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The Mayor of Pittsburgh, Bill Peduto, in his Pittsburgh City Hall office this Friday, is still at the beginning of what he considers a "marathon" after the shooting in a synagogue. (Salwan Georges / The Washington Post)
PITTSBURGH – Mayor Bill Peduto had told his team not to call Saturday morning except for emergency. He had planned to sleep, a rarity, which meant that some protocols were applied, especially that he was answering his phone only when he sounded twice.
When the first call took place around 10 am, Peduto was wrapped in his blanket and chose to ignore it. Moments later, on the second call, the conversation with his chief of staff, Dan Gilman, was quick and factual: "There was a shootout at Tree of Life, several people were killed , including the police, "Are you coming for me?" Gilman said, "I'm already on my way."
Five blocks from his home, the most deadly attack against Jews in the United States was continuing. Rain fell on his city. His director of public security was out of town. His constituents, people he knew well – including people inside the synagogue – were about to start suffering too common for Americans. While he was standing under a tree protecting himself, in the hope of staying dry, chaos was built around him.
He tried to stay calm for himself, for Pittsburgh.
"SWAT teams paraded in front of us in bulletproof vest, police sirens sounded in all directions, cars were flying to get there, firefighters already blocking the road in the streets," said Peduto.
He began to think of evil and the fact that it was not just a mass murder, but a mass murder of seniors: nine of the victims were 65 years old or older.
"It is a mass murder that has fallen prey to the elderly for the way they pray in this place that is called a sanctuary. . . in what should be the safest place in their lives, "said Peduto. "And we had to deal with a whole new level of evil."
Before the real toll of this evil is known, before squadrons of bombers have secured the building, before the heartbreaking condolences, before the tears, before the funeral series, before his city is forced into a state of almost constant mourning, Peduto's phone rang again.
It was President Trump.
"I love my city"
The three-minute phone call with the president shocked Peduto, 54, the popular Democratic mayor in Steel City's second term, just as he was trying to figure out what was happening. After offering thoughts and prayers – and promised everything Peduto needed, including a direct line with the White House – Trump shifted directly to politics, Peduto recalled. The president, said Peduto, insisted that we discuss tougher legislation on the death penalty in order to prevent such atrocities. Peduto was stunned.
"I'm literally two blocks away from 11 bodies right now. Really? "Peduto said, noting that he was numb and believed that talking about the death penalty would not" bring them back or deter what had just happened. . . . I ended the conversation pretty quickly after that.
White House spokesmen did not respond to requests for comment regarding Trump's appeal to Peduto. After the shooting, the president said that armed guards might be able to arrest the gunman and prevent the massacre, and he said at a rally organized a few hours after the shot that "we must bring back the penalty of death "to those who kill innocent people. . (Pennsylvania executed a prisoner for the last time in 1999 and in 2015 Governor Tom Wolf (D) announced the suspension of the death penalty.)
The appeal between Trump and Peduto foreshadowed what would become one of the most difficult weeks a mayor could consider, during which Peduto was plunged into a national policy debate and ultimately a series of public clashes with the president, including urging Trump to stay away. city until the community can bury its dead. Contrary to Peduto's wishes, Trump spent a few hours in Pittsburgh on October 30, during a funeral week, to offer his condolences. The visit sparked peaceful public protests and Peduto's anger.
"It could have been avoided," Peduto said. "He could have chosen to go to the Holocaust museum and lay a wreath with his wife. Or build a fund to commemorate the 11 people whose lives were lost forever in the museum. "
Rabbi Jeffrey Myers, of Tree of Life, who welcomed Trump's visit, said in a TV interview that he had found the president "very warm, very comforting" and that he was "agreeably surprised by his warm and personal side to the president thinks that America has never seen. "
White House press secretary Sarah Sanders told reporters Wednesday that Trump had felt that the afternoon in Pittsburgh was "very humiliating" and "very sad".
