Jersey City shooting victims and suspects identified

The civilians killed in a prolonged shootout Tuesday in Jersey City have been identified as 32-year-old Mindy Ferenz, 49-year-old Miguel Douglas, and 24-year-old Moshe Deutsch. The suspects were identified as 47-year-old David N. Anderson and 50-year-old Francine Graham, who are also deceased, the attorney general of New Jersey announced Wednesday. 

Detective Joseph Seals was also killed. He was a husband and a father of five, and Jersey City Mayor Steven Fulop called him a “true hero.”  

New York City Mayor Bill De Blasio said Wednesday that Deutch was the son of a “well-known community leader in Williamsburg,” Brooklyn, and noted that Ferencz was also originally from Brooklyn.

Chai Lifeline, a non-profit organization that provides services to children suffering serious illnesses, posted about Deutch, who volunteered with the non-profit.

Jersey City Mayor Fulop said the shootout Tuesday was the result of a “targeted” attack on a kosher grocery store. CBS News correspondent Don Dahler reported the store is a central fixture to the Jewish Orthodox community that has been growing recently in Jersey City, which is across the Hudson River from New York City. 

De Blasio said that as of Wednesday morning there were “no credible and specific threats against New York City,” despite the state of high alert and an increased police presence in Jewish neighborhoods. He called the incident a “premeditated anti-Semitic hate crime.” 

“In other words, you can say it was an act of terror,” he said. 

Mayor Steven Fulop, however, has refused to call the attack anti-Semitic, the Associated Press reported. And neither the state attorney general nor any other law enforcement authority confirmed the suspects had targeted Jews. City Public Safety Director James Shea has said there was no indication of terrorism. 

De Blasio, however, said “there is a crisis of anti-semitism gripping this nation.”

“There is a crisis of anti-semitism in this city. It has continued to take on a more violent form all over this country, and now we have seen this extraordinary, extreme form of violence reach the doorstep of New York City. And we have to take that as a warning sign. We have to understand — as I’ve heard from many members of the Jewish community — that people are now living in constant fear,” he said. 

NYC Mayor Bill De Blasio speaks on Jersey City shooting

The mayor also announced a new hate crime unit inside the New York City Police Department’s intelligence bureau called REME, which stands for racially and ethnically motivated extremism. The unit was started in early September after a succession of violent hate crimes nationwide over the summer, according to John Miller, deputy commissioner of intelligence and counterterrorism for the NYPD.