Jury finds mass shooter guilty of federal hate crimes in Pittsburgh synagogue massacre

PITTSBURGH — Jurors found the man accused of shooting and killing 11 worshippers at a Pittsburgh synagogue guilty on federal charges Friday.

Robert Bowers faced 63 federal charges and the possibility of the death penalty in the Oct. 27, 2018, shooting in Squirrel Hill.

Jurors signaled the court at about 11:20 a.m. that they’d reached a verdict. The jury received the case shortly after 2:30 p.m. Thursday and left for the day around 5 p.m. They deliberated for about 2 1/2 hours Friday morning.

Court reconvened shortly before noon.

The jury found Bowers guilty on the first 11 charges: obstruction of free exercise of religious beliefs resulting in death. Each charge was related to one of the 11 worshippers who was killed: Joyce Fienberg, Richard Gottfried, Rose Mallinger, Jerry Rabinowitz, Cecil and David Rosenthal, Bernice and Sylvan Simon, Daniel Stein, Melvin Wax, Irving Younger.

The jury also found him guilty on the next 11 counts of a hate crime act resulting in death, also one per victim.

The synagogue at the corner of Shady and Wilkins Avenues housed three congregations: Tree of Life, New Light, Dor Hadash. The Tree of Life congregation owned the hulking Squirrel Hill synagogue, and its name was emblazoned on the side in English and in Hebrew. “Tree of Life” became the grim moniker for the mass shooting.

Prosecutors put the extent of the carnage on full display over the course of their case, showing jurors crime scene and autopsy photos and playing frantic 911 calls from congregants inside the synagogue. One call played was from Bernice Simon. The recording captured her panicked pleas for help, her terror as more shots were fired, and her final breaths.

SWAT officers and tactical paramedics described a trail of destruction beginning at the main entrance to the massive synagogue where Bowers shot out a large glass window. Later, he would fire through an adjacent glass door toward patrol officers Dan Mead and Michael Smidga.

Some of the first responders choked back emotion through their testimony, speaking about the death Bowers left in his wake.

SWAT Officer John Persin described the smell of iron from the blood, a memory that’s stuck with him, he said. SWAT Officer Justin LaPaglia told jurors about the eerie silence in his testimony.

“They invade my thoughts every day — the violence, the smells, the sights,” Persin said.

“There were no noises whatsoever. I could hear the rifle casings on the floor,” said LaPaglia.

Bowers’ attorneys had, since opening arguments, not shied away from the fact that Bowers was the shooter.

“He shot every person he saw,” lead defense attorney Judy Clarke said in her opening statements.

Federal public defender Elisa A. Long reiterated that in her brief closing arguments Thursday afternoon.

“There is no dispute that on Oct. 27, 2018, Robert Bowers entered the Tree of Life synagogue with an AR-15 … and shot every person he saw,” she told jurors. “In the process, he killed 11 innocent people.”

Long told jurors to examine Bowers’ true intent that morning — “why he did what he did and what thought he would accomplish by doing so.”

His real intent, she said, was to stop the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, a Jewish faith-based refugee resettlement organization. Dor Hadash participated in HIAS programs. In Bowers's mind, Long said, he needed to stop Dor Hadash from supporting HIAS, who he believed was bringing “invaders” into his country.

U.S. Attorney Eric G. Olshan, in his rebuttal to the defense, balked at the idea that HIAS was the target of Bowers’ hate.

“That man, Robert Bowers, went into the Tree of Life synagogue where three congregations, not just Dor Hadash, were worshipping,” he said. “He focused on any Jew he could find to kill or try to kill. You don’t have to conclude hatred of Jews was his only reason, just the determinative one.”

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