Saturday, July 29, 2006
Six shot, one killed at Seattle Jewish federation
Police spokesman Rich Pruitt said there was one shooter, who was apprehended without incident outside the Jewish Federation building at the corner of Third Avenue and Virginia Street.
"We believe it's a lone individual acting out his antagonism," said David Gomez, who heads the FBI's counterterrorism efforts in Seattle.
Authorities did not release many details, but the FBI said the alleged shooter was between 30 and 40 and agents were investigating the incident as a hate crime. When asked at a news conference if that meant the alleged shooter was Muslim, Seattle Police Chief Gil Kerlikowske said: "You could infer that."
One woman was killed in the attack, police said.
Harborview Medical Center spokeswoman Pamela Steele said five victims were taken to the hospital, all women ranging in age from the 20s to the 40s. Each suffered gunshot wounds to the abdomen, knee, groin or arm. Three were in critical condition. Two were in satisfactory condition.
One of the women in satisfactory condition is about 20 weeks pregnant and was shot in the arm. Doctors believe she will be OK...
Hatred hits home: 6 shot at Jewish office 
Three of the women were in critical condition late Friday.
A law-enforcement source identified the arrested suspect as Naveed Afzal Haq, 30, who until recently had lived in Everett, and said Haq apparently has a history of mental illness. Court records show Haq has a charge of lewd conduct pending against him in Benton County.
The shooting came a day after the FBI had warned Jewish organizations nationwide to be on alert after Hezbollah leaders in Lebanon and al-Qaida's second in command urged that the war raging in the Middle East be carried to the U.S. However, the law-enforcement source, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said there is no evidence Haq was involved with any group.
"He said he hates Israel," said the source, who is part of the Seattle Joint Terrorism Task Force, which was called in to help investigate the shootings...
CAIR condemned the attack quickly, with none of their usual "buts."
Michelle has lots of links here and here, and at LGF here and here.
After 9/11, when some fools decided to harass people who appeared Muslim, mainstream churches across the US organized a campaign to escort their Muslim "neighbors" (i.e. in the broader sense, not necessarily someone who lives nearby or who is known to you) to the supermarket, the shopping mall, wherever, to protect them from verbal and physical harassment. I remember thinking that this was a praiseworthy effort, but feeling resentful that these churches had never done anything similar for their Jewish "neighbors" despite the fact that most hate crimes are committed against Jews. When tensions in the middle east go up, so do harassment and attacks against Jews. Given the greater population of numbers, that means per capita there is a much greater chance of a Jew than a Muslim being verbally or physically attacked while going about his own business. Will the same churches who showed their true American spirit of acceptance and understanding after 9/11 do the same thing now for their Jewish neighbors? Yeah, right.