KTLA REPORTS: Police investigating a double shooting at a synagogue are looking into whether the shootings were related to a business or personal dispute.
Detectives now believe one of the victims was the target, and that a second victim may have been shot because he witnessed the attack.
The shooting occurred Thursday at the Adat Yeshurun Valley Sephardic synagogue in the 12000 block of Sylvan Street.
The unidentified gunman walked into the underground parking garage at the synagogue shortly before 6:20 a.m., said LAPD Deputy Chief Michel Moore.
He approached a man in his 40s who was parking his car to attend prayer service.
“Without any words,” Moore said, the suspect shot the man in the leg. He then fired at a second man in his 40s who had also arrived for prayers.
The second victim was also wounded in the leg. The gunman then fled from the garage.
The victims are identified as 38-year-old Mori Ben-Nissan and 53-year-old Allen Lasry.
The men were taken to Providence Holy Cross Medical Center and Valley Presbyterian Hospital, said Rabbi Yossi Malka, a chaplain with the LAPD.
Ben-Nissan is currently at Holy Cross in Mission Hills, where he is recovering from surgery.
Police initially detained a teenager near the temple because he matched a loose description of the attacker, who was described as a black man wearing a hoodie.
He was later released.
Detective Steve Castro says the student has no connection to the shooting that took place Thursday.
All schools in the search area, including an elementary school affiliated with the synagogue, have been notified by police to activate their security plans, Moore said, adding that it is up to the schools to determine whether that includes a lockdown situation.
There are some 18 synagogues in the North Hollywood area. Adat Yeshurun is located in an area with a large Orthodox Jewish population, with many kosher stores nearby.
Adat Yeshurun is the spritual home of families from Cuba, Argentina, Panama, Guatemala, Mexico, Morocco, Algiers, Tunisia, Libya and Israel.
(Source: KTLA-TV / Los Angeles)
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6 Responses
In other words, we really don’t know why these men were shot, even though so many people were so sure they were able to read the gunman’s mind and declare this to be a “hate crime.”
Is there any way to leave the words Fashtunkana Cro-ss out of this artical?
#1 haifagirl
In the original headline, did you miss the word “possible?”
The police investigate a crime as this, with no other apparent motive, as a possible hate crime, until another motive becomes apparent.
You seem really stuck on this point…and YOU were the only one who mentioned reading minds.
#2
That’s the name of the hospital, what else should we call it? I should probably also tell my gardener, Jesús Lopez, that from now on I’m calling him Yushka.
#3
No, I did not miss it. But there were several people who jumped on the hate crime bandwagon.
Wouldn’t a better headline have been “Two men shot outside LA shul”? At least it would have been 100% accurate.
And the reason I’m stuck on it is because most of the American public has been brainwashed by the government with the help of a complicit media, and have forgotten how to think for themselves. If they hadn’t, they would realize that once the government defined a “hate crime” it meant they are prosecuting thoughts. How far is it from there to the thought police? Do you want to live in such a country? I don’t.