Multiple Casualty Shooting At Pittsburgh Synagogue...

[Sue U]

I've spent since Saturday trying to think of how to react, what to say, what to do.

Donate to HIAS (f/k/a the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society). I've mentioned them before. They get a 4-start rating from Charity Navigator. Donate in the name of Congregation Eitz Hayyim-Or L'Simcha (Tree of Life-Light of Joy) of Pittsburgh.

[Burning Petard]

Great idea Sue. Snailgate.

[Scooter]

Pittsburgh Muslim community offers protection for Jewish services after mass shooting

The executive director of the Islamic Center of Pittsburgh is offering protection for the Jewish community's religious services after a mass shooting at a synagogue in the city on Saturday left 11 people dead.

"We just want to know what you need," Wasi Mohamed said late Sunday. "If it’s people outside your next service protecting you, let us know. We’ll be there.

"If you need anything at all, if you need food for the families, if you just need someone to come to the grocery store because you don’t feel safe in this city, we’ll be there. And I’m sure everybody in the room would say the same thing."

Mohamed made the offer while announcing that the Muslim community had raised more than $70,000 for the victims of the shooting at the Tree of Life Synagogue.

By Monday morning, the crowdfunding campaign, which was launched by the nonprofit organizations Celebrate Mercy and MPower Change, had raised over $120,000 from about 2,800 supporters.

The funds will cover costs such as funeral expenses and medical bills for the victims and their families.

The announcement came just a day after Robert Gregory Bowers, 46, allegedly opened fire in the Tree of Life Synagogue and killed 11 congregants in what was one of the deadliest attacks on the Jewish community in American history.

It was at least the third mass shooting in a place of worship in the U.S. in the last three years.

[Lord Jim]

[sarcasm]And I'm sure that our President, understanding the need for sensitivity and unity in this moment, will publicly acknowledge and thank the Pittsburgh Muslim community for their offers of help when he visits the city tomorrow.[/sarcasm]


Wasi Mohamed is a far better man and more patriotic American than Donald Trump...

[liberty]

Parents have been teaching their kids to hate Jews for more than 2000 years.

Not me and not my mother, did your parents teach you to hate Jews?

[Big RR]

Hate? No, but they could have easily been the sort of people the film Gentlemen's Agreement was about; no reason to hate them, but keep them away. I'm sure they didn't see that as prejudice, even though it clearly was; I think they saw it a to each his own kind (even though we had a Jewish family doctor who delivered us kids at birth).

The funny thing was, I recall when we had black family (black men married to white women) move next door to us and a few drunk neighbors wanted to start up with them on a Saturday evening, my father had me come out with him to hold the neighbors at bay while my mother called the police, so it wasn't a consistent prejudice, although they likely had the same view about blacks and others. Probably like a lot of white, protestant people of their generation, who grew up in sections of NYC where everyone in the neighborhood had essentially the same background.

But it's that subtle prejudice that tends to feed into the hatred.

[Lord Jim]

Well, at least he kept it short and managed to avoid shooting off his mouth:

Shooting victim’s family shuns President Trump in Pittsburgh as top officials decline to join him

PITTSBURGH — A mourning family doesn’t want to meet him. Leaders of his own party declined to join him. The mayor has explicitly asked him not to come. Protesters have mobilized. And yet President Trump visited this grief-stricken city Tuesday, amid accusations that he and his administration continue to fuel the anti-Semitism that inspired Saturday’s massacre inside a synagogue.

The president and first lady Melania Trump arrived in Pittsburgh on Tuesday afternoon, not long after the first funerals began for the 11 victims of the mass shooting at Tree of Life synagogue. More than 1,300 people have signed up for a demonstration at the same time — declaring Trump “unwelcome in our city and in our country.”

Congressional leaders from both parties — Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.), Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D.-Calif.) — have all declined invitations to join Trump on his visit, according to officials familiar with matter. (McConnell’s office said the Kentucky senator “has events in the state and was unable to attend.”) [And Paul Ryan had to wash his hair...PA GOP Senator Pat Toomey and every Republican member of the PA congressional delegation all seemed to have other pressing matters as well... ]

So have relatives of at least one of the victims.

