Ungodly: The Pittsburgh Massacre and the Politics of Hate

On October 27, 2018, worshippers gathered at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, for Shabbat morning services. The synagogue, a staple of the Jewish-American community in Pittsburgh, was a welcoming congregation, allowing Jews and non-Jews alike to join them in their services.

But that morning, the congregation would find itself in the crosshairs of a plague that has swept America for centuries. And before the day was over, the Tree of Life would become a place of horror and death at the hands of a violent terrorist fueled by hatred and division.

The perpetrator of this massacre acted alone when he marched into the synagogue, rifle in hand, and proceeded to slaughter 11 innocent people in their house of worship. But the reasons behind his act of violence were anything but unique to him. The hate-fueled lies that set into motion the events of October 27, 2018, had long been pushed not only by like-minded extremists on the fringes of the internet, but political pundits given a national megaphone by news media and politicians who parroted their lies.

And while the man behind the rampage at the Tree of Life has been held accountable and now awaits his inevitable end, those who fueled the lies behind his act of terror are still ever-present, continuing to spread the same hatred, malice, and bigotry that has caused so many countless deaths.

The Banality of Evil

At 9:46 AM on Saturday, October 27, 2018, a 46-year-old truck driver named Robert Bowers parked his green 2016 Hyundai Sonata in a handicapped parking spot outside the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Morning services were about to begin inside, but Bowers wasn't there to join the worshippers. He was there to commit a massacre - the culmination of years of bigotry, malice, and hatred that had been building within him.

Bowers was armed with five weapons: three .357-caliber Glock pistols, a 12-gauge Mossberg 590A1 shotgun, and a .223-caliber Colt SP-1 semi-automatic rifle. He carried over 150 rounds of ammunition, most of them special armor-piercing bullets designed to penetrate police vests. In less than five minutes, Bowers would embark on a hate-fueled rampage that would leave the entire nation reeling in shock.

Robert Bowers' driver's license photo. A longtime neo-Nazi stooped in antisemitic and racist conspiracy theories, Bowers was heavily radicalized into extremist ideology through the internet, where he frequently shared conspiracist material with other white supremacists.

Bowers was not a new breed of extremist, but he was no less dangerous or vile. He left a long internet trail chronicling his radicalization into far-right, racist, and neo-Nazi ideologies. Posting on the alt-media site Gab - which is popular among white supremacists and neo-Nazis - Bowers had shared extremist material for years and discussed his hateful fantasies with other like-minded extremists.

Robert Bowers' profile on Gab, a social media platform popular among neo-Nazis and white supremacists. On Gab, Bowers would frequently post racist memes and spread antisemitic conspiracy theories about "Jewish power".

Bowers became a follower of Christian Identity, a virulently racist and antisemitic theology that believes white people are the true "children of Israel", that non-whites are subhuman "mud people", and that Jews are the literal "children of Satan". Christian Identity theology has influenced numerous racist and antisemitic terrorist organizations such as the Aryan Nations, the Ku Klux Klan, the Posse Comitatus, and The Order.

"Jews are the children of Satan (John 8:44)", Bowers wrote on his Gab profile, referencing a Bible verse which is commonly cited by Christian Identity adherents seeking to vilify Jewish people. "The lord Jesus Christ is come in the flesh". 

(Author's Note: The Bible verse in question, John 8:44, describes Jesus berating a group of Jewish elders as being "of [their] father the Devil". Though the modern consensus by mainstream Christian theologians is that Jesus was referring specifically to the individual pro-Roman Jewish authorities in Judea, and not the Jewish people as a whole (as Jesus was himself Jewish), this passage has been used countless times by antisemites to justify hatred, persecution, and violence against Jews for centuries.)

Bowers' antisemitic rhetoric would only continue to intensify as time went on. In another post, Bowers posted a picture of a flaming oven with the caption "Make Ovens 1488°F Again" - 1488 being a reference to the notorious "14 words" coined by neo-Nazi terrorist David Lane ("We must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children") and 88 being numerical code for "HH" or "Heil Hitler".

"Just want to put this psa [sic] out there for all the vile degenerate oven dodgers. the goyim know [sic]. this is becoming increasingly obvious [sic]. eventually it will not be safe here for you and you will be unable to leave [sic]. it takes time to convert your stuff to shekels and flee. time is critical. that it all [sic].", Bowers wrote on Gab about a month before the shooting.

Bowers also became enamored with a toxic, conspiracist-fueled brand of isolationism and non-interventionism common among many fringe figures in the anti-war movement. He came to believe that the Holocaust was a hoax created by the Jews to justify the creation of Israel and garner international sympathy. Bowers often posted memes and comments which claimed that Jewish "warmongers" controlled America and were responsible for America being involved in foreign wars in which US soldiers were "sent to die for Israel". "What is good for Jew is not good for you", he wrote.

One of the many antisemitic memes shared by Robert Bowers. This one repeats a decades-old antisemitic and isolationist canard that Jews force America into foreign wars for Israel - a baseless conspiracy theory that is nonetheless all too common among fringe figures in the anti-war movement.

Though he had initially been a supporter of President Donald Trump, Bowers became disillusioned with the President over his support of Israel and his somewhat hawkish foreign policy against Iran. Trump, Bowers would say, was "controlled by the Jews" - particularly his Jewish son-in-law, Jared Kushner - and was allowing "neoconservatives" to push America into "endless foreign wars for Israel". "Trump is a globalist, not a nationalist", Bowers would post on Gab. "There is no #MAGA as long as there is a kike infestation".

Above all, Bowers harbored a hatred of immigration. He believed that the influx of non-white immigrants into the United States was an "invasion" and an attempt by the Jews to genocide the white race. On Gab, Bowers would often reference HIAS - the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, a Jewish pro-immigrant foundation - as being the masterminds behind this so-called "invasion".
"I have noticed a change in people saying 'illegals' that now say 'invaders'. I like this", he wrote on one post. "Daily Reminder:", he added, "Diversity means chasing down the last white person".

Many others online shared Bowers' extremist and xenophobic views, and exchanged racist videos, memes, and literature with him. But, as time went on, Bowers became more and more frustrated by the apparent lack of willingness by his fellow online white supremacists to take action. Bowers was convinced that it was his duty as a "soldier of God" to wage war against the Jews, who, in his mind, were waging war against the white race. To Bowers, violence against Jews was not only justified; it was essential.

The .223-caliber Colt SP-1 rifle and three .357-caliber Glock pistols carried by Robert Bowers into the Tree of Life synagogue.

Now, as he sat in his car outside the Tree of Life Synagogue on this Saturday morning, Bowers was ready to take his hate to the real world. He had been planning his rampage for weeks, and now he would finally act on the festering hate that consumed his soul. Before departing, Bowers once again took to Gab to post a final message.

