Jersey City's mayor Steven Fulop, right, and the Director of Public Safety James Shea talk to reporters across the street from a kosher supermarket in Jersey City, N.J., Wednesday, Dec. 11, 2019. Fulop says gunmen targeted the kosher market during a shooting that killed multiple people Tuesday. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)
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Three civilians and a police officer were killed during a gun battle in Jersey City, New Jersey yesterday. The two shooters were ultimately shot and killed by police.

Initial reports — so often inaccurate in these situations — indicated that police had interrupted a drug buy or were conducting a murder investigation. The police officer was murdered by the two attackers near a cemetery in circumstances that still aren’t clear.

Jersey City’s mayor Steven Fulop, center right, talks with first responders at the scene of a shooting in Jersey City, N.J., Wednesday, Dec. 11, 2019. Fulop says gunmen targeted a kosher market during a shooting that killed multiple people Tuesday. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)

But now, according to Jersey City’s mayor, the two gunmen then drove a stolen U-Haul vehicle to a kosher market, got out, and opened fire in a clearly targeted attack.

The two dead shooters have been identified.

The two people who stormed a kosher grocery store in Jersey City with rifles, killing three people inside and also murdering a veteran detective, have been identified as David Anderson and Francine Graham, four law enforcement sources familiar with the case tell News 4.

Three sources say Anderson was a one-time follower of the Black Hebrew Israelite movement, a group whose members believe they are descendants of the ancient Israelites and may adhere to both Christian and Judaic beliefs. There was a note with religious writings in the U-Haul he and Graham allegedly drove to the scene, but a motive — including any alleged nexus to hate or terror remains under active investigation, officials say.

The motive for the attack on the market doesn’t seem to be much of a mystery.

By David Porter, Associated Press

The gunmen in a furious firefight that left six people dead in Jersey City clearly targeted a Jewish market, the mayor said Wednesday, fueling growing suspicions the bloodshed was an anti-Semitic attack.

Mayor Steven Fulop refused to call it an anti-Semitic attack but said surveillance video showed the gunmen driving slowly through the city’s streets and then stopping outside a kosher grocery store, where they calmly got out of their van and immediately opened fire.

Neither the state attorney general, who is running the investigation, nor any other law enforcement authority has confirmed the shooters targeted Jews. City Public Safety Director James Shea said Tuesday there was no indication it was terrorism. And police released no immediate information on the killers.

Emergency responders work at a kosher supermarket, the site of a shooting in Jersey City, N.J., Wednesday, Dec. 11, 2019. Jersey City Mayor Steven Fulop said authorities believe gunmen targeted the market during a shooting that killed multiple people Tuesday. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)

A police officer, three bystanders and the killers all died in the violence Tuesday afternoon in the city of 270,000 people across the Hudson River from New York City.

The shooting began near a cemetery, where Detective Joseph Seals, a 40-year-old member of a unit devoted to taking illegal guns off the street, was killed while trying to stop “bad guys,” Police Chief Michael Kelly said without elaborating.

The killers then drove a stolen rental van over a mile to the kosher market, where they used high-powered rifle fire in a drawn-out battle with police that filled the streets with the sound of heavy gunfire and turned the city into what looked like a war zone, with SWAT officers in full tactical gear swarming the neighborhood.

At the grocery store, police found five bodies — the killers and three people who apparently happened to be there at the time. Police said they were confident the bystanders were shot by the gunmen and not by police.

Fulop said a review of security camera footage has led to the conclusion that the gunmen targeted the market.

“Last night after extensive review of our CCTV system it has now become clear from the cameras that these two individuals targeted the Kosher grocery location,” Fulop tweeted.

At a later news conference, Fulop said the surveillance video shows the van moving slowly and then stopping in front of the store.

“There were multiple other people on the street so there were many other targets available to them that they bypassed to attack that place, so it was clear that was their target and they intended to harm people inside,” he said.

But Fulop cautioned: “I didn’t use the word `anti-Semitic.’ Anything else is open for investigation.”

Jewish leaders and the Anti-Defamation League, which tracks anti-Semitic attacks, expressed concern about the deaths.

New York Mayor Bill de Blasio said on MSNBC that the attack was “clearly a hate crime,” while New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo pronounced it a “deliberate attack on the Jewish community.” They announced tighter police protection of synagogues and other Jewish establishments in New York as a precaution.

In the deadliest attack on Jews in U.S. history, 11 people were killed in an October 2018 shooting at a synagogue in Pittsburgh. Last April, a gunman opened fire at a synagogue north of San Diego, killing a woman and wounding a rabbi and two others.

The kosher grocery is a central fixture in a growing community of Orthodox Jews who have been moving to Jersey City in recent years and settling in what was a mostly black section of Jersey City.

Chabad Rabbi Moshe Schapiro, who shops at the store and attends a synagogue next door, said he spoke with the store owner, Moishe Ferencz.

“He told me he had just walked out of the store into the synagogue not five feet away just before this happened, and then he couldn’t get back for hours,” Schapiro said. “His wife was inside the store. He said, ‘I hope my wife is safe.’”

