A pair of attacks over 700 miles apart on Thursday struck at the heart of community safe havens, leaving shocked Americans with an uneasy sense of security.
First, a deadly shooting being investigated as terrorism devastated a Virginia university in a military town. Hours later, a targeted vehicle-ramming attack on a Michigan synagogue left congregants shaken to their core.
The shooting at Virginia’s Old Dominion University late Thursday morning was committed by a veteran and convicted ISIS supporter. He killed one person and injured two others before a classroom of ROTC students subdued and killed him, the FBI said.
Less than two hours later, an explosives-laden vehicle plowed into the Temple Israel in West Bloomfield Township, setting it ablaze in what the FBI called a “targeted act of violence against the Jewish community.”
Friend moved to England and married an English woman. Brought her back on vacation. We all go to the mall. While we’re inside there’s a shooting outside. We walk outside to police everywhere, bullet casings everywhere, my car is taped off and we had to wait an hour before I could drive off.
She was visibly shaken and I’ll never forget her saying “So it really does happen here.”
Yeah, this is not a safe nation.