Robert Bowers' final message, posted to Gab just one minute before he began his rampage.

"HIAS likes to bring invaders in that kill our people. I can't sit by and watch my people get slaughtered", Bowers posted at 9:49 AM. "Screw your optics. I'm going in."

Terror in the House of God

At 9:50 AM, Bowers marched towards the front of the building, wearing a gray coat, cargo pants, and armed with his Colt SP-1 rifle and three handguns. He left his Mossberg 590A1 shotgun in his car.

As Bowers approached the building, he spotted Cecil Rosenthal, 59, standing in a lunchroom. Rosenthal - who was developmentally disabled - worked as a greeter in the synagogue and often handed out flyers to other congregants. He likely never saw the gunman who ended his life.

Cecil Rosenthal, 59, was a greeter at the Tree of Life synagogue who often handed out community flyers to other worshippers. He was the first victim of the massacre.

Bowers raised his rifle, took aim, and fired five rounds through the window, hitting Rosenthal five times in the head and back and shattering the glass. The man fell to the floor, dead - the first victim in a massacre that would leave the entire nation reeling in shock.

Robert Bowers first shot through this front window, killing worshipper Cecil Rosenthal

Rabbi Jonathan Perlman in the New Light Congregation heard the gunshots and immediately recognized the sounds for what they were. He ushered a group of worshippers - 88-year-old Melvin Wax, 76-year-old Barry Werber, and Caroline Black - into the back of a storage closet. Shutting the door, Rabbi Perlman then went to direct other congregants to safety, unaware that the gunman was heading in his direction.

Robert Bowers first targeted the New Light Congregation located in the basement of the synagogue. He murdered four people in this area.

Dr. Jerry Rabinowitz, who was part of the adjoining Dor Hadash congregation a floor above the New Light Congregation, also heard the gunfire. Instinctively, his medical training kicked in. He was a trained doctor, experienced in saving lives. If people were hurt, he would need to get to them. He and his friend, Dan Leger, immediately ran towards the sound of gunshots.

Daniel Stein, 71, and Richard Gottfried, 65, were murdered in the kitchen of the New Light Congregation

Proceeding through the entrance, Bowers marched downstairs, where the New Light Congregation had gathered for morning worship. Bowers entered the congregation at approximately 9:54 AM, only four minutes after first opening fire. He passed by the storage closet and entered the adjoining kitchen, where he came upon 65-year-old Richard Gottfried and 71-year-old Daniel Stein as they hid behind a metal stove. Without hesitation, Bowers raised his rifle and shot Stein twice through the thigh and chest. As Gottfried tried to crawl to safety, the gunman shot him eight times in the back, torso, and head. Both men died instantly.

The kitchen in the New Light Congregation, where Bowers shot and killed Richard Gottfriend and Daniel Stein. Two shell casings from Bowers' rifle can be seen on the floor.

Bowers briefly paused in his firing as he walked out of the kitchen, and Melvin Wax - erroneously believing the gunman to have left - cautiously opened the door of the storage closet to peer outside.

It was a fatal mistake. Bowers raised his rifle and shot the elderly man twice, and Melvin Wax collapsed to the floor. Standing over his victim, Bowers pressed the barrel of his rifle against Melvin's chest and fired a third round through his heart, killing him. The gunman then peered into the open closet, rifle at the ready.

Melvin Wax, 88, was killed after emerging from his hiding place, erroneously believing the gunman to be gone.

Despite seeing his friend gunned down before his very eyes, Barry Werber remained silent and still. The 76-year-old man stared at the long, black barrel of Bowers' rifle as he lay flat against the wall, barely four feet from the shooter. Further inside the closet, Caroline Black lay on the floor, carefully staying out of the light from the open door.

Melvin Wax and two other worshippers hid in this storage closet in the basement of the synagogue during the shooting. Melvin Wax died in the massacre; his companions in the closet survived.

By a stroke of luck, Bowers didn't notice either congregant. After pausing a minute, he turned around and walked back towards the stairs.

At the top of the stairs, Dr. Rabinowitz and Dan Leger had been following the sounds of gunshots, looking for wounded victims. As he didn't have a cellphone, Leger went towards a phone by the entrance to call 911. Rabinowitz raced down the stairs where he came face-to-face with the gunman.

Bowers fired in rapid succession at Dr. Rabinowitz, hitting him in the torso. The 66-year-old doctor tumbled down the stairs, and Bowers shot him once more through the back of the head, killing him. Aiming up the stairs, Bowers shot Dan Leger once in the abdomen as he tried to get to a phone to call police. Leger fell onto the stairs, critically wounded and bleeding badly. As he lay wounded, the 70-year-old retired nurse believed that he was dying.

Dr. Jerry Rabinowitz, 66, a trained physician, raced from safety towards the sound of gunfire to search for wounded victims. He was murdered by Robert Bowers as he entered the New Light Congregation. 

Bowers had fired approximately twenty-six rounds. Four people lay dead or dying. Leger lay critically wounded at the top of the stairs, playing dead. Only five minutes had elapsed since the gunman entered, but his rampage had just begun. The gunman stepped over Leger's prone body and reentered the lobby, looking for more people to kill.

In the Tree of Life congregation, Rabbi Hazzan Jeffrey Myers had recognized the gunshots for what they were. He ushered several congregants to safety, but, unfortunately, eight elderly worshippers were unable to move fast enough to escape. Myers now had to hide them from the gunman.

"Be quiet", he whispered to the congregants as he dialed 911 on his cellphone. "Don't say a word. Don't move."

"We have an active shooter in the building", Rabbi Myers told the dispatcher at the other end of the phone. "Please send someone. I think they have a shotgun".

As the other worshippers fled the chapel, David Rosenthal - the brother of the deceased Cecil Rosenthal - realized that his brother was still in the synagogue. David and Cecil were inseparable, and David refused to leave without his brother. He turned around and ran back inside to find him.

David Rosenthal would never leave the synagogue alive.

-

At 9:54, the first notice of an active shooter went out over the Pittsburgh Police Department radio.
"Thirty-four twenty-three, thirty-four twenty-four", called out the dispatcher. "Five-Eight-Nine-Eight Wilkins Avenue. The complainant says they have an active shooter in the building. A second call says they, uh, are being attacked. They have shotguns. Multiple gunshots are heard from the lobby, possibly 20 to 30 shots".

Police officers from a substation only two blocks away immediately raced towards the synagogue, but it was too late.

The Pervin Chapel, home of the Tree of Life congregation in the synagogue. The worst of Bowers' massacre occurred in this room.