The names of the victims inside the store were not immediately released, pending notification of relatives.

Police also removed what they described as a possible “incendiary device” from the van.

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67 COMMENTS

    • If only they had access to sharpened sticks, tasers or pepper spray, the NRA might have been stopped from committing this heinous, white supremacist crime.

      /snark

    • I hear if you induce yourself to vomit on rapists it supposedly deters them. Maybe that would work in NJ for this sort of attack.

  1. Sure sounds like a terrorist attack to me, no matter who did it or why. My heart goes out to the families of those killed & wounded. This sure ruins Christmas for those invovled. My God help these families.

  2. I am not saying the police are lying but I am skeptical until it is proven that the police are not making up this story to avoid law suites over the civilian deaths.

    • Question: Where exactly was President Donald J Trump yesterday at precisely 12:30 pm EST?

      THINK ABOUT IT!!!!

      • “Question: Where exactly was President Donald J Trump yesterday at precisely 12:30 pm EST?”

        I know *exactly* where Trump was, the same place he’s been since January 20, 2017.

        Living the good life, rent-free, in every Leftist’s little pin head… 😉

  3. How does that go again? The first step to solving a problem is admitting you have one…..? Start using all the resources you’ve been using to go after legal gun owners, grow a set and start prosecuting “terror groups”. Foreign AND domestic!

    • “The Black Hebrew Israelites’ motive for the attack simply could not be determined”, vowed law enforcement authorities.

  4. Bizarre thing is, the Black Hebrew Israelites have such a long & distinguished history of non-violence and peaceful dialogue.

    • Of course that’s what the propagandist media would say. They also say that only white people are capable of racism.

      “White boy, you’re next,” he warns. “All you white people get ready for war. We’re coming for you, white boys. Negroes are the real Jews. Get ready for war!”

      “there is a rising extremist sector within the Hebrew Israelite movement whose adherents believe that Jews are devilish impostors and who openly condemn whites as evil personified, deserving only death or slavery.”

      https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/intelligence-report/2008/racist-black-hebrew-israelites-becoming-more-militant

      • “All you white people get ready for war.”
        Dear people of every other race on earth….”getting ready for war” is pretty much what we do. It’s what we’ve ALWAYS done. If you think white people have engaged in war with other races, you clearly have not been paying attention to what we are willing to do to each other.
        War, and preparing for war, is what we do. It’s what we’ll always do. We’re pretty good at it. We’ll kill each other by the millions, unless you happen to give us an excuse to kill someone else instead.

        • The boomer gets all philosophical. He has Christ-denying Jewish children and wife.

          JWM – do you deny Christ?

          Nb4 you were a veteran of ZOG wars. I know.

        • Do you mean JWM or JWT? Try and keep up. My wife and kids are all Christians. Get Christ in your life man, you need it.

        • Another bigoted socialist, likely vlad, showing his ass. Boomer whatever. Why would I deny somebody I’ve never met? Makes no difference anyways. I was raised southern baptist but I claim no religion.

          Now, which of my wars was a zog war? Whatever the fuck that means.

    • Yes, I am also curious what he has to say. He was so sure of his very useful information yesterday, wasn’t he? And I’m sure he’ll be just as confident the next time and will conveniently forget about this one.

      Of course, as an actual sensible person, I don’t automatically accept this version of events either. But generally as time passes evidence tends to mount, spurious hearsay starts to dissipate and the truth begins to become more obvious.

      • Things confirmed: two black shooters, not Muslims, stolen U-Haul, criminals shot cop dead at cemetery, fled to Jewish store, cops used drone, sniper setup at school, police used school as shooting position, SWAT took fire as they approached store, 4 victims shot 3 dead, etc.

        Stuff that was confirmed incorrect: both are black males.

        Stuff that still isn’t clear: drug/gun/terror/murder investigation sparked the attack, victims did not die from police gunfire.

        I think that is pretty good accuracy during an on going situation using the internet. Much more accurate than the corporate news that was there and had access to the government to ask questions.

        I said both were black males because a cop later said they saw two black males enter the store, not a black female, but before that another cop said it was a black male and a black female. The police also got confused about them being two black males when cops were on the roof. So I went with the latest “correction” the cops put out on scene instead of the earlier info. Not my fault cops thought a short haired black woman looked like a man.

        Now we wait to see what happened at the cemetery and why, who actually shot dead the three inside and the motive for going into the store.

        I find it strange you guys hate on me when I am concerned the cops may have killed three innocent people in order to kill two criminals that killed a policeman. I didn’t know it was horrible to worry about innocent Jewish Americans like I worried about innocent brown and white Americans shot in Florida by the police.

        I guess I have to cherish the socialist/communist east coast anti gun government like we should cherish the west coast government. My bad for thinking hundreds of rounds fired into a Jewish store could end up killing Jewish people and endanger more innocent people in the neighborhood. It was wrong of me to criticize the police for using a populated school to get into a shootout.

      • I watched the security camera video from the Jewish store. It shows the black man shooting into the store and at a fleeing Jewish man. You can hear the black man fire his AR inside the store. So I think it is safe to assume, at this point, the black man killed the three inside. After he killed the three inside he tried to shoot down the Jewish man who was running out the store and down the street.

