Pittsburgh Synagogue Shooting Survivor Says Mother Was Killed Nearby | Pittsburgh Shooting

A survivor of the Pittsburgh synagogue massacre said Wednesday that he screamed “Mama” as his right arm was shot after his 97-year-old mother, who was by her side in America’s worst Jewish attack, was shot dead. .

Andrea Wedner became the final government witness in the prosecution’s closing of the case against Robert Bowers. Mr. Bowers burst into the Tree of Life synagogue building with military rifles and other weapons, opened fire, and shot everyone he could find.

The shooter’s lawyers have remained out of defense since prosecutors rested, ready for Thursday’s closing arguments and jury deliberations.

In a 2018 attack, gunmen killed 11 worshipers and injured seven, including five police officers. The 50-year-old truck driver has been charged with 63 counts, including death from hate crimes and death from obstructing the free practice of religion. Some charges carry the death penalty.

In her harrowing and heartbreaking testimony, Wedner said she heard crashes, followed by gunshots, in the lobby of the building five or ten minutes before Shabbat services began. , told the jury. Her mother, Rose Malinger, asked, “What should I do?”

Wedner said she “clearly remembers” the shooter and his rifle.

“We were terrified. It was indescribable. We thought we were going to die,” she said.

Wedner called 911 and was on the phone when she and her mother were shot. She had her mother check her pulse, and she testified, “She knew she wouldn’t survive.” According to Wedner, when Swat officers entered the chapel, she kissed her fingers, touched her dead mother, shouted “her mama,” and threw another man on her way out. It is said that he straddled the victim of She said she was the only survivor of that section of the synagogue.

Her harrowing testimony, which other survivors also testified to the terror they felt that day, recounted how police officers exchanged gunfire with the shooter and ultimately neutralized him, and the jury and others heard about the pernicious presence he glorified Hitler on the Internet. He was a white supremacist and a constant rant against Jews.

Defense lawyers admit he was the shooter, but the delusion that he did not act out of religious hatred but rather that Jews enabled genocide by helping immigrants settle in the United States It suggests that he acted out of a certain belief.

On Wednesday, Pittsburgh Police Department officer Timothy Matson, who was seriously injured while responding to the violence, also testified.

He told jurors that he and another officer had broken down the door of the darkened room where the attacker had been locked up and was soon blown off his feet by a gun blast. Matson, who was 6 feet 4 inches tall and weighed 310 pounds at the time of the shooting, remembers being put on a stretcher on the way to the stairs and thinking he “must be sick.” .

Matson said he was shot seven times in the head, knees, shins and elbows and endured 25 surgeries to repair the damage, but he plans to walk through the door again.