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PITTSBURGH—The man charged in the shooting deaths of 11 people at a synagogue Saturday appeared in a downtown federal court room Monday, and victims’ families made funeral preparations as this city began to move beyond the shock of the attack.
The White House said President Trump and first lady Melania Trump would travel Tuesday to Pittsburgh to meet with the families of the victims.
White House Spokeswoman Sarah Sanders called the shooting a “chilling act of mass murder” and said that “anti-Semitism is a plague to humanity.”
“The President cherishes the American Jewish community for everything it stands for and contributes to our country,” she said.
Earlier in the day, Pittsburgh Mayor Bill Peduto said he hoped the president would postpone a trip until after the victims had been buried, saying that police would be stretched thin providing protection for funerals, he said. A spokeswoman said he had no further comment.
While several Jewish groups have strongly opposed a visit, some local leaders said Monday that they would welcome Mr. Trump.
“He’s president of the country. If he’s coming to express his sympathies, I think it’s OK,” said Rabbi Chuck Diamond, the former rabbi of the Tree of Life Congregation, where the shooting took place. The first two funerals, for brothers killed in the attack, will be held Tuesday, he said.
“We’re entering a new phase. Now it’s the grief and mourning,” Mr. Diamond said. “We have to be there for the families and nothing should distract from that.”
Robert Bowers, 46 years old, faces 29 counts, including hate-crime and firearm offenses in connection with the shooting, and the U.S. attorney’s office for the region has started the approval process for seeking the death penalty.
Mr. Bowers, who was wounded when he exchanged gunfire with officers at the synagogue, entered the courtroom in a wheelchair, escorted by U.S. Marshals.
People in the U.S. and other countries mourned for the 11 victims of a shooting at Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life synagogue. The ambush is thought to be the deadliest anti-Semitic attack in U.S. history. Photo: AP Images
He answered “yes” when asked by U.S. Magistrate Judge Robert C. Mitchell if he was Robert Bowers and “yes, sir” when asked whether he had been a given a copy of the complaint. He remains in custody without bond.
The judge set a preliminary hearing date for Thursday.
“At that time we will have an opportunity to present evidence that Robert Bowers murdered 11 people who were exercising their religious beliefs,” said Scott Brady, U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Pennsylvania.
Jon Pushinsky, 64, a lawyer and member of Congregation Dor Hadash, which meets at Tree of Life, said he came to the court to represent his fellow congregants, including a close friend who was killed and another who was injured.
“It was not the face of villainy I thought I would see,” Mr. Pushinsky said of Mr. Bowers, who sat slumped in his wheelchair and wore a blue sweatshirt and gray sweatpants. “It was just an ordinary-looking person.”
Mr. Bowers faces the possibility of death in relation to the 22 federal counts against him for Obstruction of Exercise of Religious Belief Resulting in Death and Use of a Firearm to Commit Murder During and in Relation to a Crime of Violence, a Justice Department official said.
On Sunday, authorities said all 11 victims, who ranged in age from 54 to 97, died of rifle wounds. The bodies have been released to the families.
Police said Mr. Bowers entered the synagogue Saturday morning and attacked congregants gathered for Shabbat services with a semiautomatic assault-style AR-15 rifle and three handguns.
Few details have emerged about his personal life and interactions with others.
Randal Lutz, superintendent of the Baldwin-Whitehall School District in Pittsburgh, confirmed Monday that Mr. Bowers attended Baldwin High School from August 1986 to November 1989 but didn’t graduate from the school. A 1989 yearbook photo shows a young Robert Bowers smiling, his shoulder-length hair parted down the middle.
A woman pauses at a memorial outside the Tree of Life synagogue following Saturday’s shooting at the synagogue in Pittsburgh.
Photo:
cathal mcnaughton/Reuters
“I know the entire Baldwin-Whitehall community feels a deep sense of shock and sadness and we grieve together with the victims’ families, our neighbors in Squirrel Hill and our friends in the Jewish faith,” Mr. Lutz said.
Michelle Cipolla, a 1990 graduate of Baldwin High, described him as a quiet kid with a small group of friends.
“He didn’t stick out, he kept to himself,” she said. “There were no outward signs that he would ever do this, so it’s kind of shocking really.”
Mr. Bowers didn’t show up in an electronic search of criminal records beyond a 2015 traffic citation.
Michael Bisignani, the police chief in the Borough of Dormont, a suburb of Pittsburgh in the area where Mr. Bowers has lived most of his life, said his department had contact with Mr. Bowers about minor incidents in the mid-1990s and early 2000s.
—Erica Snow contributed to this article.
Write to Kris Maher at [email protected] and Erin Ailworth at [email protected]
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