POWAY, Calif. (AP) — The FBI says it got tips about a threatening social media post about five minutes before a deadly attack on a synagogue near San Diego but it was too late to identify the suspect.
In a statement to The Associated Press, the FBI said Monday that it got word about the anonymous post through its tip website and phone line just before Saturday’s attack on the Chabad of Poway.
The FBI says the tips included a link to the post but didn’t offer specific information about its author or the location threatened.
The bureau says its employees immediately took action to identify who wrote the post but the shooting took place before they finished.
The attack killed one member of the congregation and wounded the rabbi and two others. A 19-year-old man surrendered to police a short time later.
Eight-year-old Noya Dahan had finished praying and gone to play with other children at her Southern California synagogue when gunshots rang out. Her uncle grabbed her and the other children, leading them outside to safety as her leg bled from a shrapnel wound.
Noya recalled how the group of children cried out of fear after a gunman entered Chabad of Poway on Saturday morning and started shooting.
The onslaught on the last day of Passover, a Jewish holiday celebrating freedom, wounded Dahan, her uncle and the congregation’s rabbi. The attack killed beloved congregant Lori Kaye, 60.
Authorities said the 19-year-old gunman opened fire as about 100 people were worshiping exactly six months after a mass shooting in a Pittsburgh synagogue.
