Suspect Charged With Hate Crimes in Shootings of Two Jewish Men Outside LA Synagogues
ABC: “The shootings occurred within 24 hours on Wednesday and Thursday mornings as the victims left different synagogues within two blocks of each other.”
A 28-year-old man has been charged with federal hate crimes in connection with the shootings of two Jewish worshipers outside Los Angels synagogues this week. The suspect, identified as LA resident Jaime Tran, shot two Jewish men in separate instances on Wednesday and Thursday.
“The shootings occurred within 24 hours on Wednesday and Thursday mornings as the victims left different synagogues within two blocks of each other,” the ABC News reported. “The first victim was shot in the lower back, while the second was shot in the upper arm.” Both victims survived the shooting.
According to the police, the shooter identified the Jewish victims by their clothing. The shooter has a “history of antisemitic and threatening conduct,” an FBI affidavit said.
The New York Post covered the details of the investigation:
The man who allegedly shot two Orthodox Jewish men in separate incidents in Los Angeles this week had a history of making anti-Semitic threats and told former classmates he wanted to kill them.
Jaime Tran, 28, has been charged with federal hate crimes and faces a maximum sentence of life in prison for the attacks, US Attorney Martin Estrada said during a press conference in Los Angeles on Friday.
“Over the past few days, our community has experienced two horrific acts,” Estrada said. “An individually motivated by antisemitism and hatred for people in the Jewish community committed to tremendously horrible acts, targeting individuals because of their Jewish faith.
“Targeting two victims as they departed from religious services at two different synagogues in the Beverlywood neighborhood. This type of criminal conduct is completely unacceptable.”
Officials said the first incident took place before 9:45 a.m. Wednesday when Tran allegedly drove up in his Honda Civic and shot a 47-year-old man as he was getting into his car, which was parked across from a synagogue at the 1400 block of Shenandoah Street.
The man, wearing a traditional yarmulke and black jacket, was shot in the right side of his back, according to the federal criminal complaint that was unsealed Friday.
The second attack occurred around 8:30 a.m. Thursday at the intersection of Pickford and Bedford streets, which is about two blocks away from the first crime scene.
In that incident, Tran was also in his vehicle when he shot an Orthodox Jewish man in his 70s as the man was leaving a different synagogue. The second victim also was wearing a yarmulke, according to the criminal complaint.
Both men survived the shootings, authorities said. Tran was arrested in the Palm Springs area after Cathedral City Police responded to reports of shots fired, according to the complaint. Cops also confiscated an AK-style firearm and a .380-caliber handgun in Tran’s vehicle.
An overwhelming majority of hate crimes in LA County are committed against the Jewish community. The ABC News reported:
In 2021, nearly 75% of religious-based hate crimes reported in Los Angeles County targeted the Jewish community, according to a report from the county’s Commission on Human Relations.
“The Jewish community feels under siege,” Jeffrey Abrams, the regional director of the Anti-Defamation League in Los Angeles, said during the briefing. “We stand here today in solidarity and gratitude and thanks for our law enforcement partners. We ask that everyone, Jewish and non-Jewish alike, stand up against this growing antisemitism.”
Federal hate crime charges have been filed against Jaime Tran for shooting two Jewish men on Wednesday and Thursday after they left their synagogue in Los Angeles.
Tran, 28, is being held on $2 million bail (continued) pic.twitter.com/ZJa7ZTwSn3
— StopAntisemitism (@StopAntisemites) February 17, 2023
The shootings in LA come just weeks after a similar attack in Jerusalem. On 27 January, an Arab terrorist gunned down seven Jewish worshipers and wounded 10 others as they were leaving an East Jerusalem synagogue. The shooting was followed by a series of Palestinian terror attacks against Israeli civilians.
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Comments
The Asian face of white supremacy.
He’s just a useful idiot loser that jumped on the left’s Jew-hatred train – like many useful idiots losers do.
The irony is that the Chinese are often called the “Jews of the Orient”.
Um, why is that ironic? Did you think Tran is a Chinese name?!
Um, apparently you know him personally.
Tran is a Vietnamese name.
There is nothing wrong with being familiar with the rich cultural diversity of Asia, in fact you probably should be.
Asia will only grow more and more important. Europe is in a self destructive mode with not just de-industrialization but de-agriculturalization on the rise.
When did the Aryan Brotherhood adopt a policy mandate for Diversity Equity and Inclusion? /s
Well, at Mar-A-Lago, Trump dined with a black white supremacist, a gay Hispanic white supremacist, and a gay half-Jewish white supremacist. The only thing missing was Asian.
White supremacists these days seem to be more diverse than the people who claim to fight it. Ever see mugshots of Antifa suspects?
BTW, with that name, I suspect he is part-Hispanic too. Although Hispanics in America have not been noted for attacks on Jews, either.
Hate crime ought not to exist and it’s surprising the right embraces it.
On the other hand, if it does exist, it needs to be applied universally. Not just to ‘protected classes’.
