Suspect dead after ramming vehicle into Jewish temple in Michigan

A driver who rammed his vehicle into a large Jewish temple in Michigan on Thursday afternoon is dead, officials say.

Oakland County Sheriff Mike Bouchard told reporters the suspect drove his vehicle through the doors of Temple Israel synagogue in West Bloomfield and then down a hallway before his vehicle caught fire.

Security guards at the temple had opened fire as he approached and then confronted him inside. One who was hit by the vehicle is being treated at hospital and is expected to recover, authorities said.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) said the incident is being investigated as a “targeted act of violence against the Jewish community”.

Thirty police officers were taken to the hospital for smoke inhalation as the building was “engulfed” in flames, Bouchard said. He added that they would learn through the investigation what ignited the fire.

Temple Israel – one of the largest reform Jewish synagogues in the US – also has a preschool where dozens of children had to be evacuated during the incident.

FBI special agent Jennifer Runyan said the incident was “deeply, disturbing and tragic”.

Bouchard called the crime a “hateful, terrible thing”, but did not elaborate on a specific motive.

“We know there’s evil in the world,” Bouchard said at an evening press conference. “When they show up, that’s where training and preparation come in.”

At an earlier briefing, Bouchard said, “Everything that was supposed to happen, happened,” adding, “Security did their job, and then the responders did theirs.”

Police did not say how the suspect, who has yet to be publicly identified, died. Bouchard said it was difficult to determine the suspect’s cause of death because the vehicle caught fire.

“We can’t say what killed him at this point,” he said. “But security did engage the suspect with gunfire.”

Officers were working to clear the vehicle for explosives “out of an abundance of caution”, he added.

State and local law enforcement, as well as the FBI, all responded to the emergency.

Speaking at a White House event on Thursday, Trump said he wanted to “send our love to the Michigan Jewish community and all of the people in Detroit”.

“It’s a terrible thing,” he said.

Lisa Stern, a member of Temple Israel for over 20 years, drove to the congregation after she heard news that there had been an attack, concerned about her friends inside, who included two rabbis and a social worker.

But she said she chose not to text them to see if they were safe, as a pinging sound might give their locations away. Initially the ramming was reported as an “active shooter incident”.

Waiting across the street, Stern said she saw anxious parents and grandparents arriving to make sure their children were safe.

“At first, when they didn’t know, the parents were like falling to the ground,” she said. “Thankfully it was minutes until they said the kids were safe.”

Students were evacuated and taken to a nearby country club, Temple Israel said in a statement on Facebook. The school’s 140 students as well as “our amazing staff, our courageous teachers, and our heroic security personnel” were all accounted for and safe, according to the statement.

Stern added that she believed the suspect had knowledge about the temple, which is not visible from the road.

“They obviously knew where they were going because they knew where to do maximum damage,” she said.

Stern said the temple has always had guards and has ramped up security since the start of the Israel-Hamas war in October 2023, after which there was a rise of antisemitism in the US.

Also, over the last two weeks – since the start of the military operation in Iran – law enforcement has been in regular contact with the synagogue and other houses of worship in the area, Bouchard said.

On Thursday afternoon, Jewish congregations and organisations in the state took extra security measures and the Michigan State Police patroled other Jewish sites. Meanwhile, major cities across the US bulked up police presence at Jewish centres.

Temple Israel was founded in 1941 and has about 3,500 families who are members, or about 12,000 congregants.

West Bloomfield is one of several suburbs surrounding Detroit, Michigan, which are home to a large Jewish population. About 71,000 Jewish people total reside in the area, according to the most recent survey from the Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Detroit, comprising the vast majority of Michigan’s Jewish population.

The vehicle ramming rattled local members of the community, Stern said. Many have been on higher alert in recent years as incidences of antisemitism increase across the country.

“This was a matter of when, not if,” Stern said she told someone while waiting across the street from the temple Thursday afternoon.

By BBC News