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In Jersey City, 50 school children may have been intended target

JERSEY CITY, N.J. — The man and woman who went on a rampage Tuesday may have been targeting a Yeshiva that shared the building with the deli where they killed the owner’s wife, an employee and a customer, the mayor said.

David N. Anderson, 47, an Army veteran, and Francine Graham, 50, maybe have been targeting the 50 children at the school, said the mayor and director of public safety as reported in NJ.com.

Earlier they shot police Det. Joseph Seals in Bayview Cemetery, and are suspected of killing a man in Bayonne, N.J., before that.

The hours-long stand-off ended in the deaths of both shooters, police said.

The state AG said Anderson and Graham held views that reflected “hatred of Jewish people and law enforcement.” They also said they had shown interest in the tenets of the Black Hebrew Israelites, though it appears they “acted alone.” Police said they carried five firearms and a pipe bomb in their U-Haul van. Anderson had a history of violent threats and at least one weapon conviction.

The Black Hebrew Israelites gained some attention in February 2019 when a handful of men claiming to belong to the group were shouting epithets at a group of Catholic teen boys waiting for their bus on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. Ironically, they repeatedly called the boys “future school shooters.” The teens were in town for the March for Life. After they began chanting school spirit songs, a Native American tribal elder confronted one of the teens in the now-iconic moment showing the two staring each other down.

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