Several victims of the horrific attack at a New Jersey Jewish market Tuesday have been identified as a hero police officer, a dedicated mother of three and a rabbinical student.
Detective Joe Seals was a 39-year-old father of five and a 15-year veteran of the Jersey City police department. He was gunned down in a cemetery a mile from the market as he approached the suspects.
Moshe Deutsch, 24, of Brooklyn, was shopping at the store when he was killed. He was a rabbinical student who was remembered as “extremely kind and generous” and a “go-to person when his peers needed help," Rabbi David Niederman told The New York Times.
Mindel Ferencz, 33, was a mother of three who, with her husband, ran the kosher supermarket that authorities now believe was specifically targeted by the assailants.
One of the gunmen involved in the shooting was linked on Wednesday to the Black Hebrew Israelite movement, a designated a hate group that has published anti-Semitic posts online, a law enforcement official told the Times. Police found an anti-Semitic "rambling manifesto" along with a pipe bomb, in their vehicle.
Surveillance video shows as the killers approached the market in a stolen U-Haul, according to authorities.
“We can see the van moving through Jersey City streets slowly,” police said in a press conference Wednesday morning. “The perpetrators stopped in front of there, calmly opened the door with two long rifles and began firing from the street.”
As gunfire in the store continued, Detective Joseph Kerik, the son of former NYPD Commissioner Bernie Kerik, and two other officers plowed into the market with an armored vehicle.
"They ran the front of the market where the guns where, they came up with weapons and Joe and the two detectives opened fire, killing them [the suspects] both," Bernie Kerik told Inside Edition. Two suspects were identified as David Anderson and Francine Graham.
Evidence of the chaos at the market was still apparent Wednesday. The entire front of the store is blown out and food can be seen scattered on the floor.
The hours-long gun battle turned the streets of Jersey City into a combat zone, as 43 schools were placed on lockdown. The students returned to school Wednesday.
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