Authorities Stop Short Of Dubbing US Kosher Deli Attack Anti-Semitic

Jersey City, United States, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 12th Dec, 2019 ) :US authorities held back Wednesday from characterizing a firefight that left six people including two suspects dead in a New York suburb as motivated by anti-Semitism, as the local mayor confirmed the assailants targeted a kosher grocery store.

On Tuesday two shooters -- one of them female -- stormed the deli in Jersey City, across the river from lower Manhattan, killing two customers and a cashier before they died in a hail of police gunfire.

The now-deceased suspects -- identified as David Anderson, 47, and Francine Graham, 50, who reportedly lived together -- had earlier shot dead a police officer at a cemetery near the market.

The state's attorney general, Gurbir Grewal, stopped short of calling the shooting anti-Semitic.

"We are working to learn more about the shooters' motivations, and whether anyone besides the two gunmen may have been involved," he said.

Hours earlier Jersey City mayor Steven Fulop said that analysis of surveillance footage showed a targeted murder.

"After extensive review of our CCTV system it has now become clear from the cameras that these two individuals targeted the kosher grocery," Fulop tweeted.

"I'm Jewish and proud to live in a community like #JerseyCity that has always welcomed everyone... Hate and anti-semitism have never had a place here in JC and will never have a place in our city." Hundreds of police, including tactical officers armed with rifles and wearing olive-green fatigues and helmets, were deployed during the hours-long drama.

State Governor Phil Murphy said that there was "no ongoing security concern," but did say he had spoken with the Consul General of Israel in New York.

"An attack on our Jewish community -- or for that matter, on any community... is an attack against all nine million of us who are proud to call ourselves New Jerseyans," he told reporters.