No, it doesn’t work. It just establishes as noncontroversial what is controversial.
And it is applied universally. Has been ever since such laws were passed in the first place.
No Milhouse, it hasn’t. Especially in Europe. Leftists and Muslims have been saying for decades vile Jew-hating garbage that would get a rightist thrown in prison – and doing it with NO repercussions. The effect of such uneven enforcement actually EMPOWERS the anti-Semites. Come on Milhouse, you know this.
The whole concept of hate crime laws is American. I don’t think they even have such laws in Europe. And I dare you to find me examples of such laws being administered unequally.
I don’t embrace it at all, but as long as we have them, they need to be applied in cases like this. Equally, in other words, not used as a weapon only against white Christians.
Agreed. Gotta use every tool in the toolbox or we may as well quit.
They have always been applied equally, and never as a “weapon against white Christians”.
Why ought they not to exist? Motive has always been a legitimate factor in sentencing. Committing a crime for a depraved motive has always been grounds for enhancing the sentence beyond what it would have been had it been done for some more acceptable motive. That is part of the common law.
Hate crime laws merely formalize this and give it official recognition, and therefore require that the jury find the motive proved. Rather than the prosecution being able to simply slip the accusation of a hateful motive into the sentencing briefs, they must allege it in advance and introduce evidence to prove it to the jury. That is a significant protection for the accused that was not available before hate crime laws were passed.
And of course no hate crime law makes hatred itself, or expressing it, a crime. That can’t be done in this country, because expressing hatred is protected by the first amendment.
Is it less important someone killed a victim for his money rather than killing because of the victim’s race?
Yes, a murder motivated by ordinary robbery is not as bad as one committed out of hatred for an entire community, and the sentence should reflect that. When someone is murdered for his wallet, he is the only victim. When someone is murdered for his membership in a community, that entire community are victims.
But in the case of murder the difference is not so stark. Even an ordinary murder attracts a very high penalty, so there’s not much you can do to enhance it. The main purpose and impact of hate crime laws is in relation to otherwise minor crimes. For instance there is a huge difference between a graffitist tagging a building for the sake of sheer vandalism, or to mark his gang’s territory, and someone spraying a swastika on a synagogue. The crime itself is the same, but the motive makes all the difference, and the latter ought to be punished much more harshly than the former. The former harms only the building owner; the latter harms every Jew who sees it or hears about it, and must now live in fear, which was the vandal’s intent. (Cf Clarence Thomas’s famous opinion on cross-burning for another example of the same thing.)
Northern Asiatics; Chinese, Taiwanese, Japanese, Koreans, etc, are among the most law-abiding folks in the USA. Tran may be Vietnamese, one of the southern Asians who are a bit more prone to violence but remain far less feral than Hispanics or blacks.
I suspect mental illness may be at work here.
Sure, he’s a bit nuts. But he’s been driven to do what he did by the democrat media, leftist schools etc.
Think about it: he’s actually a good student.
And maybe mental illness is at work. The families of a lot of Palestinian “martyrs “ also like to claim the attackers are mentally ill- while bragging in Arabic about their heroic deeds.
But what a coincidence that so many mentally ill attackers just happen to select Jews as targets.
How Al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) recruits suicide bombers, according to a Navy SEAL and senior chief in the book The Sheriff of Ramadi:
“Those SOBs go out and recruit kids to do this. Our interrogators were able to get the whole story (from captured AQI recruits). One of them had been sexually abused as a young boy and was told the only way he could reclaim his family honor was to die for Allah in this manner. The senior AQI leaders – the foreigners – won’t do this themselves. They get others to do it. They prey upon kids, young boys and girls who are insecure or have some psychological disorder. Some of them have severe learning disabilities…”
Mental illness or just a bad egg. Every race/ethnic group no matter how generally exceptional has them.
I was surprised reading it to see a Vietnamese name, but at the end of the day no matter how good an upbringing some people will turn bad (and even among Asians there are exceptions to the rule in terms of families).
Sure, he’s a bit nuts. But he’s been driven to do what he did by the democrat media, leftist schools etc.
Think about it: he’s acting like a good student.
Another irony: Jews have made Chinese restaurants rich.
Chinese restaurants are what make shrimp and pork okay for the observant.
CNN has him booked for a Monday afternoon interview, a few hours after he’ll be back on the street again.
I heard that the DNC is trying to get Tran for Keynote speaker at their 2024 convention.
Seems yet again the rhetoric of the left got people killed.
Was DIEversity a motive?
I’m an observant Jew and I think I keep myself apprised of these things reasonably well. It’s weird he is Vietnamese. You don’t find a lot of antisemitism in that group. I would wonder if probably it’s mental illness and then I’d have to wonder if he recently converted to Islam. I doubt the news would report that latter information if it turned out to be the case.
Where’s the DoJ’s “Disparate Impact” rangers on this? To the statistics! There has to be some bias out there to righteously confront!