-

Bowers entered the Tree of Life congregation at 9:57, and immediately came upon the worshippers inside. "All Jews must die!", the murderer screamed with rage. He rapidly fired approximately 16 rounds from his rifle at a group of worshippers cowering by the entrance, killing 75-year-old Joyce Fienberg and 69-year-old Irving Younger with shots to the chest and head. He then shot David Rosenthal - who had reentered the synagogue to find his brother - twice in the head and back, killing the terrified man as he tried to crawl to safety.

The six victims murdered in the Pervin Chapel: David Rosenthal, 55; Joyce Fienberg, 75; Irving Younger, 69; Rose Mallinger, 97; Sylvan Simon, 86; and Bernice Simon; 84.

Bowers walked forward into the synagogue and proceeded down the rows of pews. He spotted 97-year-old Rose Mallinger and her daughter, Andrea Wedner, trying to hide under a pew bench. The gunman fired at the pair, killing Rose with a shot that blew apart her face. Another round tore through Andrea's arm as she hid under the body of her mother.

Shell casings lie amidst the pews in the Pervin Chapel. Bowers gunned down six helpless worshippers in the chapel as they tried to hide under the benches.

Proceeding down the aisle, Bowers spotted 84-year-old Bernice Simon and her husband, 86-year-old Sylvan Simon, hiding under a pew. The gunman aimed his rifle at the couple and shot Sylvan Simon four times in the head and back, killing him instantly. "My husband's been shot!", Bernice cried out. She tried to stop her husband's bleeding with a prayer shawl before she herself was cut down by a single gunshot that tore through her upper chest and blasted apart her heart. The Simon couple died in each other's arms, in the same synagogue where they had been married some sixty years earlier.

A Jewish prayer book, torn apart by a bullet, lies on the floor of the Pervin Chapel.

The time was now 9:58 AM. Bowers had fatally shot 11 people in the span of approximately eight minutes. Having run out of people to kill in the Synagogue, Bowers decided to head back to his car.

The shooter headed for the doors, where patrol officers had just begun to arrive on scene. In the lobby, the shooter ejected his rifle's 40-round magazine - which still contained three live rounds - and dropped it to the floor. He inserted a partially-loaded 20-round magazine into the rifle, accidentally ejecting a live round from his gun in the process. He was ready to kill again.

Firefight

Officers Daniel Mead and Michael Smigda had been on morning patrol when the call came out that an active shooter was present in the Tree of Life Synagogue. As they were only two blocks away from the building, Mead and Smigda were the first patrol officers to arrive on the scene. A third officer, Police Commander Jason Lando, pulled in right after them.

Neither officer heard shots as they arrived, but both Smigda and Mead approached the doors with their guns drawn. Both officers saw that a large glass window on the side of the building had been shot out, and a few terrified congregants who had escaped the building now lingered outside.

"If you have a vehicle, get out of here now!", Mead ordered the congregants as he and his partner moved towards the door.

The time was now 9:59. Officer Mead was approaching the door when he found himself staring down the barrel of Robert Bowers' assault rifle. Immediately, Bowers fired seven shots through the glass doors of the synagogue, at near point-blank range. A round tore through Officer Mead's left arm, a few inches above his wrist, shattering the bone. "Four Ten, I've been fucking shot!", Mead yelled over his radio as he ran to cover. "Four Ten, I need a medic! I've been shot through the left hand! FUCK!"

"Hold the perimeter! Hold the perimeter!", Lando yelled over the radio. "We're under fire! We're under fire! He's got an automatic weapon! He's firing at us from the synagogue!"

Robert Bowers shot through this glass door at responding police officers, wounding two of them

Officer Smigda ducked out of the way as a round went past his head. He sprinted to an electric box near a first-floor window by the entrance and took cover. "Officer down, front door!", he called through his radio as he peered into the window. Spotting Bowers still standing at the entrance, the officer aimed his .45-caliber Glock 21 pistol through the window and fired three shots at the gunman.

Bowers lurched back, then shifted his aim towards Officer Smigda. The murderer fired three rounds from his rifle back at the officer. Smigda shot back twice more, hitting Bowers once in the torso. Wounded, Bowers abandoned the gunfight and retreated up the stairs out of sight. 

"Every available unit in the city needs to get here now!", Officer Lando spoke over his radio. "All units, hold a perimeter! We're taking on AK-47 fire from out the front of the synagogue! We are pinned down by gunfire! He is firing out the front of the building with an automatic weapon!".

It was then that Smigda felt something warm and wet running down the back of his neck. The officer realized that a piece of shrapnel from a bullet fragment had cut through his face and ear, which were bleeding. Smigda retreated from the window and moved to cover behind a parked car, where a paramedic taped up his wounded ear. The officer kept his gun trained on the entrance.

Officer Mead's wounds were far more serious. The rifle shot had blown clean through his left arm, which was covered with blood, tissue, and fragments of bone. His left hand had nearly been torn off. Mead was in agony.

"FUUUUUUCK!!!", the officer shrieked as he stumbled away from the entrance, his mangled, bloodied arm hanging limply at his side. "That fucking bastard! He shot me right through the fucking front door!"

"FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK!", Mead continued to scream as other officers led him to safety.

Pittsburgh Police Officer Daniel Mead stumbles down the sidewalk, severely wounded by a shot to the left arm that nearly blew off his hand. Though Mead would save his hand, he never regained full function of it.

More and more patrol officers - along with several ambulances - began to arrive on scene. The officers knew that they were vastly outgunned by the shooter, with inferior weapons and armor. They couldn't enter the building and confront him yet; they would have to wait for SWAT.

Patrol officers lead a fleeing worshipper to safety as they establish a perimeter around the synagogue. Outgunned, patrol officers had to wait for SWAT to arrive before entering the building.

Inside the synagogue, the wounded Robert Bowers ejected his empty 20-round magazine from his rifle and dropped it on the stairs as he moved up to the third floor. He reloaded his rifle with another 20-round magazine, which was only partially loaded. The gunman was running out of ammunition for his rifle, but he still had three .357-caliber Glock pistols on him. On the third floor, Bowers entered an L-shaped classroom - Room 11 - and hid against the back wall. He knew that SWAT was on the way, and though he was wounded and running low on ammunition, he wasn't yet ready to surrender. His rampage was not yet over.

Robert Bowers discarded an empty 20-round magazine onto the stairs as he retreated to the third floor following his gunfight with patrol officers. He barricaded himself in a nearby classroom, where he would later face off with SWAT.

Carnage

The first SWAT teams from the Pittsburgh Police Department arrived at 10:12 AM. Equipped with high-powered rifles and body armor, they were better prepared to confront the shooter still holed up in the synagogue. Two ten-man SWAT teams gathered outside the building; one at the main entrance and one at a side entrance. Terrified worshippers were still filing out of the building and into the arms of police as SWAT prepared to enter the synagogue. Police drones hovered over the synagogue, filming the SWAT teams as they cautiously approached the buildings, using armored vans as cover.

