred shell casings, broken glass and a community in mourning. A pipebomb was also found in a stolen U-Haul van.



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