        The motive and the killing at the cemetery is still vague.

        Maybe they got caught asleep in the van when they had “illegal” guns inside and decided to shoot the cops? When they killed a cop they knew it was over for them? So the black man decided he would die in the manner he wanted and his woman tagged along?

        Some felons decide to commit an attack and die instead of going to prison for life.

    • It is iteresting that Governor Palin was castigated so viciously on this site and others for hunting caribou with her 225 Winchester because it is to low powered to kill humanely The 225 Winchester is ballistically comparable to the 5.56mm or .223 that is the most common chambering for AR-15 rifles. If you peruse an external ballistics table, you will find that the bullets from James Paddock’s AR-15s had lost about 90% of their kinetic energy by the time they traversed the distance from the Mandalay Bay hotel to the festival grounds.

  5. Yeah, not buying it. I understand that reports can be unreliable in the very beginning of situations like this, but rarely do they go from a “sting operation gone wrong”, to an “act of terrorism”. Something don’t smell right.

    • Perhaps what smells wrong is that people, as they always do, repeat rumors that have no evidence in the absence of actual facts and then continue the narrative in ways that conform to their ideology. This happens again and again yet some decide this must show a massive conspiracy instead of the more simple conclusion- that first reports should not be relied upon in the wake of a critical event like this.

      Even now I would be skeptical of information coming out. It’s still pretty early, especially to be talking about motive. If they’ve found a manifesto or something, great, but until I see it I’m still holding off on putting this into a neat category.

  6. More incel-white-cis-Trump-inspired violence I see.
    The way the media, schools and political left tell it they’re the only people who commit such acts.
    The only reason anyone other than would ever commit any crime at all is because disenfranchisement at teh hands of the former pushed them to it.
    Newsflash, the diversity you’re looking for is in the crazies. Crazy is a rainbow of colors and beliefs. A homicidal kumbaya if you will.

  7. We have yet to see photos of the perps. Perhaps the police do not want to reveal that the perps look like they might be President Obama’s bastard son and daughter?

    • Very, very, very light-skinned Black Hebrew Israelites.
      A casual observer might even say they’re ‘white’.
      Others might reasonably misidentify them as actual neo-nazi skinheads.
      It’s really an “eye-of-the-beholder” thing, you see.

  8. Breaking reports now indicate the BGs wanted to do some killing at the yeshiva close by. 50 young kids were saved. And it turns out that the son of former NYPD commissioner Bernard Kerik was one of the cops who finally killed the BGs.

  9. Now the jewish lawmaker Loretta Weinberg and the rest of the elected politicians in NJ can start even more gun control. Now perhaps she and the others can come out of the closet and admit they want the blacks disarmed.

    But those same jews will always support the KKK marching through black neighborhoods while carrying guns. To prove they support the 1st amendment. But they have never supported law abiding blacks with guns.

    Criminals, whatever color will always have guns. So will the rich. And politicians like Loretta Weinberg. The jewish Diana Feinstein still has her 38 revolver.

    btw
    The jewish right wing radio host Michael Savage is on record in 2019 saying “you don’t need an AR-15”. But he still has his.
    I’m a fan and am very disappointed in him.

  10. I would not take the word of the mayor as gospel, he’s an outsider looking in at the people doing the actual investigating and looking at the actual evidence.

    He needs it to be targeted against Jews because that rallies people behind gun control. He doesn’t have any idea what happens, he’s just substituting his own narrative.

  11. Gun Control= only the criminals have guns..had everybody on the street and in that shop been armed lives of good people would of been saved!

    Guns are for killing bad people!

  12. Whenever it appears the bad guys shot the victims the police will say so without clear evidence, but if there is indications the police shot them they like to wait until the investigation is done. We don’t know when those three people died. There was people in the store that made it out and some of them were Jewish. I heard the store owner is one of the dead. I have yet to hear from a woman and a man that ran out the store.

    Don’t they have video inside of the store? Why only release video outside?

    Those two don’t appear to have that much ammo to fire a thousand rounds. Majority of the gunfire must have came from the police. Most of it was AR gunfire, which makes it much more difficult to determine whom shot the three people.

    The police haven’t confirmed when the three people died. They only speculate it was the shooters that killed them. That would mean they have no video of inside the store or they are lying to the public.

    I know the government of New York has been waiting for this type of attack so they can finally release their new hate crime terror unit and push for gun control for people who speak hate.

    It’s likely the shooters killed the three inside, but seeing that Jewish people made it out of the store we need evidence confirming the shooters in fact murdered those three. We can’t simply move on based off of police saying they did not kill the three inside when it’s very possible they shot them after firing hundreds of rounds into the store. They did use a school with children in it to shoot into the store, which I don’t think they have disclosed to the public yet and they are not being very clear as to why the plain clothes detectives met the two in the cemetery.

  13. Build the wall around Jersey, it’s a cesspool. California sucks too, but at least it has some pretty areas, Jersey really has nothing good.

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