Two SWAT teams approach the Tree of Life Synagogue, using armored police vans as cover. Bowers' green Hyundai Sonata can be seen in one of the handicapped lanes, with its doors and trunk open.

At 10:29, the first SWAT team entered through the front door. They immediately came upon the discarded magazine Bowers had dropped from his rifle.

"Be advised, we have a spent magazine, looks like a high-powered AK, middle hallway", one SWAT operator spoke over his radio. 

The SWAT team came across an elderly couple huddled in a small anteroom near the front entrance, unharmed but shaken. They were escorted out to safety.

At 10:36, the SWAT team came upon the bodies of Joyce Fienberg, Irving Younger, David Rosenthal, and Rose Mallinger lying in the synagogue's chapel. The wounded Andrea Wedner was crooning over Rose Mallinger, hysterical and wailing. "Mommy, Mommy!", the wounded woman cried as she sobbed over her mother's body. "My mom is dead! He killed my mom!"

"I got one alive", a SWAT officer radioed. He and the other SWAT operators tried to calm the hysterical woman as they ushered her to safety. "We're evac'ing one right now. Still alive. We got at least, uh, four down in the atrium DOA [dead on arrival] at this time."

At the same time, SWAT officers entered the basement, where the New Light Congregation had been attacked minutes earlier. "We got two additional down in the basement", an officer called over the radio at 10:43. Opening the closet door, the officer found the body of Melvin Wax lying on the floor. He then corrected himself. "Three additional victims down, two rescued", he reported. "We have rifle cases in here with blood".

An officer noticed that the wounded Dan Leger was still breathing. "I got one still alive", he reported. The officers dragged the wounded man outside to a makeshift triage, where paramedics worked to save his life.

As one team cleared the basement of the synagogue, a second ten-man SWAT team proceeded up the stairs to the third floor. They came to Classroom 11 just past the stairwell. The lights in the room were off and the door was closed.

The lead SWAT officer, Timothy Matson, cautiously approached Classroom 11 just past the stairwell. Following his training, Matson took cover against the wall on the hinge side of the door. On the other side, SWAT officer Michael Saldutte also took cover against the wall. He reached for the doorknob and tested it to see if it was locked. The door was open.

Saldutte looked towards Matson. "You good?", he asked. Matson nodded. Saldutte opened the door and then he, Matson, and SWAT officer Anthony Burke stepped cautiously into the room. A fourth SWAT officer, Andrew Miller, followed the trio from behind.

None of the officers knew that the gunman was lying in wait at the back of the room, with his guns loaded and ready.

Combat

The interior of Classroom 11 was pitch black. The SWAT officers carefully began to fan out. Matson, his DDM4 rifle at the ready, moved carefully along the right wall; Miller moved to the left.

Suddenly, a barrage of gunfire split through the darkness. Bowers was firing from both his rifle and his Glock 31 pistol. Bullets tore through the room, ripped through the walls, and showered the area with fragments, smoke, and pieces of pulverized drywall. Matson was hit in the knee and dropped to the floor, incapacitated. Rounds continued to hit Matson as he lay on the floor; Saldutte could see holes being blown through Matson's pants as Bowers continued to shoot the downed officer with his .357 pistol. A shot tore through Matson's helmet, shattering his jaw and part of his skull, and another round damaged the barrel of his DDM4 rifle.

"Seven-one, seven-one! Contact, contact!", yelled a SWAT officer over the deafening barrage of gunfire. "Shots fired! Shots fired!"

Saldutte dove in front of his fallen partner to shield him from incoming fire. Lying on his side on the floor, Saldutte raised his DDM4 rifle and fired a relentless barrage of rounds at the gunman's muzzle flashes in the darkness. The gunman moved across the room and continued to shoot.

The entrance to Classroom 11, where Bowers engaged in a fierce shootout with the Pittsburgh Police Department SWAT team. Shell casings from police rifles can be seen on the floor.

Officer Burke fired several rounds from his rifle through the wall at Bowers and then moved towards the door. Peering through the doorway, he saw the wounded Matson trying to crawl to safety. Burke raced inside to help. He grabbed onto a strap on Matson's vest and began dragging the wounded operator out of the room as shots continued to ring out from the darkness. Bowers was still firing, and as Burke pulled his wounded partner to safety, a round tore through his right wrist. With adrenaline surging through his body, Burke didn't even notice at first that he'd been hit.

Officer Saldutte was still lying on the floor. His rifle was out of ammunition, and he couldn't reach his magazine to reload. "I'm out!", he yelled to Miller. "Cover me!"

Officer Miller began firing his rifle at a metal cabinet door where he thought the gunman was shooting from, pinning the gunman down and covering Saldutte as he rolled over and crawled out of the room to reload. Bowers turned his gun towards Miller and continued shooting. Rounds sliced through the air around Miller, striking the drywall behind him and filling the room with pulverized dust. 

Officer Timothy Matson's police vest, riddled with bullet holes from the gunfight with Bowers.

Miller turned on the tactical flashlight attached to his rifle, hoping to get a better view of the gunman, but the room was so full of smoke and debris that the flashlight was utterly useless, and he quickly switched it off. After Saldutte had evacuated from the room and reloaded his rifle, Miller disengaged and moved out to help Matson.

Out in the hallway, Officer Burke shoved the wounded Matson down the stairs towards the rest of the SWAT team. He tried to reach for his rifle but found that his right hand had been mangled by a bullet wound that had torn through his wrist. Burke asked an officer to reach into his holster and put his .40-caliber service pistol in his left hand, which was uninjured. Despite being wounded, the officer wasn't ready to give up. He was still in the fight, determined to put down the threat for good. "Let's go get that fucking guy!", he yelled.

In this empty classroom just above where Bowers barricaded himself, SWAT officers regrouped and reloaded their weapons; an empty 30-round magazine from Officer Saldutte's rifle can be seen lying on the floor.

As the team retreated from Classroom 11, another SWAT officer hurled a stun grenade towards the door of the room to cover their escape. His aim was off. The flashbang grenade bounced off the door frame and landed at the feet of Burke and fellow SWAT officer John Persin. Burke leaped down the stairs out of the way as the grenade detonated in Officer Persin's face, temporarily blinding him and blowing out his hearing.

Burns on the stairs mark where a flashbang grenade hurled by SWAT detonated while the team retreated from Room 11. The stun grenade inadvertently exploded in a SWAT officer's face and blew out his hearing.

