[Regnum] A shooting occurred at a synagogue in the US state of Michigan. The Detroit Free Press reported this on March 12, citing local police.
The incident occurred at approximately 12:30 PM local time (7:30 PM Moscow time) at Temple Israel. According to Click On Detroit, an unknown individual intentionally crashed a car into the synagogue, which then caused a fire at the scene.
"FBI officers and partners in Michigan are responding to a suspected hit-and-run shooting at a synagogue in West Bloomfield Township, Michigan," FBI Director Cash Patel wrote on social media.
There were no reports of casualties. However, law enforcement agencies clarified that the attacker himself may have sustained injuries.
As CNN journalists note, a school is also located on the synagogue grounds. Following the incident, all Bloomfield Hills schools were placed on high security alert. Residents were asked to stay away from the scene.
| Courtesy of Skidmark: |
[Daily Mail, where America gets its news] The man accused of plowing into a Michigan synagogue on Thursday recently lost multiple family members in an Israeli strike on Lebanon.
Ayman Mohamad Ghazali, 41, allegedly drove his truck filled with explosives and mortar shells into the Temple Israel in West Bloomfield Township, which also serves as a preschool, igniting a blaze.
One security officer was struck and injured by the vehicle, and the attacker was shot dead by a guard at the synagogue at around 12.20pm. The van caught fire and severely burned the suspect's body.
| The synagogue got its money’s worth: they stopped the attacker dead outside the before he killed. Burn in Hell after burning here on Earth, dude. |
The suburb's mayor, Mo Baydoun, said Ghazali 'lost several members of his own family, including his niece and nephew, in an Israeli attack on their home in Lebanon.'
| And therefore he attacked completely unrelated American Jews, who probably hadn’t voted for President Trump. Got it. |
| What odds that at least some of our dead miscreant’s relations were Hezbollah, dear Reader, and therefore needed killing? |
The unnamed CBS source added that Ghazali's ex-wife said he phoned her shortly before the attack, asking her to take care of their children.
Authorities said they found the suspect's body inside the vehicle armed with a rifle.
'He breached the building, drove down the hall, and he was engaged by security,' Oakland County Sheriff Mike Bouchard said of the armed attacker at a news conference.
Ghazali was born in Lebanon in 1985 and entered the United States through Detroit Metropolitan International Airport on May 10, 2011, after alien relative and fiancé petitions filed in December 2009 were approved in April 2010, according to the New York Post.
He then applied for naturalization on October 20, 2015 and became a citizen on February 5, 2016, under the Obama administration, the outlet said.
Federal authorities said at a news conference that they are probing the horrific incident as a 'targeted act of violence' against the Jewish community.
No students or staff were injured in the attack, but a security guard was taken to the hospital after being struck by the vehicle. He is expected to recover.
Thirty law enforcement officers were also rushed to a local hospital for smoke inhalation, Oakland County Sheriff Mike Bouchard said at the news conference.
'When all of our people collectively went in that building to search out the threat, to remove innocent, a lot of them took in significant amount of smoke inhalation, and they’re at the hospital being treated,' Bouchard said.
The synagogue 'became engulfed' in flames.
Authorities said they then received a call about an active shooter at the synagogue at 12.19pm, and West Bloomfield police were at the scene within five minutes.
Photos shared online showed a large police presence on the scene with smoke coming out of windows and a vent on the roof.
Scores of police vehicles from neighboring departments, a SWAT team, bomb technicians and bomb-sniffing dogs also responded to the scene.
The synagogue is a reform Jewish place of worship that was open at the time of the attack. It has one of the largest congregations in the country.
One woman who spoke to WDIV, named Lisa, said that the preschool was in use at the time.
Sheriff Bouchard said law enforcement had been on high alert since the start of the US-Israeli war on Iran nearly two weeks ago.
'We've been talking for two weeks about the potential, sadly, of this happening,' he said. 'So there was no lack of preparation.
The sheriff added: 'All Jewish facilities in the area are going to have a lot of extra presence around it until we figure this out.'
The Jewish Federation of Detroit has advised all Jewish organizations in the area 'to go into lockout protocol - nobody in or out of your building.'
FBI Detroit led an Active Shooter Attack Prevention and Preparedness (ASAPP) training for the clergy and staff of Temple Israel in West Bloomfield in late January, nearly two months before Thursday's attack.
'The FBI course combines lessons learned from years of research and employs scenario-based exercises to help participants practice the decision-making process of the Run, Hide, Fight principles and take necessary actions for survival,' the agency wrote in a post on X.
'We appreciate them for having us. Our Division has partnered with many organizations in Michigan and is committed to protecting schools, workplaces, houses of worship, medical facilities, transportation centers, government facilities, other public gathering sites, and communities.'
Sheriff Bouchard has praised Temple Israel security for their response to the active shooter.
'I'm deeply proud of the response not only from the security that was on site but also of all the police officers and the firefighters that are here now,' she said.
'Training certainly helped to mitigate what happened here today.
'Everything that was supposed to happen, happened. Security did their job, and then the responders did theirs.'
| My synagogue shares a building with the Cincinnati Jewish community center. When the complex was designed and built a few years after 9/11, a dedicated satellite police office was put in just inside the entrance — built at the JCC’s cost to the police department’s specifications. At the other end, the synagogue entry has security cameras, an intercom, and a window with security glass so that the office staff can see and safely talk to anyone who wants to enter the security airlock entrance before they remotely unlock the door to visitors — in case anyone wants tips on hardening their church. |