Pittsburgh shooting suspect faces 29 federal charges

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A police officer stands under the rain outside the Tree of Life Synagogue after a shooting there left 11 people dead in the Squirrel Hill neighborhood of Pittsburgh on October 27, 2018.
(Image credit: Brendan Smialowski/Getty Images)

Robert Bowers, the man arrested under accusation of killing 11 people and wounding six more in Saturday's shooting at Pittsburgh's Tree of Life Synagogue, now faces 29 federal charges.

Among them are 11 counts of obstruction of the exercise of religious beliefs resulting in death. An account on the social media site Gab believed to belong to Bowers is rife with anti-Semitic content, and he reportedly told arresting officers he attacked because "all Jews must die."

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"When you spew hate speech, people act on it. Very simple," said Stephen Cohen of New Light Congregation, which rents building space from Tree of Life. "And this is the result. A lot of people dead. Senselessly."

Bonnie Kristian
Bonnie Kristian

Bonnie Kristian was a deputy editor and acting editor-in-chief of TheWeek.com. She is a columnist at Christianity Today and author of Untrustworthy: The Knowledge Crisis Breaking Our Brains, Polluting Our Politics, and Corrupting Christian Community (forthcoming 2022) and A Flexible Faith: Rethinking What It Means to Follow Jesus Today (2018). Her writing has also appeared at Time Magazine, CNN, USA Today, Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, and The American Conservative, among other outlets.