UK police admit shooting synagogue attack victim who died

MANCHESTER:

UK police said on Friday they shot two victims, including one who died, as officers responded to an attack on worshippers at a Manchester synagogue marking a Jewish holiday.

The admission came as Deputy Prime Minister David Lammy was booed at a vigil for the victims, with emotions running high a day after the atrocity.

At the gathering to remember the two victims — named by police as Adrian Daulby, 53, and Melvin Cravitz, 66 — people could be heard chanting "shame on you" as Lammy was introduced.

Three people were also seriously wounded, including one of those who was shot by police, in Thursday's car-ramming and stabbing attack, which have heightened fears for Jewish communities across Britain.

"This was a dreadful attack, a terrorist attack to inflict fear, attacking Jews because they are Jews," Prime Minister Keir Starmer told a group of emergency responders in the city in northwest England.

Security has been boosted at synagogues nationwide following the events at the Heaton Park Hebrew Congregation Synagogue on Yom Kippur, the holiest holiday of the Jewish calendar.

Police shot dead the attacker, named as Jihad al-Shamie, a UK citizen of Syrian descent who was on bail for an alleged rape, within minutes of responding to calls that a car had ploughed into people and a security guard had been stabbed.

On Friday, the Chief Constable of Greater Manchester Police, Stephen Watson, said an interior ministry pathologist had "provisionally determined that one of the deceased victims would appear to have suffered a wound consistent with a gunshot injury".

Noting the attacker was not believed to have had a gun, and that "the only shots fired were from... authorised firearms officers", Watson said the injury "may sadly have been sustained as a tragic and unforeseen consequence" of officers responding to the attack.

He added that the condition of the victim who was wounded by gunshot was not life-threatening.

The Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) watchdog said it is investigating "a fatal police shooting" to establish what had happened.

Watson said both gunshot victims "were close together behind the synagogue door, as worshippers acted bravely to prevent the attacker from gaining entry".

Shamie, 35, had worn a vest holding an apparent explosive device, but it was not functional, police said.

The force have arrested three people — two men in their 30s and a woman in her 60s — on suspicion of terrorism-linked offences.

The targeted synagogue's leaders said Friday "it is hard to find the words to convey the depth of our community's grief".