Police described Friday how they engaged in a shootout with a gunman who carried out the deadliest anti-Semitic attack in US history, frantically rushing wounded worshipers to safety as they shot and neutralized the suspect.
Several officers took the stand on a fourth day of the prosecutors’ case against Robert Bowers, whose lawyers have acknowledged he shot and killed 11 worshipers at the Tree of Life synagogue in October 2018 but spared their lives are working.
Bowers, who surrendered after being shot three times, was asked at the scene why he did so and replied that he had “had enough.” Officer Clint Thimons, a member of the SWAT team, testified to jurors in federal court in Pittsburgh. “They were killing our children,” and “all Jews need to die.”
Survivors have previously testified about the terror they felt the day Bowers broke into the synagogue and shot everyone inside.
Bowers, a 50-year-old truck driver from the Pittsburgh suburb of Baldwin, faces 63 federal charges, some of which carry potential death sentences. In an opening statement, one of his attorneys said Bowers committed the attack, but the defense is trying to undermine the government’s case that he committed hate crimes.
Stephen Meskan, a tactical commander and member of the SWAT team, said Friday that when he and other SWAT officers arrived, the synagogue was “completely shot through,” with glass shattered everywhere and the building riddled with bullets. Had done it.
FILE: A SWAT team arrives at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh, where a shooter opened fire Saturday, Oct. 27, 2018. (AP/Gene J. Pusker)
He said he passed by several dead who had “apparently been shot multiple times in the face,” and worked to remove wounded victims. Seven people were injured in the attack – including five police officers – and Meskan described how SWAT members evacuated a seriously wounded officer who had been shot multiple times.
The amount of firefight between Bowers and the police was “enormous,” Mesken said. He said Bowers was shot and told police he wanted to surrender. Mesken told jurors that he heard Bowers say that he wanted all Jews dead.
Police tape surrounds an assault rifle magazine following a mass shooting at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh on October 28, 2018. (US District Court Western District of Pennsylvania Evidence photo via JTA)
Police Officer Michael Smidga, who was among the first officers on the scene and among the injured, testified that prior to the attack on October 27, 2018, he had regularly conducted security checks at Tree of Life and other synagogues in the area, “Because there is so much hatred among people.”
Prosecutors have said that Bowers expressed his hatred of Jews online and at the synagogue on the day of the attack. The 11 worshipers he murdered were members of three congregations that used the synagogue – New Light, Dor Hadash and Tree of Life.