Peduto testified that Trump 's visit angered him not only for violating the wishes of the families who had asked him not to be there, but also because it was putting the police in the city to the test, l'. Forcing them to break one of their first promises to the Jewish community after the attack: have all the security they need in their schools and places of worship.
"I was in three Jewish schools and I talked to kids as young as first grade and I had at least three or four policemen to introduce myself, and our goal was very simple: & You will see police officers outside of your school next week. We want you to know that they are here to protect you, "Peduto said on the day of Trump's visit. "I do not know if we can have officers in these three schools, and if we have any, we will have one."
An Israeli flag and a list of the names of the victims are outside the mayor's office. (Salwan Georges / The Washington Post)
This is not the first time Peduto tackles Trump. Last year, after the withdrawal of the United States from the Paris climate agreement, Peduto opposed the president's claim that he "was elected to represent the citizens of Pittsburgh, not Paris."
"As Mayor of Pittsburgh, I can assure you that we will follow the Paris Accord guidelines for our people, our economy and our future," Peduto told Twitter.
[Pittsburgh mayor says armed guards are not the solution after shooting]
While Peduto was on the national scene last week, his attention was focused on Pittsburgh. Peduto knows that the Pittsburgh City Hall is not necessarily the best place to control guns or fight hate speech across the country. Would he look for a higher position at the end of his term in 2021?
"Not at all," he says. "In fact, maybe the opposite. I love my job. . . . This is the only political work other than that of council member that I have asked for or will be looking for. I want to work for the city of Pittsburgh. I love my city. "
In a series of interviews over the past week while he was busy in his mourning town, Peduto said he was doing his best to be the leader whose community Jewish needed. Genial, wearing turtle-shell glasses and a bushy white beard, Peduto also acknowledges that he had become an unlikely face of Trump's resistance a few days before the end of the cycle. While the president talked about armed guards in places of worship and the death penalty as a deterrent, Peduto talked about gun access and insurgent against the speech Toxic politics and apparent anti-Semitism behind the attack of the synagogue.
But he said he wanted to direct everyone's attention to the people of Pittsburgh on a path to healing.
"The advice I received from Libby Schaaf, Mayor of [Oakland, Calif.] who went through a similar tragedy, had a clear, concise and transparent plan. He said last week. "I've been very clear since Saturday night that our mission this week is to help first and foremost the families of the victims to go through the burial process of each of them and to focus on their needs. "
These needs weighed heavily on Peduto, an Italian Catholic mayor who prides himself on being an "adopted" member of the Jewish community here. He was the first non-Jewish council member to represent the 8th district, which includes the Squirrel Hill synagogue district, since the 1980s. He resides in the area and lives within 1.5 km of Tree of Life. .
"That's where I chose to live," Peduto said. "I would consider some of my oldest friends and have been talking to them for 25 years. . . well before going to the elections. "
Peduto, like many in Squirrel Hill, has many personal connections with the victims and families affected by the massacre. This meant that he was forced to play the rabbi to some of his own friends, notifying them that their loved ones might be among the dead. One of these people was Michele Rosenthal, who knew that her two brothers were in the synagogue, but the morning of the attack, it was not certain that David and Cecil were alive.
"She came and she was trying to find out about her two brothers," Peduto said with a sigh, staring at the floor of his City Hall office. At that time, he had already heard that a brother was dead, but he was not sure and he did not want to spread a rumor. "So I hugged her and told her all the information we have, she will have them."
In the minutes following this conversation, he discreetly approached Rosenthal's husband, a former colleague and public safety officer in Pittsburgh, and told him to prepare for the worst. It turned out that David and Cecil had been killed.
Peduto attends a memorial in front of the Tree of Life synagogue on October 29th. (Salwan Georges / The Washington Post)
"I had that fear"
Last week, Peduto found himself in limbo, as he struggled to guide the Jewish community and the city in its darkest episode – and to cross it with emotion. During the first two days after the attack, he slept for three hours and ate only a plate of cold pizza and green beans served by his neighbors while he was eating. it drifted through a fog of funerals, family visits and public events.
