Jersey City Shooting: Suspect Published Anti-Semitic Posts, Official Says
An assailant involved in a prolonged firefight in Jersey City, N.J., that left six people dead, including one police officer, had published anti-Semitic and anti-police posts online and investigators believe the attack was motivated by those sentiments, a law enforcement official familiar with the case said on Wednesday.
Investigators also found a manifesto-style note inside the assailants’ van, the law enforcement official and another official familiar with the case said.
The document, which was described as brief and “rambling,” suggested no clear motive for the shooting. Investigators also found a live pipe bomb inside the vehicle, the law enforcement official said.
The law enforcement official could not provide more details about the suspect’s online posts or where they had been published. He said that investigators were still reviewing that information.Mr. Fulop has not said whether the violence was related to anti-Semitism, though in a related post on Twitter, he said that “hate and anti-Semitism have never had a place” in Jersey City.
Jersey City’s public safety director, James Shea, said the attackers’ motives were still being investigated.
Initially, investigators said they believed that the attackers randomly chose the market and that the episode was not a hate crime; Mr. Shea added on Tuesday that there was “no indication” of terrorism.
By Tuesday night, however, Mr. Fulop, said on Twitter that officials had come to believe that the assailants had “targeted the location they attacked.”