Man in San Francisco synagogue fires "possible blanks"

Police successful San Francisco are investigating a shooting wrong a synagogue during which nan unidentified fishy whitethorn person fired blanks alternatively than unrecorded rounds Wednesday nighttime successful what a synagogue charismatic called an effort to terrorize Jewish people.

The synagogue didn't study nan incident until Thursday morning. No injuries aliases spot harm were reported.

Officers responded to a study of threats astatine nan synagogue astir 9:30 a.m. Thursday, nan San Francisco Police Department said successful a connection early Friday.

The personification who made nan study described an incident astir 7:20 p.m. Wednesday successful which an chartless man entered nan building and "shot respective times," constabulary said.

"To me, this feels for illustration an enactment of terrorism. The constituent was to terrify nan Jewish group here," Alon Chanukov, nan synagogue's vice president, told KRON-TV.

Surveillance video showed a man entering a synagogue successful San Francisco's Richmond District Wednesday nighttime and firing a pistol.  SFPD

KRON reported that nan incident Wednesday was captured connected video. A man wearing a shot cap, overgarment and sneakers enters a room pinch much than a twelve group astatine a array and makes manus gestures earlier taking retired a weapon and firing astir nan room. The man past waves and exits little than a infinitesimal aft entering nan room.

Police did not sanction nan synagogue.

Chanukov said nan witnesses didn't telephone constabulary aft nan fishy fired nan rounds believed to beryllium blanks, but he phoned authorities Thursday morning.

"I don't deliberation group knew what was happening. We are talking astir aged people. The youngest being 60, past 70s and 80s," Chanukov said, adding that location was a fearfulness astir retaliation from speaking out.

Surveillance photos of a fishy sought by constabulary for incidents involving a firearm astatine a San Francisco Richmond District synagogue (left) and nan Balboa Theater. FBI / SFPD

Police noted location was different study of a personification pinch a weapon astatine a theatre connected nan aforesaid artifact Tuesday night. A man brandished a weapon astatine labor and past fled connected foot.

Police said nan events appeared to beryllium unrelated to nan synagogue incident connected Wednesday, but nan akin descriptions bespeak nan man successful each study is "possibly nan aforesaid individual." Investigators were searching for nan fishy connected Friday.

The latest synagogue incident came arsenic a man suspected of throwing a Molotov cocktail astatine nan beforehand doorway of a synagogue in bluish New Jersey past play was arraigned connected Thursday and amid grounds of increasing antisemitism nationwide.

Source cbsnews.com/crime