He said that one of the most difficult moments was to wake up and feel unsafe at home.
"I was at home and I was scared. I had this fear, "he said. "It was a very strong feeling of insecurity. I did not know if it was the first domino to fall. I did not know. "
Another difficult moment was the moment when this fear gave way to loneliness: Peduto, single and living alone, compared his need to rub shoulders with what some traumatized New Yorkers felt after September 11th. "I could have gone home and taken a few minutes to do my laundry or two hours to rest, but I can not go home," he said shortly after the funeral of the Rosenthal brothers . "I just could not stay home alone."
So he tried to be everywhere and with everyone. As he passed from burial to burial, he arrived early in a synagogue to spend time with people in mourning, holding their hands, hugging and comforting them.
"Everyone I know is a member of the Jewish community, I reach out and take their hand. I look them in the eyes and I answer them: "Is it okay? The pain is deep, said Peduto. "I do not know how long it will take to dissipate."
Peduto, on the right, holds Rabbi Jonathan Perlman, who survived the shooting, at the Rodman Street Baptist Church during a service rendered to the victims on Oct. 31. (Salwan Georges / The Washington Post)
Peduto is zealous about the role the Pittsburgh played in helping the city through these moments. When he visited Cappy's Cafe, a local café and a bar where his presence is well known, everyone hugged him.
"And as people passed by the window, they reached out and put their hands on the window. And I went home. I was in a completely different place, "he said. "I have this peace of mind and this inner peace right now that help me get this message across."
He also said that God helped him find this peace. He read on his phone a text that he sent to his brother Guy shortly after the attack: "I know it sounds weird, but I believe that there is a bigger voice that speaks through me. I can not explain that. And you know how skeptical I am. "His brother replied in text," Decidedly, the divine voice guided you. God and Dave are with you. I believe him."
Dave refers to Peduto's older brother, who died unexpectedly from a heart attack two years ago at the age of 62. His death never stopped feeling strong, but Peduto said his presence comforted him last week, as if David was talking. through him.
"I was raised to be religious and I remained spiritual," Peduto said before joking: "The bishop can say I'd better get to the church soon."
Peduto speaks at a staff promotion ceremony for emergency medical services at the Pittsburgh City Hall on Friday. (Salwan Georges / The Washington Post)
It was above all the clashes between Peduto and Trump that helped him focus, he said, crystallizing his commitment to families affected by the massacre.
"Someone asked me," If you had the choice to redo it, would you have been with the president? " ", He said," My answer was that, if I had the chance to do it a hundred times, a hundred times, I would have been with the families and with my officers. "
He is also not afraid to tie the President's rhetoric to the attack itself.
"It's obviously to someone whose decision to kill Jews was based on what he was reading, with news of migrants trying to escape the hell where they are going." find and possibly go to the United States. And one way or another, this story became an invasion army story, and then manipulated. It is a manipulated story that it is the Jews who do it and who fund it, "Peduto said. "Then this guy wakes up on a Saturday morning armed with bullets and guns to kill as many Jews as possible."
Peduto said he knew nothing about the suspect's past or the immediate circumstances that led to the attack. He simply noted that the man seemed to be sophisticated enough to hide his tracks online.
"He knew what he was doing, he was quite computer savvy, he knew how to hide information," Peduto said, when asked if it meant the suspect had been preparing for a long time. an attack, he replied, "Yeah – or very paranoid, what he was doing would drive there someday."
The most difficult day for Peduto, perhaps after the initial shock of the massacre, was Tuesday, the day of Trump's visit, in part because it was Peduto's 54th birthday. Peduto, not very sleepy and in crisis, said that his mother had forced him to come and take a piece of cake late at night with her and her siblings.
For him, the sweet moment in the midst of suffering was symbolic of the city's next phase of recovery – a process that he believes will be a "bow" and a "marathon". Peduto is fully aware that life will not return to normal in Pittsburgh. .
"It's going to be long, and it's not going away. He stays there, "he said. "It will forever change your city."
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