Officer Matson had been shot seven times in the left arm, left leg, torso, hand, fingers, and the right side of his head. Bullets had damaged his helmet, vest, and service rifle. The officer was bleeding badly but was still conscious despite the severity of his injuries. "Bro, I can't move!", Matson winced to SWAT medic Justin Sypolt. "I'm all fucked up, man!"

"It's cool, man, we got you", Sypolt replied. "Just hang tight, we'll get you out of here."

The officers brought Matson down the stairs and into a library, where they peeled off his armor and helmet, cut off his clothing, and began to apply first aid. Only twenty seconds after the gunfight erupted, Matson was now fighting for his life.

SWAT Officer Timothy Matson was shot seven times and critically wounded by Robert Bowers. This photo shows blood and pieces of Matson's police uniform in the room where other officers administered first aid to save his life.

As the wounded Matson was brought to safety, a group of other SWAT officers prepared to reenter the classroom. The shooter had stopped firing, but police were convinced he was still lying in wait to ambush them a second time.

"We have eyes on the door", Officer Miller called through the radio. "We have an operator hit, high in the arm, we have a tourniquet. That's all I got right now. Shots were still going off when I came out of the room; believe he's still alive."

The time was 11:00 AM. SWAT Officer Clint Thimons moved up to the doorway and knelt down, aiming his rifle into the room. Officer Saldutte had reloaded his rifle and was behind him with Officer Miller. "Back left corner of the room", Saldutte reported over the radio. "Yeah, that's where I saw the muzzle flash. It's a cut-out, so he's got the advantage".

Thimons turned on his flashlight and shined it into the room towards the corner. He caught sight of a human silhouette before all hell broke loose again. Bowers once again began firing his Glock 31 pistol at police, lighting up the darkened room with muzzle flashes. 

"Multiple shots fired! Multiple shots fired!", an officer reported.

Aiming at the muzzle flashes, Thimons fired 10-15 rounds at the gunman from his DDM4 rifle, hitting Bowers in the left elbow and upper left leg and knocking him to the floor. Outside the room, Officer Saldutte fired two volleys of rounds from his rifle through the wall towards Bowers' position. Behind him, Officer Burke - who had returned to the fight after tourniqueting his wounded arm - also fired several rounds from his .40-caliber pistol into the room, using his uninjured left hand to hold his weapon. 

After a few seconds, the gunfire stopped, and the room went suddenly quiet. Thimons and Saldutte retreated back into the hallway and went into an adjoining room to reload their weapons. The SWAT team once again aimed their rifles towards the open door.

Nearly 100 rounds were fired during the shootout between Robert Bowers and the Pittsburgh Police Department SWAT team, leaving Classroom 11 ripped apart by bullet holes.

Suddenly, a voice called out from the darkness. "I give up! I've been hit! I need help!"

Dealing with the Devil

Thimons didn't trust the suspect. He kept his gun trained through the door. "Crawl out or you will die!", he yelled.

"I can't!", Bowers replied. "I'm injured!"

"If you want to live, you have crawl out towards us right now!", Thimons repeated. He kept his gun raised, wary of another ambush. "Keep your hands where I can see them!"

The active-shooter situation was now becoming a negotiation situation. Thimons - who had only seconds earlier been exchanging gunfire with the suspect - now had to establish trust with Bowers and get him to surrender. "If you come to us, we can give you first aid", he told Bowers. 

The suspect was hesitant. "Will you shoot me if I come out?"

"Just cooperate and we won't hurt you", Thimons replied. "Crawl out and keep your hands up!"

Shell casings, blood, and debris litter the hallway outside Room 11 following the shootout between SWAT officers and Robert Bowers. After being shot and wounded by police, Bowers crawled out of his hiding place and surrendered, putting an end to his rampage. One of Bowers' three handguns can be seen lying in the doorway.

At 11:08 AM, Bowers crawled out head-first from cover. He hesitated at the doorway as the SWAT team trained their rifles on him. "Keep crawling!", Thimons ordered. "Come towards us!" The suspect complied and raised his hands. 

"What's your name? How old are you?", Thimons asked.

"My name is Robert Bowers. I'm 46 years old", the shooter replied.

"Do you have any weapons?"

"I have two Glocks, on my waist and ankle", Bowers replied. "There's a rifle in the room".

"Why did you give up?", another SWAT officer asked.

"I ran out of bullets", Bowers answered.

"Do you have any bombs or explosives on you?"

"No, I don't", Bowers replied.

Thimons was still concerned that Bowers could be wearing an explosive vest and would detonate it once he got close to the SWAT team. Thimons ordered the suspect to lift his shirt and expose his stomach and back to show he wasn't wearing any explosives. Bowers complied, then continued crawling towards the SWAT team.

"Why did you do it?", Thimons yelled to the suspect. 

"I had to do it!", Bowers said. "Jews are the children of Satan, and they're murdering our children! All Jews need to die!"

At 11:14 AM, Bowers reached the SWAT team. Both Thimons and Miller pulled the shooter's arms behind his back, and Miller placed plastic handcuffs on the suspect. However, his hands were so slippery with Matson's blood that Miller was unable to secure the zip-ties, so Thimons assisted. The officers patted down the suspect and took both of his pistols.

"Be advised, actor is in custody", a SWAT officer reported over the radio. 

SWAT operators wanted to know if there were any other suspects. Thimons devised a ruse to see if the suspect would acknowledge any accomplices. "We saw you and your partner enter the synagogue on the cameras", he told the suspect. "Where is your partner now?"

Bowers gave the officer a puzzled look. "That must have been some fucking Jew", he answered. "I came in here all by myself".

Bowers began to complain about his handcuffs. "These cuffs are too tight", he told a SWAT officer. "You'll be treated well. We have medics on the way", the officer replied.

Bowers smiled. "Good. These people are committing genocide against my people, and I just want to kill Jews".

Two SWAT medics began to administer treatment to Bowers. The suspect had been shot three times, in the torso, arm and leg, but was conscious, alert, and communicating clearly to police. He was breathing on his own and though he was bleeding, his injuries weren't serious. The medics re-cuffed Bowers' hands in front of him and applied a tourniquet to his wounded arm. Bowers remained fully lucid and wore a "sinister grin" of "satisfaction" on his face. 

The SWAT team still wasn't sure if the scene was secure, so the decision was made to carry Bowers out of the synagogue through a fire exit. Medic Shawn Eigenbrode helped load the wounded gunman onto a fabric stretcher and place an oxygen mask on his face. As the team carried him down the narrow fire escape, Bowers' wounded arm scraped against the wall, leaving a trail of blood.

"Sorry dude, I'm trying to stabilize us so we don't fall", he told the wounded gunman.

SWAT officers carry a wounded Robert Bowers down a fire escape towards a waiting ambulance. The SWAT team's professionalism in treating Bowers' injuries despite him having shot at them was widely commended.

