What Would the Reverend Martin Luther King Say?

"It breaks my heart to see what happened yesterday. I used the term anti-Semitism, and I do believe it is a hate crime. I do believe that the information that we have at this time supports that."
"[Video evidence from the shooting makes it] clear [the Kosher Supermarket was] targeted [by the shooters]."
"My sentiment is that it should be viewed as a hate crime. There's no question it was an attack on the Jewish community."
"Hate and anti-Semitism have never had a place [in Jersey City]."
Jersey City Mayor Steven Fulop

"We can't let the horrible hate go on and threaten us. It's too late already. The hate that springs up all over, now cut short lives so close to home."
"[Task forces between law enforcement, community groups and Jewish leaders should be created to] foster love, stop hate and intercept and take action against haters before it's too late."
United Jewish Organizations of Williamsburg and North Brooklyn

"Our community has been terrorized once again by violent anti-Semitism."

"From Pittsburgh to Poway, and now to Jersey City, the disease that is anti-Semitism has clearly spread to epidemic proportions."

"But we will not be defeated, we will not stand down, we will not be intimidated."
Jonathan Greenblatt, CEO, Anti-Defamation League

Police say Anderson, right, started firing seconds after exiting a stolen vehicle

"[Tuesday's deadly kosher market attack and the killing of a detective in New Jersey are being investigated as acts of domestic terrorism] fueled by both anti-Semitism and anti-law enforcement beliefs."
"[Social media accounts believed linked to the shooters] espouse certain viewpoints." 
"[Investigators think all three slain victims in the store] were shot ... within minutes of the shooters entering the store."
"But for the actions of [police], they [the attackers] could have done more."
New Jersey Attorney General Gurbir S. Grewal

Jersey City police Detective Joseph Seale, a father of five, and veteran police officer, was shot to death at Jersey City Bayview Cemetery as he approached a stolen vehicle that was known to have been involved in a previous murder. The shooters fled the cemetery driving a stolen U-Haul van five minutes away, parking it mid-street, directly across from the Jersey City Kosher Market. As they exited the van, first David Anderson, 47, followed by Francine Graham, 50, shooting immediately and directly toward the market, people panicked and scattered from the direct area, though the shooters were evidently not interested in them.

They were focused directly on their target, the kosher market and those within it. Three people who were in the market at the time, the store's co-owner, Mindy Ferencz, 31, whose husband was in a small synagogue next to their market was shot to death. Also lethally shot was a customer, 24=year-old Moshe Deutsch, and Douglas Miguel Rodriguez, 49, an employee of the kosher market. One other man, another customer who had been in the store and had been shot, escaped to alert police.

Police arrived on scene 20 minutes after the attack began, around noon, and almost four hours later the shooting was finally over. For almost four hours shots rang out on the street as police and the killers exchange fire. When police finally entered the shop the two killers were dead and all five bodies lay amount hundreds of shell casings.

Motivation for the atrocity seemed obvious enough to those close to the scene. But authorities as usual, hesitated to call it a hate crime, an act of domestic terrorism, rather than a random crime scene.

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio and Jersey City Mayor Steven Fulop immediately identified the attack for what it was, an anti-Semitic terror attack. One of the killers had earlier posted messages online that left no doubt that he was motivated by both anti-Semitism and anti-police hatred.

And it didn't take long to link Anderson with the Black Hebrew Israelite movement, designated a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center.The Black Hebrew Israelite movement is united by the belief that African-Americans are the true descendants of biblical-era Jews, and anti-Semitism appears to be shared among them as well; Jews as imposters to Black Judaic heritage.

 

Street cameras close to the kosher shop clearly show the van pull up, a man emerging holding two rifles who "began firing from the street into the facility." Police who happened to be nearby on duty responded to a call for help, met with high-powered rifle fire and returned fire. For hours. Two officers were sent to hospital with superficial wounds. At 3:25 p.m. an armoured police vehicle rammed into the store; 22 minutes afterward there was no more shooting. When police later investigated the van they discovered a pipe bomb, along with two more rifles.

Schoolchildren were locked down in their nearby schools until late in the afternoon, when the shooting ceased, the attackers dead.

People from the neighbourhood converged around the scene of the tragedy. Some were overhead to complain of the presence of Jews having moved there in the last number of years, from Brooklyn. The neighbourhood, some complained, had never seen this kind of criminal shooting before; the Jews had brought it with them. Their children were locked down in their school classrooms because of the presence of Jews. 

 

The two shooters were Black. The hateful comments came from Black neighbours of the Jewish community.

Thousands of Orthodox Jewish men crowded Rodney Street in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.