On Friday, Jersey City, New Jersey, mayor Steven Fulop speculated that the murderers who killed two Jews and a worker at the kosher grocery in Jersey City this week intended to kill the 50 yeshiva children upstairs of the grocery. Fulop tweeted: “My opinion is that as more info comes out it’ll become increasingly clear that the target was the 50 children at the Yeshiva attached to that store. We will never know 100% but the doorway to the yeshiva was 3 feet away + it seems he goes in that direction 1st.”
My opinion is that as more info comes out it’ll become increasingly clear that the target was the 50 children at the Yeshiva attached to that store. We will never know 100% but the doorway to the yeshiva was 3 feet away + it seems he goes in that direction 1st
— Steven Fulop (@StevenFulop) December 13, 2019
Fulop added, “This is a horrible tragedy but even in so much darkness with lives lost there is some light in that without question had the bravery/quick response of the police not trapped them in the store this could have been much much worse.”
This is a horrible tragedy but even in so much darkness with lives lost there is some light in that without question had the bravery/quick response of the police not trapped them in the store this could have been much much worse.
— Steven Fulop (@StevenFulop) December 13, 2019
Speaking to the New York Jewish Week, Fulop acknowledged that he watched closed circuit TV videos of the incident. He said, “My job is different than the people that are doing the investigation. I do my best to say it how I see it.” He continued, “It’s very, very clear that the perpetrator first doesn’t go directly to the deli, he goes toward the door adjacent to it, the building and the doors adjacent to it are the yeshiva…he brought a pipe bomb and he brought 5 guns and hundreds of bullets…we know that he drove deliberately to that location. You put all things together, it’s hard to come to any other conclusion.”
As the New York Post reported, Fulop also spoke on Friday at the Stephen Siller Tunnels to Towers Foundation event to announce plans to pay off the home mortgage for Jersey City Detective Joseph Seals, who was murdered by the assailants before they attacked the kosher grocery. Fulop said, “We believe it’s fairly clear that he walks to the door directly adjacent and then he pivots. As you all know, the yeshiva and the school is directly adjacent and attached to that building. That’s number one. Number two is he brought a lot of ammunition and a lot of firearms. It’s fairly safe to conclude from that that his intentions were to do more than just murder three people. Number three, he drove to a location that is a known yeshiva and the center of that Jewish community.”
According to The New York Times, a neighbor of the assailant shown in the video said the assailant “repeatedly played audio recordings of a man the neighbor believed to be Louis Farrakhan, and sounded like he himself was growing agitated. He shouted bible verses and then chanted out his interpretations of what they meant.” The Times added, “The neighbor said the most common theme was that Mr. Anderson’s religion was the only true faith while others — specifically Catholicism and Judaism — were false. He soon heard Ms. Graham join in the chanting and said she sounded ‘coerced.’”
On Wednesday, Fulop tweeted, “We shouldn’t parse words. To stop hate + anti-semitism we need to call it out QUICKLY for what it is. Some will say don’t call it anti-semitism or a hate crime till a longer review but being Jewish myself + the grandson of holocaust survivors I know enough to call it what this is.”
We shouldn’t parse words. To stop hate + anti-semitism we need to call it out QUICKLY for what it is. Some will say don’t call it anti-semitism or a hate crime till a longer review but being Jewish myself + the grandson of holocaust survivors I know enough to call it what this is
— Steven Fulop (@StevenFulop) December 11, 2019