A man has been arrested for firing a shotgun outside a synagogue in Albany, New York, and charged with federal crimes. No one was injured after two shots were fired outside Temple Israel on Thursday and police have said they do not know in which direction the shots were aimed.
An FBI spokeswoman told NBC News that Mufid Fawaz Alkhader, 28, had been arrested and charged with possession of a firearm by a prohibited person.
According to the Albany Times Union, Alkhader, a US citizen who was born in Iraq, told members of the Bureau of Alcohol, Firearms, Tobacco and Explosives that “events in the Middle East have impacted him”, according to a criminal complaint filed by an Albany detective who is a member of the ATF taskforce.
The complaint also alleged that Alkhader, a resident of Schenectady, shouted “Free Palestine” during the incident, according to city police and a person who briefed the outlet. Alkhader is due in court on Friday morning. If convicted of the weapons charge, he faces a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison.
According to NBC, staff at the synagogue noticed an armed man outside and placed the facility, including an early childhood education center, on lockdown. After police were called about shots fired, a transit driver saw the man holding a shotgun and confronted him. Police then took the man into custody.
“We were told by responding officers that he made a comment, ‘Free Palestine’,” Albany’s police chief, Eric Hawkins, told NBC. Shell casings were later found outside the synagogue, he added.
New York’s governor, Kathy Hochul, told a news conference: “Any act of antisemitism is unacceptable, and undermining public safety at a synagogue on the first night of Hanukkah is even more deplorable.”
On Tuesday, the FBI director, Christopher Wray, warned senators at a hearing in Washington DC about an increase in hate crimes, including the “troubling trend” of increased antisemitic threats in the months since the Hamas cross-border attack into Israel on 7 October. Wray said the FBI was working “around the clock” to “identify and disrupt” potential attacks, warning senators he sees “blinking lights everywhere”.
At the same time, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (Cair) has documented a huge rise in reported anti-Arab and anti-Muslim bias incidents in the US. Cair said it received 1,283 requests for help and reports of bias in the month since the 7 October Hamas attack. The organization said in 2022 it received an average of 406 complaints in a 29-day period. The new data, Cair said, reflects a 216% increase over the previous year.