Bowers was loaded into an ambulance and driven away to the hospital. As he was evacuated, word came to the SWAT team that Officer Matson had undergone surgery. Despite being seriously wounded, he was stabilized and expected to survive. 

Inside Room 11, officers found Bowers' Colt SP-1 rifle and Glock 31 pistol, both of which were out of ammunition. Bowers had fired 24 rounds in Room 11 during his shootout with SWAT (7 from his rifle and 17 from his pistol). The gunman's hate-fueled rampage had lasted for just over an hour and had left 11 innocent people dead and six people wounded. It was - and still remains - the deadliest act of violence against the Jewish community in US history.

Robert Bowers' Colt SP-1 rifle and Glock 31 pistol lie on the floor at the back of Room 11.

All of the wounded would survive their injuries (as would Bowers himself) but none of them would fully recover from the scars - both physical and emotional - that Robert Bowers had so senselessly inflicted during his violent rampage.

-

As news of the shooting in Pittsburgh began to spread across America, the nation reeled in shock and horror. Mass shootings were, and still are, unfortunately all too common in the United States, but this act of violence was yet another reminder that hatred and bigotry were still alive and well in the United States.

But even in the midst of this tragedy, the humanity of America still shined strong through the darkness. Within hours of the shooting, a Muslim-American group started a crowdfunding campaign to raise money for victims of the massacre. The initial goal was $25,000, but within only three days of the attack the campaign raised over $140,000 for victims, as countless American citizens turned their horror into action, and did their part to step in and help the wounded Jewish community. "We wish to respond to evil with good", the organizer of the fundraiser would tell the media.

Mourners gather for a candlelight vigil outside the Tree of Life Synagogue following the massacre. 

The day after the massacre, 2500 people gathered for a memorial service at the University of Pittsburgh. Rabbi Perlman - who had been in the synagogue when the shooting occurred - gave a speech at the vigil, where he vowed that the community would not be intimidated by hate.

"What happened yesterday will not break us. It will not ruin us", he said. "We will continue to thrive, sing, worship, and learn together and continue our historic legacy in the city with the friendliest people that I know."

President Donald Trump - who had promoted much of the same xenophobic and racially-charged rhetoric that had motivated Bowers to commit the shooting - was at a campaign rally to drum up support for the upcoming midterm elections when the shooting occurred. Nevertheless, the President took time out of his speech to address the shooting that occurred earlier that day.

"I want to address the horrible shooting that took place earlier today. The hearts of all Americans are filled with grief following the monstrous killing of Jewish-Americans at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania", the President told the crowd. "The suspect is in custody", he added, to a thunderous cheer and round of applause. "The federal authorities are on the scene and leading an aggressive federal investigation. State and local law enforcement has [sic] been incredible."

Trump continued to speak, in a rare condemnation of bigotry. "This evil antisemitic attack is an assault on all of us. It's an assault on humanity. It will require all of us working together to extract the hateful poison of antisemitism from our world. This was an antisemitic attack at its worst. The scourge of antisemitism cannot be ignored, cannot be tolerated, and it cannot be allowed to continue - we can't allow it to continue. It must be confronted and condemned everywhere it rears its very ugly head. We must stand with our Jewish brothers and sisters to defeat antisemitism and vanquish the forces of hate - that's what it is."

"Now when you have crimes like this, whether it's this one or another one or another group", the President continued, "we have to bring back the death penalty. They have to pay the ultimate price. They have to pay the ultimate price - they can't do this. They can't do this to our country. We must draw a line in the sand and say very strongly 'Never Again!'."

But for the community of Pittsburgh and those who had been targeted by the gunman's wrath, President Trump's statements - though strongly worded - rang somewhat hollow. Robert Bowers had targeted the Tree of Life Synagogue based on his festering hatred of Jewish people, and his conspiratorial belief that white people were being "erased" by mass non-white immigration at the hands of a massive Jewish conspiracy. 

During the midterm election, the President and his allies in conservative media had been pushing similar alarmist and xenophobic propaganda, fearmongering about a "caravan" of "illegal migrants" coming to "invade the southern border" - to which Trump had responded by sending thousands of soldiers to the Mexican border with orders to stop the migrants from entering. Similar rhetoric had radicalized Robert Bowers and countless others into a world of hatred, paranoia, bigotry, and extremism, and the emptiness of the President's condemnation while simultaneously continuing to promote white nationalist propaganda did not escape those who had been victimized by the attack in Pittsburgh.

The Slow Wheel of Justice

As the community in Pittsburgh healed from the tragedy wrought upon them, the focus turned towards holding the terrorist who inflicted such malice upon them accountable. As Robert Bowers had survived his attack, the community of Pittsburgh was now placed in the arduous position of having to navigate years upon years of future legal bickering as criminal proceedings began against the shooter.

As his rampage had been motivated by bigotry and antisemitism, Bowers faced federal hate crime charges as well as state murder charges. Bowers was charged in Pennsylvania state court with 36 crimes, including aggravated assault, ethnic intimidation, and 11 counts of first-degree criminal homicide. On October 31, Bowers was indicted again - this time in federal court - on 29 federal charges, including hate crimes, civil rights violations resulting in death, and murder in furtherance of obstructing exercise of religious beliefs; all of which carried a possible death sentence.

Bowers pleaded not guilty to all charges the following day and was ordered held without bail in federal custody. The shooter later offered to change his plea to guilty in exchange for a sentence of life without parole, but US Attorney General William Barr rejected the offer, and announced in August of 2019 that the federal government would seek the death penalty against Bowers. Intense legal bickering and frequent roadblocks - including the retirement of the judge overseeing his case - would delay Robert Bowers' trial for nearly five years, until September of 2022, when Federal Judge Robert Colville would finally set a trial date for Bowers. 

The gunman's trial before a Pittsburgh federal jury began on May 30, 2023. Bowers hired Judy Clarke - a renown federal defense attorney who specialized in defending clients facing the death penalty - to represent him in court. Clarke had represented a variety of other notorious federal offenders facing the death penalty, including mail bomber Ted Kaczynski, Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, antisemitic mass shooter Buford Furrow, 9/11 conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui, and anti-abortion terrorist Eric Robert Rudolph.

A courtroom sketch depicting the trial of Robert Bowers before a Pittsburgh federal jury. Cameras are not permitted in federal courtrooms; sketches such as these are the only visual depiction available.

Even so, from the outset, there was little question as to what the verdict would be for Robert Bowers.  The prosecution called over sixty witnesses (with the defense calling none at all), including survivors of the attack, family members of the 11 deceased worshippers, and the police officers who had heroically risked their lives trying to take down the shooter. DNA evidence - though it was hardly needed in this case - showed that Bowers' DNA was found on all of the guns used in the massacre, and that the odds of Bowers not being the contributor of the DNA were approximately 1 in 6.9 septillion.

