The bomb left in a van by the couple who slaughtered a cop and three people during an anti-Semitic rampage in Jersey City last month was powerful enough to have killed or maimed victims as far as five football fields away, federal officials said Monday, according to The New York Post.
The two shooters, David Anderson and Francine Graham, also had enough material in the van to make a second bomb, the officials said.
New Jersey US Attorney Craig Carpenito said slain Detective Joseph Seals “threw off a broader plan” and “probably saved dozens, if not more, lives” when he confronted Anderson and Graham at a Jersey City cemetery.
After fatally shooting Seals, Anderson and Graham drove to the Jersey City Kosher Supermarket, where they killed co-owner Leah Mindel Ferencz, employee Douglas Miguel Rodriguez and customer Moshe Deutsch before dying during a furious firefight with cops.
Officials have labeled the December 10 incident domestic terrorism and blamed the carnage on “hatred of the Jewish people as well as hatred of law enforcement.”
Anderson and Graham cased the store several times, including hours before the attack, and they both had handcuff keys hidden in their underwear, Carpenito said Monday.
One of their guns has also been tied to another shooting that targeted a Jewish man driving near Newark Airport several days earlier, officials said.
The same weapon was also used to kill livery driver Michael Rumberger, who was found stuffed in the trunk of a Lincoln Town Car in Bayonnne on December 7, officials said.
Anderson made derogatory comments about Jews in social media posts before the attack, the ADL said last month.
Among other things, Anderson on Facebook referred to Jews as “Nazis” and “Ashke-Nazis” and shared images of Jewish people along with the New Testament verse, “I know the blasphemy of them which say they are Jews, and are not, but are the Synagogue of Satan.”
Anderson also reportedly left behind a handwritten note which said, “I do this because my creator makes me do this and I hate who he hates.”
State officials are probing possible ties with the Black Hebrew Israelites, a movement of African-Americans who believe they descended from the biblical Israelites.
The leader of the Black Hebrew Israelite organization condemned the shooting, saying it was “unfortunate that the media uses the term ‘Black Hebrew Israelites’ without distinction as if the description is a one size fits all and it is absolutely not!”
“Many African-American Jews and Jews of color are threatened by these perpetrators, and by those against the actions of these perpetrators,” he said.