Newly released bodycam footage shows an armed cop shooting from a window during a gunfight with anti-Semitic attackers who killed three at Jersey City kosher grocery in December.
The clip was obtained yesterday with another six files through the state’s open records law. The seven files span roughly three hours from the Dec. 10 barrage.
One video capturing part of the shootout shows a Jersey City police officer firing his pistol toward the market from the window of a Catholic school across the street. The officer is seen reloading his weapon as numerous volleys of gunfire are heard.
‘I think he’s down. No he’s still moving,’ the unidentified officer is heard saying.
In this 10 December, 2019 image made from newly released video provided by the Jersey City Police Department via the New Jersey Attorney General’s Office, a Jersey City police officer fires his weapon from the window of a Catholic school during a fierce gun battle in Jersey City, N.J
In the image released yesterday by Jersey City Police Department, the cop can be seen reloading his pistol in the 10 December shootout
David Anderson (left), 47, and Francine Graham (right), 50, are believed to have killed Detective Seals at the cemetery before storming a kosher market about a mile away
The officer moves past rows of small desks from one classroom, past lockers and into another before he shoots out of the window, which had been decorated with a paper cutout of an angel. Schools in Jersey City had been locked down that day.
Three people at the market, plus the two shooters, died. The attackers also killed a Jersey City police detective earlier that day, according to authorities.
The other files show the moment one of the shooters exited the van he drove there, took three steps and raised a long gun before entering the market, sending passersby scattering away from the shop.
Moshe Hirsch Deutsch (left), 24, was among those killed in the kosher store shootout on December 10, as was Leah Mindel Ferencz, 33, (right)
Seals was a married father of five, and joined the Jersey City PD in 2006 after serving with the military and other law enforcement agencies
Members of the Chesed Shel Emes, a Jewish organization which helps families through grief, were on the scene on Tuesday night to gather the blood of the victims
Authorities identified the attackers as David Anderson and Francine Graham and said they were fueled by a hatred of Jewish people and law enforcement. Authorities had said Anderson exited the white rental van they drove to the scene carrying an AR-15 style weapon, while Graham carried a 12-gauge shotgun into the shop.
The video shows police arrived at the market less than two minutes after the shooters exited the van.
Another video shows a police vehicle smashing into the store front nearly three hours after Anderson and Graham arrived.
The Associated Press obtained the video Thursday from the New Jersey attorney general through the state’s open records law.
State and federal law enforcement officials said Anderson and Graham expressed hatred of Jews and law enforcement in notes left at the grocery shooting scene and in online posts.
Police officers arrive at the scene of an active shooting in Jersey City, New Jersey, on December 10, 2019
Bullets pierced windows in the Sacred Heart School across the road from the kosher supermarket, which was attacked in December
Members of Chesed Shel Emes, a Jewish organization which helps families through grief, were on the scene the following day
Anderson, 47, and Graham, 50, shot and killed Jersey City Detective Joseph Seals in a chance meeting in a cemetery, then drove to the market and killed Mindel Ferencz, 31, who owned the store with her husband; Moshe Deutsch, 24, a rabbinical student from Brooklyn who was shopping there; and store employee Douglas Miguel Rodriguez, authorities said.
Rodriguez held the back door open for a wounded customer to escape before he was shot, authorities said earlier.
Five weapons and hundreds of rounds of ammunition were found in the store afterward. Investigators also found a bomb in the couple’s van that could have sprayed shrapnel fragments. The van also contained materials that could have made a second bomb, he said.
It’s not known for certain what prompted the confrontation between Seals and the shooters.
A piece of police tape is seen by Bay View Cemetery in Jersey City where Det. Joseph Seals was killed on 10 December while trying to stop ‘bad guys,’ Police Chief Michael Kelly said without elaborating
Barricaded in the kosher store, Anderson and Graham were killed after a lengthy gun battle with the police that sent the sound of gunfire booming for hours through the neighborhood in New Jersey’s second-largest city.
Investigators found among Anderson’s social media posts a reference to Jews as ‘imposters who inhabited synagogues of Satan.’
Anderson received about $560 per month as a military veteran and may have sold property and a van to make money, officials said, but investigators have found no evidence he received outside assistance to purchase weapons or bomb-making materials.