On June 16, 2023, after deliberating for five hours over the course of two days, the jury reached its expected verdict of guilty on all 63 federal charges Bowers faced. The shooter's guilt, of course, had never been in serious question. His sentence, however, was another matter.

Robert Bowers showed no emotion or remorse when he was found guilty on all federal charges stemming from his rampage at the Tree of Life Synagogue. Though his guilt was never in doubt, Bowers' attorneys spent most of their efforts attempting to spare him from a possible death sentence.

Judy Clarke focused much of her case on sparing her client from the death penalty by convincing the jury that Bowers' rampage was motivated by extreme mental illness rather than hate and bigotry. She had secured life sentences for a variety of similar criminals in the past. Evidence was introduced by the defense showing that Bowers had grown up in an abusive and unstable household, with Clarke arguing that Bowers had schizophrenia that was aggravated by the conditions of his upbringing. His antisemitism, she argued, was one of many manifestations of his underlying mental illness and only further evidence that he should not be sentenced to death.

But Bowers' long internet trail of antisemitic, racist, and xenophobic statements would ultimately prove to be his undoing. For all of his defense's assertions that he suffered from mental illness, Bowers' own words demonstrated above and beyond that his horrific crime had not been the insane expression of an underlying mental disorder, but rather a cold, deliberate, calculated crime of violence and terror against a community he hated. The attack, the prosecution argued, was designed to instill fear in the Jewish community, and was clearly, undeniably motivated by the festering hatred Bowers had for people whose only crime was being different. To spare Bowers the death penalty, they argued, would be to legitimize his hate and devalue the gravity of the crime he had committed against innocent people in the name of that hate.

On August 2nd, 2023, after deliberating for eight hours over the course of two days, the federal jury unanimously recommended that Robert Bowers receive the death penalty on every single death-eligible count. None of the jurors found that Bowers had been mentally ill or that his actions had been motivated by schizophrenia. The following day, Judge Robert Colville formally sentenced Robert Bowers to death by lethal injection. It was the first time the federal government had handed down a death sentence during the administration of President Joe Biden, who - despite being an opponent of the death penalty - had directed his Department of Justice to continue pursuing a death sentence in the case.

The execution chamber at USP Terre Haute in Indiana, where condemned federal inmates are put to death. If and when he gets an execution date, Bowers will die by lethal injection in this room. 

The verdict came as a welcome relief to the community of Pittsburgh, which had waited nearly five years for justice to be done. And though the verdict did little to ease the suffering of Bowers' victims - both living and dead - it sent a strong message that such crimes would never be tolerated in the United States and that those who committed them would face the harshest punishments available.

Even the Jewish-American community - which has tended to oppose the death penalty on religious ground - didn't speak up to spare Bowers from the ultimate punishment. In fact, the contention of the vast majority of the Tree of Life congregation, the victims' families, and the survivors of the attack was that Robert Bowers deserved to be executed. Even some vocal opponents of capital punishment - such as US Senator John Fetterman - took exception when it came to the synagogue shooting, and voiced support for the death penalty for Robert Bowers.

After Bowers was sentenced to death, the American Jewish Committee released a statement thanking the jury for their verdict and supporting the death sentence for Bowers. The Committee stated that even if Bowers were to never be executed, the verdict of death by lethal injection sent a powerful message in and of itself.

"Ultimately what is of most significance is not how the shooter will spend the end of his life", the statement said, "but the fact that the US government pursued this case with vigor and demonstrated that such crimes will not be countenanced, excused, or minimized."

-

As of the time of this writing, Robert Bowers - now known to the federal government as Inmate No. 39188-068 - currently awaits transfer from state to federal custody. He is likely headed to the high-security wing of the federal penitentiary in Terre Haute, Indiana, where most of the approximately 42 inmates on federal death row currently await execution.

The special housing wing of the United States Penitentiary in Terre Haute, Indiana, where federal death row is located. This is likely to be the final destination for Robert Bowers.

Every morning at approximately 6:00 AM, Robert Bowers will be awakened in his cell by the sound of guards serving breakfast on a metal cart. His cell - measuring approximately seven feet by thirteen feet - contains a small bed, a metal desk and stool, and a toilet, sink, and water fountain combined into one unit. A small, narrow window, covered by a metal grille, provides a view into the prison courtyard - the only link to the outside world Bowers will have.

Bowers will remain in his cell, alone and forgotten, for 23 hours every day, only leaving for thirty minutes of lunch and thirty minutes of exercise in an enclosed yard. Any human contact he has will be extremely minimal - mostly consisting of interactions with guards or his attorneys. All his communications with the outside world will be closely monitored. His mail will be opened, read, scrutinized, and censored. His phone calls will be tapped and recorded. Every single freedom he once took for granted will be restricted. Every single facet of his daily existence will be guided by rigorous regulations and prison rules - rules which carry stiff consequences if violated. 

This will be Robert Bowers' existence for the foreseeable future. Every day, every hour, every minute of his life will be this - a life defined by darkness, coldness, loneliness, and sterility. This will be the substance of his remaining time on Earth as the wheels of the American justice system slowly turn, and his case slowly progresses through the federal appellate court system.

Any execution date, should Bowers ever receive one, is years - if not decades - away.

He Lives

Be it by natural causes or by execution, Robert Bowers' story will eventually end. His life - by any meaningful measure - is over, and he will never hurt another soul again for as long as he lives.

But those who spread the vile hate propaganda that radicalized Bowers are still active. And as long as they are, Robert Bowers lives on.

The massacre at Pittsburgh did not occur in a vacuum. It was the product of a concerted wave of hate propaganda and dehumanization that has swept contemporary political discourse for the past ten years. And far from subsiding, the intensity of this hate propaganda has only seemed to increase in recent years.

During the leadup to the 2018 midterms, as the Republican Party struggled to hold the House and Senate, right-wing pundits campaigned on an old but reliable motivator: Fear. Fear of immigrants. Fear of refugees. Fear of foreigners. Fear of those who are different.

In the months leading up to the election, a large caravan of South American migrants, seeking to flee from gang violence, poverty, famine, and the iron fist of authoritarian regimes, began to make their way north towards the United States, with the goal of seeking asylum and hopefully finding a better life for themselves and their families.

But right-wing media whipped up a firestorm of xenophobic fear over the caravan. Pundits on outlets such as Fox News screeched about an impending "invasion" of the southern border by "armies" of murderers, rapists, and drug traffickers. 

"These individuals are not immigrants", said one guest on Fox News host Laura Ingraham's show. "These are people that are invading our country. They are seeking the destruction of American society and culture".

