Transcript for Alleged synagogue shooter charged with 29 federal counts
It is a busy one. We’ll begin with the latest on that synagogue massacre. Some of the 11 victims being laid to rest today. The shooter appearing before a judge facing calls for the death penalty. ABC’s chief national correspondent Matt Gutman starts us off there in Pittsburgh with the latest. Good morning, Matt. Reporter: Good morning, robin. That shooter is accused of dozens of crimes, as you mentioned. Those felonies. Now, in that courtroom he seemed chillingly unfazed, that as investigators are still trying to unravel what caused him to snap. The man who allegedly turned a quiet sabbath into a massacre pushed into court in a wheelchair. He was arraigned Monday charged with 29 federal counts including hate crimes. Law enforcement sources telling ABC news bowers had amassed ten guns and brought four of them to the synagogue, all of them legally purchased. Those bullets tearing through worshippers that quiet Saturday morning and the police who responded. Trauma surgeon Dr. Keith Murray is also a S.W.A.T. Team member. We’ve had two officers with reports of being dead on scene. Reporter: They found an elderly woman shot in the arm clinging quietly to the body of a friend. Just staying with the body. So we kind of, you know, removed her from her friend. I think my medic put a tourniquet on her. Reporter: Others hiding trying not to be noticed. We were still holding our prayer books and wearing our prayer shawls. We were trying to disguise ourselves as bags of clothing in a room of bags of clothing. Reporter: Rabbi Jeffrey Myers helped several of his congregants flee and acted as eyes and ears for police dispatchers. I’m hearing people screaming and it’s seared in my brain. I can’t erase that tape. Reporter: Upstairs the shooter blasting away at S.W.A.T. Officers and spouting hatred. Suspect is talking about all these Jews need to die. We’re still communicating with him. Reporter: One police officer riddled with bullets, Dr. Murray just feet away from the gunfire. One of the other officers drug him out of the room someone took off his armor and carried him down the stairs. In between him getting shot and handed off to us, 20 seconds. It was amazing. Reporter: Officer Timothy Matteson suffered injuries to his arms, legs and head. Rabbi Myers thought he would be dead until the S.W.A.T. Team found him. How grateful were you? I thought I was dead. I was going to hang up my cell phone and make a video for my wife in the hopes that maybe they’d find the cell phone. Reporter: Now, in judaism you’re supposed to bury the dead as soon as possible, robin. But we’re told funerals here in Pittsburgh will last all week long. Rabbi Myers told me there are they were to bury and can only do two funerals a day. He is one who will meet with president trump. Some are asking for the president not to come including the mayor of Pittsburgh. Reporter: The mayor, council member, many of them are asking the president to delay his trip at least until everybody is buried here and the funerals are over. But there are others who say that he is welcome. Still, it is the president’s initial reaction to the shooting that seemed to focus on putting armed guards in places of worship like that synagogue behind me instead of focusing on sympathy that seemed to upset so many people here in Pittsburgh. That’s understandable. As the president heads to
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