Poway, Calif. – When gunfire erupted inside a Southern California synagogue during a service on the last day of Passover, Shimon Abitbul recalls he immediately placed…
Poway, Calif. – When gunfire erupted inside a Southern California synagogue during a service on the last day of Passover, Shimon Abitbul recalls he immediately placed his 2-year-old grandson on the floor and waited for a break in the shooting to grab the boy and sprint away.
Then Abitbul ran back to the shooting scene to try to help a woman he described as having a hole in her chest and who later died, he said, tears streaming down his face as he spoke Sunday outside the Chabad of Poway synagogue. The congregation’s rabbi, who was shot in the hand, had wrapped a prayer shawl around his bloodied fingers, Abitbul said.
The attack Saturday came exactly six months after a mass shooting in a Pittsburgh synagogue.
John T. Earnest, 19, surrendered to police after bursting into the synagogue north of San Diego and opening fire as about 100 people were worshipping inside. Congregant Lori Kaye, 60, was killed in the attack, which injured Rabbi Yisroel Goldstein, 8-year-old Noya Dahan and Almog Peretz, 34, authorities said.
Earnest, who had no previous contact with law enforcement, may be charged with a hate crime in addition to homicide, San Diego County Sheriff William Gore said. Police searched Earnest’s house and said he was also being investigated in connection with an arson attack on a mosque in nearby Escondido, California, on March 24.
Goldstein told NBC’s “Sunday Today” he was in the middle of his sermon when he heard loud noises. He turned around and saw he was “face-to-face with this murderer, this terrorist,” he said. He raised his hands to protect himself and lost one of his fingers in the shooting.
There were indications an AR-type assault weapon might have malfunctioned after the gunman fired numerous rounds inside, Gore said. An off-duty Border Patrol agent working as a security guard fired at the shooter as he fled, missing him but striking his getaway vehicle, the sheriff said.
