Mourners pay their respects in front of the Tree of Life Synagogue, where 11 people were killed in a mass shooting, in Pittsburgh, Pa., on Oct. 30, 2018.HILARY SWIFT/The New York Times News Service
The trial of the gunman at the Tree of Life synagogue is over. The episode of the shooting at the Tree of Life is not over.
Robert Bowers, who sprayed bullets inside the synagogue sanctuary, killing 11 Jews at prayer, was convicted Friday of 63 federal charges. An avowed antisemite who said his motive was to “kill Jews” because he considered them a cancer and threat to “our people,” he will face the death penalty in a separate trial before the same jury.
This verdict brings a measure of closure to the Squirrel Hill community of Pittsburgh – in the way that an unlocked screen door bangs in a summertime breeze: shut but not fastened closed.
“For us,” Rabbi Jeffrey Myers, who was conducting Sabbath prayers during the fateful Saturday morning, said in an interview Friday, “it will never be over because we will live with this for the rest of our lives.”
The case provided an unusual, and unusually traumatizing, juncture because shooters in mass murders often either are shot by police or kill themselves, and thus rarely face court trials.
The sound of shots ricocheting in the massive structure may have faded in the nearly five years since the massacre, but the echoes persist, haunting the neighbourhood, disturbing the peace of a district that until the autumn of 2018 celebrated its peacefulness – a place that, depending on who is counting and what is counted as a synagogue (no small matter of debate in these parts) includes as many as a dozen-and-a-half Jewish places of worship.
Here the Dunkin’ Donuts and the Italian ice parlour have rabbinic-certified kosher designations, and here the hour of sundown – the beginning of the Sabbath on Friday evenings – is posted in a store window. The Pittsburgh area is one of the few American locales where the centre of Jewish life has remained within the city limits rather than having moved to the suburbs.
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And while the Tree of Life building, which actually is home to three separate congregations, has been at the centre of Jewish conversation since 9:54 on the morning of October, 27, 2018, it also is, physically, at the centre of much of secular Pittsburgh life.
Pittsburgh Steelers coach Mike Tomlin lives a few houses down Shady Avenue from the synagogue. He passes it practically every day on the way to the NFL team’s training facility. Art Rooney II, the Steelers president, lives 1.4 kilometres away; he and his wife used to drive past the synagogue when taking their daughter to school. Fred Rogers lived at 5381 Northumberland Street: A four-minute drive away, the synagogue is literally in Mister Rogers’s neighbourhood. (The studio where the American television show, which actually had its origins in Canada on CBC television, is across the street from the temporary home of Tree of Life services.) David Johnson, the long-time WPXI television news anchor, lives nearby. He simply walked – actually, he ran – from his home that autumn morning to cover the shooting. I live three blocks away.
“I knew a number of the victims,” said Rich Fitzgerald, who as the Allegheny County executive is the principal political figure in the region. He lives about 90 metres from the synagogue and said Friday that, even though the trial is over, “this is something that you don’t recover from.”
“It’s always there,” he added.
And because it is always there, a group called the 10.27 Healing Partnership, which takes its name from the date of the shooting, has encouraged Pittsburghers to place blue ribbons on their homes, an expression of compassion during the trial. The organization, launched shortly after the shooting, has organized a series of programs to help residents cope with the aftershocks of the tragedy, some of which have hit with the force of a boomerang.
This difficult moment prompted Bishop David Zubik, the Pittsburgh-area native who is top Catholic prelate in the city, to recall the lesson of the seventh chapter of the Old Testament Book of Deuteronomy, in which Moses delivers the powerful message: “The Lord has set his heart on you because the Lord loved you.”
“Those words were spoken to the beloved Jewish people,” the bishop said. “At this delicate time for the Pittsburgh Jewish community and beyond, we all need to embrace not only God’s words, but especially at this time set our hearts on our Jewish sisters and brothers, as God does.”
The jury will reconvene next week to consider the penalty phase.
The first consideration will be whether this case qualifies for the death penalty; the answer almost certainly will be affirmative. Then the court will begin hearing from both sides, and will receive evidence from the prosecution intended to push the jury toward the death penalty: the fact that there were multiple victims and victims who, because of their age, were uniquely vulnerable, and the notion that this killing was particularly heinous. The defence will offer mitigating factors, which could include the defendant’s mental health.
“The jury will consider the balance between the two and whether the death penalty is appropriate,” said David Harris, a University of Pittsburgh law professor who conducted community classes to help residents understand the trial and its procedures. “That question also will cause trauma in the community. It seems as if it never ends.”