Six Jews on their way home from Friday night services were
shot and wounded by a gunman who went on a two state shooting
rampage against Jews, blacks and Asian-Americans. The man
police said carried out the shootings was Benjamin Nathaniel
Smith, a 21-year-old member of a white supremacist group. The
bloodthirsty spree ended late Sunday night with the alleged
gunman's suicide.
The attacks began last Friday evening within an eight block
radius in West Rogers Park, home to the Chicago area's
largest population of observant Jews. Many Jewish residents
were walking the streets at the time, on their way to and
from shul.
The injured Jews were Hillel Goldstein, 34; Eric Yates, 31;
Dean Bell, 31; Gidon Sapir, 34, an Israeli; Ian Hupert, 31;
and Ephraim Wolfe, 15.
Authorities gave the following description of events:
About 8:20 p.m. Friday, the gunman stopped at a corner in
West Rogers Park as dozens of observant Jews walked to and
from religious services.
Stepping out of his car, the man walked to within 15 feet of
a group of men and boys and opened fire with a pair of
semiautomatic handguns, a .22-caliber and a .380-caliber.
Hillel Goldstein, a Skokie high school teacher, was shot in
the stomach and fell to the ground.
One witness, Dr. Michael Messing, said that as the gunman
fled that first shooting, "he was driving slow. I think he
was still looking to shoot people. He wasn't looking to get
away."
Two minutes later, several more shots rang out around the
corner, wounding Eric Yates in the upper leg.
Three minutes later, witnesses said the man began shooting
from his car. Dean Bell was shot four times, and Gidon Sapir,
a former captain in the Israeli army was also shot in the
lower back and wounded. Both are said to be in good
condition.
At 8:32 p.m., Ian Huper, 31, of Skokie was shot in the right
forearm and right side as he was driving north on North
Sacramento Avenue. The gunman opened fire from his car as he
drove south -- the wrong way on a one-way street.
Three minutes later, Ephraim Wolfe, who was walking with his
friend to another nearby synagogue, was shot in the right
leg. The other boy was not injured. Wolfe is a student at Ida
Crown Jewish Academy in Chicago. He later told reporters that
he does not feel anger towards the attacker.
By 8:52 p.m., the shooter attacked again in Skokie, a nearby
neighborhood, where Ricky Byrdsong, 43, was walking with two
of his children near their home. Byrdsong was hit once in the
lower back -- an injury from which he died hours later.
Byrdsong, who was black, was a former Northwestern University
basketball coach. He had been working for an insurance
company since he was fired by Northwestern in 1997 after four
seasons. He was married with three children.
One of those shot said that as he crossed the street near his
house Friday night, en route home from shul, something
caught his attention. Sitting at a stop sign at the
intersection was a car, and the driver was staring at him.
As an observant Jew wearing a black hat and long black coat,
the man was accustomed to stares from people unfamiliar with
his faith. So he ignored the gaze and continued walking.
Suddenly he heard four quick, loud bangs. He had been shot,
but he didn't immediately realize it.
"Because I'm used to hearing fireworks now [Editor's Note:
Around the American Independence Day, July 4, children set
off a lot of firecrackers], I assumed it was a prank," the
man said later. "But I felt an impact. And I said, `Oh, it
must be a BB gun.' But the pain was excruciating, and there
was blood."
The man, a chassidic Jew and school therapist who holds dual
Israeli-U.S. citizenship, said that he saw the face of the
shooter, a white man with short black or brown hair, and the
sight was unnerving. "I got the sense he was enjoying
himself," he said. "He had this predator look to him."
A doctor from the neighborhood and his son ran to his side as
he lay bleeding, and they kept him talking until an ambulance
arrived and took him to the hospital.
Another shooting victim, Gidon Sapir, was hospitalized but
said to be in fair condition. A bullet in his lower abdomen
has been removed. A lawyer who has taught college courses at,
among other places, Northwestern University, Sapir is an
Israeli citizen.
"I was on my way back from synagogue, accompanied by my two
children, 5 and 4 years old, and a friend of mine [Dean
Bell]," Sapir said. "My son heard a noise, and not knowing, I
told him it was probably a car backfire. So we kept walking,
and when we got to Francisco and Lunt, a car stopped next to
us.
"He did not get out of the car, he started shooting from the
car, thereby breaking the passenger's side window. After the
first shot, I threw my son down on the ground and jumped on
him," he said, adding he didn't get a good look at the
shooter. "So I got hit on my back.
"I would say that it's a bit ironic. I'm a captain in the
Israeli infantry . . . and after spending time in Lebanon and
the West Bank, I get shot in Chicago," he said, adding that
he and his family had been planning to return to Israel this
summer.
By late Saturday night, most had been released from area
hospitals.
That none of the six was killed is ``nothing short of
miraculous," said Rabbi Zev Cohen, of Congregation Adas
Yeshurun, where several of the wounded were members.
Smith was a member of the World Church of the Creator, a
white supremacist group based in Peoria, Illinois. It does
not worship any god. He had been arrested several times, most
recently in north suburban Chicago in April, for distributing
antisemitic and anti-minority literature produced by that
organization.
While Jews don't listen to the radio or watch TV on Shabbos,
word had spread throughout the community by Shabbos morning.
A buzz could be heard at West Rogers Park synagogues, as
congregants who hadn't seen the story in the morning papers
shared developments with each other.
Following the Rogers Park attack, the gunman headed to
Skokie, a suburb just north of Chicago, where he shot and
killed an African-American man who was taking a stroll with
two of his three children.
According to police, the shooter then drove north to
Northbrook, about 10 miles north of Skokie, where he shot at
an Asian-American couple in their car. They were not
wounded.
Two more shootings took place Saturday night in downstate
Illinois, in Springfield and Urbana, injuring an Asian-
American student. A third shooting Sunday morning in
Bloomington, Indiana, killed a male Korean American who was
leaving Sunday church services.
On Sunday night, the FBI announced that the suspect shot and
killed himself after police pursued him in rural southern
Illinois. Bloomington police said two guns found with the
body were consistent with those used in shootings in
Bloomington and Chicago. Other evidence also indicated that
the he was the murderer, including a tattoo that he had
saying "Sabbath Breaker."
The police said the crimes did not fit the legal definition
of a hate crime, because they had no expression of hatred or
motive from the shooter.
Jewish Federation agencies have offered their support to the
Byrdsong family.