Trump offered to visit with the family of Daniel Stein, a 71-year-old who had just become a grandfather when he was gunned down at Tree of Life. Stein’s nephew, Stephen Halle, said the family declined in part because of the comments Trump made in the immediate aftermath of the shooting, when he suggested the synagogue should have had an armed guard.

“Everybody feels that they were inappropriate,” Halle said Tuesday. “He was blaming the community."

Stein’s funeral was one of four scheduled for Tuesday. In the late morning, hundreds of mourners lined up to see the coffins of Cecil and David Rosenthal — two brothers gunned down at Tree of Life three days earlier, as they celebrated the Jewish Sabbath with Stein and the other victims.

The city’s Democratic mayor, Bill Peduto, had asked the White House to consider “the will of the families” before visiting — as well as the resources of a city straining under the deadliest attack on Jews in U.S. history.

“All attention should be on the victims,” Peduto said Monday. “We do not have enough public safety officials to provide enough protection at the funerals and ... at the same time draw attention to a potential presidential visit."

After Trump confirmed his visit anyway, the mayor’s office said Peduto would not appear with the president. Neither will Allegheny County Executive Rich Fitzgerald, who lives near the synagogue, his office said.

More:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2 ... d19bd29f1b

ETA:

Howard Fineman
‏Verified account @howardfineman
12h12 hours ago

Further: @realDonaldTrump WH called the top #PA and #Pittsburgh officials one at a time and lied to each that the others had agreed. WH did the same to #Schumer and #Pelosi. No one bit. WH also trying to push #Trump into hospital rooms of victims but most want no part of him.
1,295 replies 11,925 retweets 23,777 likes

[Bicycle Bill]

Under Trump’s watch:

● Deadliest massacre of Jews in US history — Pittsurgh, PA, October 27, 2018
● Deadliest mass shooting in US history — Las Vegas, NV, October 1, 2017
● Fifth-deadliest mass shooting in US history — Sutherland Springs, TX, November 5, 2017
● Deadliest high-school shooting (and 8th-deadliest mass shooting) in US history — Parkland, FL, February 14, 2018
● Biggest political assassination attempt in US history — various locations, week of October 22, 2018

But what does the president want to talk about?

● Central American refugees, and how we must deploy the army to "defend" our country from them.
● A⃥ ⃥d⃥i⃥c⃥t⃥a⃥t⃥o⃥r⃥i⃥a⃥l⃥ ⃥f⃥i⃥a⃥t⃥ an Executive Order that would end the Constitutionally-protected policy of "birthright citizenship"
● How the press and media are out to get him despite the "great job" he claims he is doing

-"BB"-

[ex-khobar Andy]

Maybe I should have started a new thread.

According to NYT, a 26-year-old man was working security at a bar in Chicago when a man came in and shot four people. Jemel Roberson had a gun permit, and used his weapon to detain the man he believed to be responsible for the shooting.

When the cops arrived, they of course shot and killed the black man with a gun.

Hands up anyone who still thinks it's a good idea to place more armed personnel in synagogues, churches, schools, bars etc.

ETA - the four people initially shot did not sustain life-threatening injuries.

[BoSoxGal]

I just read about that incident tonight; apparently the heroic security guard who apprehended the shooter and was then slaughtered by the po-po was just about to start training to become a police officer himself.

Oh the irony . . .

[Big RR]

This is infuriating; it would almost be funny if it weren't true. The guy was wearing clothing marked "Security" and the crowd was yelling the guy was a security officer and the cop still shot him? I guess guards have to be white?

[Bicycle Bill]

Remember the cop was – supposedly – a person trained in the niceties of how, when, and under what circumstances to discharge their weapon .... and he STILL shot the wrong guy (although in his defense he did shoot the guy who was holding a gun and not just an 'innocent bystander'...)

Now imagine if this had been one of liberty's well-meaning and well-armed t⃥r⃥i⃥g⃥g⃥e⃥r⃥-⃥p⃥u⃥l⃥l⃥e⃥r⃥s⃥ Second Amendment "militia" coming onto the scene.  It would have been "shoot first, shoot last, pause, reload, and shoot some more.  Then interrogate the survivors, if any."

-"BB"-