Fox News host Tucker Carlson voiced similar rhetoric. In a segment aired only a week or so before the shooting in Pittsburgh, Carlson fearmongered about the approaching caravan and appeared to push a barely-veiled version of the Great Replacement theory. "The most recent estimates suggest that a caravan's worth of uninvited migrants arrives at our border every few days. Why is this happening? Because an entire political party is inviting it and encouraging it", he said. "They believe unchecked immigration will strengthen their hold on power. They're perfectly aware that you don't like this, but they don't care."

Former Fox News host Tucker Carlson was one of many right-wing media pundits who, in late 2018, whipped up a mass, xenophobic hysteria about a "caravan" of immigrants headed from El Salvador to the United States, echoing the racist "great replacement" theory which was one of the motives behind Robert Bowers' massacre at the Tree of Life synagogue.

Though Carlson was fired from Fox in 2023, he continues to spread similar xenophobic propaganda and parrot white nationalist talking points, despite the violence such rhetoric has incited.

Even after the massacre, Carlson only doubled down on his hateful rhetoric. "The Left says we have a moral obligation to admit the world's poor, even if it makes our country more like Tijuana is now, which is to say poorer and dirtier and more divided", he said in a segment less than two months after the massacre in Pittsburgh. "That's what we said. It's true".

President Donald Trump was perhaps the most vocal in spreading divisive, xenophobic hate propaganda in the midterm season. "At this very moment, large well-organized caravans of migrants are marching towards our southern border. Some people call it an invasion", he said at a rally. "These are tough people in many cases; a lot of young men, strong men, and a lot of men that maybe we don't want in our country. This isn't an innocent group of people. It's a large number of people that are tough. They have injured, they have attacked."

Republican Representative Matt Gaetz also spread paranoia about the migrant caravan, and - in true "Great Replacement" fashion - included a thinly-veiled antisemitic canard in his messaging, seemingly accusing Jewish billionaire George Soros of funding the caravan.

"BREAKING: Footage in Honduras giving cash 2 women & children 2 join the caravan & storm the US border @ election time", he tweeted. "Soros? US-backed NGOs? Time to investigate the source!"

Such rhetoric is eerily similar - if not identical - to the rhetoric espoused by Robert Bowers in the months leading up to his rampage at the Tree of Life Synagogue. Indeed, Bowers had voiced countless times his belief that nonwhite immigration was a Jewish plot to eradicate the white race, with the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (HIAS) in particular being a major conspirator in this plot of "white genocide". While Bowers voiced dissatisfaction with Trump prior to the shooting, it does not take a genius to see that the rhetoric he espoused and the rhetoric espoused by Trump and his allies are, for all intents and purposes, one and the same.

This rhetoric is not going away. As the 2024 presidential election approaches, the political right has intensified its rhetoric. Xenophobia continues to inform the policies of multiple Republican-held border states such as Texas, where the state government has even gone as far as to install circular saw blades on buoys in the Rio Grande river to deter illegal crossers. Fear of immigration has been central to the campaigns of both Donald Trump and his main rival, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, both of whom have continued to spew incendiary, nativist propaganda demonizing immigrants.

"For decades, leaders from both parties have produced empty promises on border security", DeSantis said at a rally in June of 2023, "and now it is time to act to stop the invasion once and for all".

In the wake of the massacre in Pittsburgh, these same right-wing pundits were quick to condemn the violence and distance themselves from the shooter's motivations. President Trump himself condemned the attack and called for the death penalty for the shooter. But nothing they do can separate their incendiary, divisive rhetoric from the hellish consequences that result from it. It is real, measurable, and tangible in its effectiveness and, above all, its lethality. Since Pittsburgh, at least three more mass shootings - one at a pair of mosques in New Zealand in 2019; one later that same year at a Walmart in El Paso, TX; and one at a supermarket in Buffalo, NY, in 2022 - were motivated, in part, by racist, antisemitic, and xenophobic ideology and a belief in the "great replacement" conspiracy theory parroted by these very same right-wing pundits.

The power of hate propaganda is real. It has been seen time and time again throughout history. In Nazi Germany, in the years leading up to and during the Holocaust, Nazi propaganda films, books, and officials denounced Jews as "rats" and a "subhuman race" who were waging war against the "Aryan people" and needed to be exterminated for the "good of mankind".

In Rwanda in 1994, Hutu extremists dehumanized, mocked, and branded the ethnic Tutsi minority as "snakes", "cockroaches", and "invaders", with extremist pundits spewing hate-filled, incendiary sermons over government-funded radio stations such as the Hutu-extremist hate radio RTLM, urging Hutus to take up weapons and slaughter their Tutsi neighbors. Over 1,000,000 Tutsis, Twa, and moderate Hutus would be murdered in the resulting genocide, with the number of killings being the highest in areas where the hate-radio station RTLM was most popular.

As I was writing this article, I happened to watch an episode from The Twilight Zone, entitled "He's Alive", and that episode has been echoing around inside my head for days.
Made in early 1963, its message is nonetheless as timeless and familiar as ever - a cautionary tale of the consequences of hate, division, and malice. It chronicles the fictional story of a young neo-Nazi named Peter Vollmer, who, blinded by hatred of those who are different, leads a small group of like-minded extremists in spreading antisemitic, racist, and white supremacist propaganda to crowds of people - all at the instruction of the resurrected ghost of Adolf Hitler.

As time progresses, Vollmer's rhetoric turns increasingly violent, culminating with the killing of a fellow Nazi to serve as a "martyr", and finally ending with murder of an old Jewish mentor who raised him as a son. After a confrontation with police, Peter Vollmer's violent rampage ends with him being shot dead, but as he lays dying, a shadow of Hitler is cast upon the wall behind him, with a narrator giving the audience a cautionary warning:

"Where will he go next, this phantom from another time, this resurrected ghost of a previous nightmare? Chicago? Los Angeles? Miami, Florida? Vincennes, Indiana? Syracuse, New York? Anyplace, everyplace, where there's hate, where there's prejudice, where there's bigotry, he's alive. He's alive so long as these evils exist. Remember that when he comes to your town. Remember it when you hear his voice speaking out through others. Remember it when you hear a name called, a minority attacked, any blind, unreasoning assault on a people or any human being. He's alive because, through these things, we keep him alive."

And such it is with Robert Bowers. His rampage is over. Soon, his life will be over. But the hatred and malice that he represents lives on. And, as long as it is given a voice, it will continue to kill again and again and again.

___

This article is dedicated to the memory of my dear friend, Rey Mohammed. Though we never met in person, Rey was a longtime dedicated, loyal, and vibrant friend who was one of the biggest supporters and fans of my work. She was looking forward to reading this article when she suddenly passed away on August 9, 2023. She is dearly missed by all who knew her.