Jersey City attack ‘fueled’ by anti-Semitism, state’s attorney general says

JERSEY CITY, New Jersey — New Jersey Attorney General Gurbir Grewal says authorities believe the shooting Tuesday in Jersey City was “fueled both by anti-Semitism and anti-law enforcement beliefs.”

Grewal tells a news conference today that authorities are investigating the attack as an act of domestic terrorism. He says officials believe the attackers were acting on their own.

The two killers who stormed a kosher market in Jersey City had apparently been followers of the Black Hebrew Israelites — a fringe group whose members have been known to rail against white people and Jews — and one of them had made anti-Semitic posts online, according to a law enforcement official briefed on the investigation.

The findings stoked suspicions that the rampage that left the killers and four victims dead was not a random crime but an anti-Semitic attack, even as state and federal authorities cautioned that the motive was still under investigation.

The FBI on Wednesday searched the Harlem headquarters of the Israelite Church of God in Jesus Christ, which is the formal name of the Black Hebrew group, according to the official, who was not authorized to discuss the case publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.

“The why and the ideology and the motivation — that’s what we’re investigating,” Grewal said Wednesday, adding that authorities are trying to determine whether anyone else was involved.

Others, including Jersey City Mayor Steve Fulop, pronounced the bloodshed a hate crime against Jews, with Fulop saying surveillance video made it clear that the attackers targeted the Jewish market, slowly and deliberately driving up to the grocery in a stolen rental van and immediately opening fire.

— AP