What to Know
- New video shows the moment the Jersey City shooters stormed into the Kosher market, before blasting at the helpless victims inside.
- David Anderson can be seen on the surveillance video walking across the street and firing off rounds before entering the store, with Francine Graham a few steps behind him
- After both are inside, one man is able to escape and is seen running for his life down the street
New video shows the moment the Jersey City shooters stormed into the Kosher market, before blasting at the helpless victims inside.
The surveillance video obtained by NBC News is shot from above the entrance to the JC Kosher Supermarket on Martin Luther King Drive. The U-Haul truck shooters David Anderson and Francine Graham were driving in, which New Jersey Attorney General Gurbir Grewal said had been lined with ballistic panels in possible anticipation of a shootout, is seen coming in from the right and parking directly across from the market.
From the top of the screen, Anderson crosses the street and approaches the store’s front door with an assault-style rifle in hand and clad in black.
Jersey City Shootout
Two suspects among six dead in barrage of gunfire that terrorized city for hours
He begins firing as he’s still in the street, sending pedestrians scrambling. Graham followed quickly just a few steps behind him, toting one of the five guns the couple is believed to have brought with them to conduct the attack, law enforcement officials said.
After both go inside, around half a dozen shots can be heard. A man is seen running out the door the shooters had just entered, and a couple more shots can be heard as that man is seen running off-screen.
David Lax is the man seen running out of the store and into the street, getting to safety just in time to narrowly escape death. He said he heard a “couple loud bangs” and saw everyone drop to the floor, so he did the same.
“In that second, I thought it was over,” Lax said in an interview with NBC News. The Jewish man dove under the salad bar for cover as Anderson and Graham shot and killed three people inside the store. Those in the store include Moshe Deutsch, 24, the store’s co-owner Mindy Ferencz, 31, and an employee of the store Miguel Rodriguez, 49.
Both Anderson and Graham were also killed after trading hundreds of rounds of gunfire with law enforcement. NBC New York was told that the duo were also crushed by an armored police car that rammed into the storefront, breaking several of their bones.
With bullets flying everywhere, Lax found his chance to escape when the second shooter walked in.
“She was kind of big also, so she had to pivot herself to come in,” Lax said in an interview with NBC News. “So in that second I went right away in … I redirected her arm and I ran out.”
The survivor believes that had he waited even a split second longer, he wouldn’t have made it out alive. When asked to describe what the shooters were like when they entered the store, Lax simply said “they came to kill.”
Lax said he knew the woman who died in the store, calling Ferencz “generous as can be.”
“Whatever happened, if my wife needed something or anyone needed something from this community or it doesn’t matter, she was always there,” he said.
Also on Thursday, New Jersey Attorney General Gurbir Grewal said that hate-fueled domestic terrorism motivated the harrowing and prolonged attack.
Grewal, who a day earlier outlined a timeline for what has been called a targeted attack on the JC Kosher Supermarket, said Anderson and Graham went there armed with rifles for a single purpose: to take out Jewish people — and members of law enforcement.
Officials have said they believe the two attackers, found dead in the store in the bloodshed's aftermath, identified themselves in the past as Black Hebrew Israelites, a movement whose members have been known to rail against white people and Jews. Grewal said authorities have not established a formal link between the pair and the group.
Authorities have found social media postings from Anderson that were anti-police and had anti-Jewish elements, law enforcement sources with knowledge of the case previously told News 4. Grewal said Thursday investigators are still working to corroborate the messages were posted by Anderson and reflected his views, but at this point, he and others felt comfortable revealing the preliminary motive.
The shooters are also prime suspects in the slaying of a livery driver found dead in a car trunk in nearby Bayonne over the weekend, Grewal said. Investigators are incorporating that fact into their overall probe, but it's not clear if there is a connection between the Bayonne death and the others.
