DALLAS — A Dallas homeless shelter is working with federal investigators after a British national suspected of holding four people hostage inside a Colleyville, Texas, synagogue was dropped off at the facility by someone he appeared to have a relationship with, the shelter’s CEO told The Dallas Morning News.
Wayne Walker, the CEO and pastor at OurCalling, said Monday that the South Dallas shelter turned over photos and video to the FBI after learning that 44-year-old Malik Faisal Akram, of Blackburn, England, stayed at their facility on Jan. 2.
Walker said Akram was dropped off at the facility about 10 p.m. by another person. The two appeared to have a relationship and “hugged as they departed,” he said. Akram spent one night there and left the next day, a shelter spokeswoman said.
Walker said that knowing Akram had a relationship with someone in the area “raises some concerns” for authorities, but he declined to comment further about the shelter’s cooperation with the FBI.
The FBI declined to comment Monday evening, saying the agency has not changed its original statement that Akram is the only suspect in the attack on the Congregation Beth Israel where a gunman took four people hostage, including Rabbi Charlie Cytron-Walker. The hostages escaped and Akram was shot by the FBI’s hostage rescue team, NBC News reported, citing a senior law enforcement official.
The synagogue was holding its Shabbat service, which began at 10 a.m., when the man took the rabbi and three others hostage. The service was streamed live on Facebook, and a man could be heard speaking. At times the man sounded angry and said he was going to die.
Walker said the staff at the shelter did not see anything “out of the ordinary” about Akram.
“It’s sad to us that sometimes predators will hide within the homeless community, but it’s just a reality that causes a danger and makes us always have to make sure our homeless friends are well protected,” Walker said.
The stay at OurCalling was the first indication that Akram spent time in more than one local shelter.
Akram also spent three nights at Union Gospel Mission Dallas’ homeless shelter between Jan. 6 and 13, the nonprofit’s CEO Bruce Butler told CNN. Akram’s last day at the shelter was Thursday, Butler said.
“He was not there long enough to build any relationships,” Butler said. “We had a lot of new faces coming in because of the cold weather.”
Butler told The News that Akram came and went through the shelter and didn’t share any plans of an attack.
”Had we had reason to believe he was going to engage in a criminal act, we would have contacted authorities immediately,” Butler said.
‘Deeply troubled man’
In an interview with The New York Times, his brother, Gulbar Akram, described the 44-year-old as a “deeply troubled man.”
“He had mental health issues,” his brother said. “It’s well known, everybody in the town knows, he has mental health issues.”
Gulbar Akram told The Times he last saw his brother three months ago at their brother’s funeral. Since then, he said Malik Faisal Akram’s mental health declined. He did not elaborate further.
The brother also said Malik Faisal Akram did not have known connections to the North Texas community and questioned how his brother was able to travel into the U.S. He noted that Malik Faisal Akram had been known to counterterrorism police in Britain, but did not provide details, The Times reported.
President Joe Biden said Sunday that Malik Faisal Akram may have been in the U.S. for only a few weeks after arriving at John F. Kennedy International Airport on Dec. 29 and purchased a gun “on the street,” possibly at a homeless shelter.
In his interview with The Times, Gulbar Akram said he did not believe his brother held anti-Semitic or racist beliefs.
In both a message on the Blackburn Muslim Community’s Facebook page and in his interview with The Times, Gulbar Akram described being on the phone with his brother during negotiations.
“There was nothing we could have said to him or done that would have convinced him to surrender,” Gulbar Akram wrote in the since-deleted Facebook post.
Speaking for the family, Gulbar Akram wrote in the post, “[we] do not condone any of his actions and would like to sincerely apologize wholeheartedly to all the victims involved in the unfortunate incident.”
Member of British Parliament Kate Hollern, who represents Blackburn, condemned the hostage-taker’s actions in a statement posted to Twitter on Monday. Blackburn is an industrial city in Lancashire, England, about 20 miles outside of Manchester.
“The actions of this individual are not a reflection of Blackburn or any religious community,” the statement said.
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(Dallas Morning News staff writers Krista Torralva, Kelli Smith, Nataly Keomoungkhoun and Kevin Krause contributed to this report.)
