One Dead, Three Hurt in Poway, California, Synagogue Shooting
The suspect was identified as John Earnest, a 19-year-old white man who entered the synagogue with an assault-style weapon.
(Bloomberg) -- A woman was killed and three other people, including a minor, sustained non-life threatening injuries in a shooting at a Poway, California, synagogue on Saturday, the city’s mayor said.
Deputies were called to Chabad of Poway -- about 25 miles (40 kilometers) north of San Diego -- shortly before 11:30 a.m. local time. The suspect was identified as John Earnest, a 19-year-old white man who entered the synagogue with an assault-style weapon, and he has been arrested, the San Diego county sheriff said.
“We’re looking into digital evidence and checking the authenticity of an online manifesto,” it said in a tweet, adding it’s searching the suspect’s home and car for connections to an incident linked to an attack at a mosque in a city close by.
The shooter was stopped by an off-duty border patrol agent, President Donald Trump said in a tweet. While leaving the White House Saturday afternoon for a rally in Wisconsin, he offered sympathy to the families and loved ones of the victims, and said the incident looked like a hate crime.
Steve Vaus, mayor of the city of about 48,000 people, said he received a call from Trump from Air Force One.
Saturday’s shooting, on the final day of Passover, comes six months after a mass shooting at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh that killed 11 congregants.
To contact the reporters on this story: Ros Krasny in Washington at rkrasny1@bloomberg.net;Vishal Persaud in Seattle at vpersaud1@bloomberg.net;Ariella Phillips in New York at aphillips163@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Chakradhar Adusumilli at cadusumilli@bloomberg.net, Linus Chua, Virginia Van Natta
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