The federal hate crimes trial for the 2018 Pittsburgh synagogue shooter began Monday with jury selection.
Robert Bowers, 50, faces 63 charges in connection with the massacre at the Tree of Life synagogue that left 11 people dead and seven others wounded.
Bowers is facing a potential death sentence in the case. During more than four years of legal wrangling between the shooting and the trial, Bowers offered to plead guilty in exchange for a sentence of life in prison without parole. However, federal prosecutors turned him down.
The scene at the courthouse in downtown Pittsburgh was quiet Monday morning as the long-awaited trial began.
It stood in stark contrast to the horrific scene on Oct. 27, 2018, at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh’s Squirrel Hill neighborhood. Three different congregations — Tree of Life, Dor Hadash and New Light — had gathered for Sabbath services.
Bowers entered with a Colt AR-15 rifle, three Glock .357 handguns and hundreds of rounds of ammunition, police said. He opened fire indiscriminately, fatally shooting 11 people inside the synagogue.
When cops responded to the scene, Bowers returned fire and wounded five officers in a shootout. Bowers was also shot three times before he surrendered.
Prior to the shooting, Bowers had posted numerous anti-Semitic ramblings on the internet.
“[The Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society] likes to bring invaders in that kill our people. I can’t sit by and watch my people get slaughtered. Screw your optics, I’m going in,” he wrote in a message posted hours before the attack.
After the massacre, Bowers explicitly stated that his motive was to kill Jews, according to police.
Bowers was “very calm and he said he’s had enough and that Jews are killing our children and the Jews had to die,” police officer Clint Thimons testified.
If Bowers is convicted and sentenced to death, he could spend decades on death row. Attorney General Merrick Garland paused all federal executions shortly after he took the job, and President Biden campaigned on a promise of ending the federal death penalty — a promise he has not delivered on during his two years in office.
In a November 2022 letter to the Pittsburgh Jewish Chronicle, families of nine victims said they wanted prosecutors to pursue the death penalty.
Anything less “will prevent the Justice Department from punishing the perpetrator to the full extent of the law, as we have sought for the past four-plus years,” they wrote.
Bowers also faces several state charges, which have been put on hold while the federal trial proceeds.