The mass shooting at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh on Saturday left multiple people dead, with a law enforcement source confirming to Fox News that the shooter was identified as Robert Bowers. He reportedly yelled “All Jews must die” as he opened fire.
The massacre followed the pattern of previous massacres at places of religious worship.
First Baptist Church of Sutherland Springs, Texas
On Nov. 5, 2017, 26 people were killed and 20 were wounded after a gunman dressed in tactical gear opened fire at a church outside San Antonio, making it the worst mass shooting in Texas’ history.
The 26-year-old shooter Devin Patrick Kelley died after suffering three gunshot wounds, including one self-inflicted to his head
The shooter’s motive remains unclear to this day, though authorities said the shooting may have prompted by "domestic situation" between Kelley and his mother-in-law, and that he had sent threatening messages to her.
The investigators said that the victims ranged in age from 5 to 72 years old.
Burnette Chapel Church of Christ, Tennessee
One woman was killed and seven other people were injured after Sudanese immigrant Emanuel Kidega Samson allegedly began shooting at the Burnette Chapel Church of Christ in Antioch, southeast of Nashville, on Sept. 25, 2017.
The alleged shooter, who pled not guilty to a 43-count indictment in March, was allegedly equipped with two two pistols when he entered the church.
He was stopped by a young church usher who held the alleged gunman at gunpoint until law enforcement arrived.
The victims in the church were white and investigators are considering whether the alleged shooter targeted them because of their race. The FBI and U.S. attorney's office in Nashville opened a civil rights investigation following the incident.
Last year, Nashville Police Detective Steve Jolley testified that a note was found in Samson’s car that referred to a white supremacist's 2015 massacre at a South Carolina black church.
The note read something like “Dylann Roof was less than nothing,” Joley said.
A district attorney's office in Tennessee said in June that they won’t seek the death penalty for Samson.
All the information in the case remains sealed under court order.
Al-Fuquan Jame Masjid mosque, New York City
Imam Maulana Alauddin Akonjee and his assistant Thara Uddin were fatally shot in broad daylight as they left the mosque on Aug. 13, 2016.
Oscar Morel was convicted earlier this year for first-degree murder and later sentenced to life in prison without a chance of parole. The motive for his murders remains unclear.
Richard Brown, district attorney of the borough of Queens, said the killings were “a senseless act of gun violence in the middle of the afternoon and carried out in a close-knit neighborhood filled with families and children.”
Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church, South Carolina
Dylann Roof was sentenced to death in January 2017 for the massacre at a black church in Charleston in 2015, which left nine black church members dead.
The killer was found to be a white supremacist who purposely targeted the church. He posed with the Confederate flag that appeared in a racist manifesto, believed black people were animals and less than human when he violated the sanctuary of the church and killed nine people.
“Those people couldn't see the hatred in his heart any more than they could see the .45-caliber handgun and the eight magazines concealed around his waist,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Nathan Williams during the trial.
Jewish Community Center of Greater Kansas City and Village Shalom, Kansas
Well-known white supremacist and former Ku Klux Klan leader Frazier Glenn Miller killed three people at a Jewish community center and Jewish retirement complex near Kansas City on Apr. 13, 2014.
He shot Dr. William Corporon and his 14-year-old grandson, Reat Underwood, outside the center. The shooter then drove to a Jewish retirement community where they shot Terry LaManno.
Miller was sentenced to death in 2015 after being convicted of one count of capital murder, three counts of attempted murder, and assault and weapons charges.
The avowed anti-Semite has been involved in the white supremacist movements for most of life, founding the Carolina Knights of the Ku Klux Klan and was its "grand dragon" in the 1980s. He later founded another white supremacist group.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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