A man who fired shots at a Jewish school in Memphis in what police said appeared to be an attempted mass shooting on Monday is himself Jewish and a former pupil at the institution, a local congressman has said.
Police in the Tennessee city shot the still unidentified man after he failed to gain full entry to the school and fled in a vehicle. Police later stopped the vehicle and opened fire when he emerged carrying a handgun. He remained in the hospital on Tuesday.
Local congressman Steve Cohen, who represents the Memphis area, said his office had learned more details about the attacker.
“We have recently learned that the shooter at the Margolin Hebrew Academy was himself Jewish and a former student at the school. I am pleased the academy had effective security and that the police acted quickly to protect students,” he said in a statement.
A spokesperson for the Secure Community Network, an organization that has worked with the school through the Memphis Jewish Federation, told CNN the suspect’s motivation had apparently been “personal in nature”.
The attack on the Jewish school in Memphis came as a jury in Pennsylvania continued to deliberate over whether to impose the death penalty or a sentence of life in prison without parole on an antisemitic man who killed 11 worshippers in a 2018 shooting at a synagogue in Pittsburgh. The mass shooting at the Tree of Life synagogue was the deadliest one aimed at Jews in US history.
