A man with a history of making antisemitic statements was charged Friday with federal hate crimes after he allegedly shot two Jewish men as they left religious services in Los Angeles in recent days.
Jaime Tran, 28, was charged with hate crime acts in connection with the Wednesday and Thursday shootings, and admitted to police after his arrest that he had searched for a kosher market on Yelp before the attacks, according to a criminal complaint unsealed Friday in federal court in Los Angeles.
Both victims survived the attacks.
LAPD officers patrol on horseback along Pico Boulevard on Friday after the recent shootings of two Jewish men in the neighborhood.
(Christina House / Los Angeles Times)
Tran had a disturbing history of antisemitic threats, according to the complaint, including emailing dozens of former classmates that Jews are “primitive” and repeatedly texting another former classmate with threatening messages such as “I want you dead, Jew.”
“We were lucky that we’re not going to funerals. That’s just the reality,” Rabbi Abraham Cooper from the Simon Wiesenthal Center said at a Friday news conference announcing the charges. “Tomorrow we go to our services with our children. You don’t want to give bigots … victory.”
The unsealed criminal complaint shed new light on the two shootings, which prosecutors said were motivated by the alleged shooter’s animus toward Jewish people.
The first shooting occurred around 10 a.m. Wednesday near the intersection of Shenandoah and Cashio streets, when a man in his 40s was shot in the back while walking to his vehicle, authorities said. The second was around 8 a.m. Thursday near Pickford and South Bedford streets — about a block away — when a man walking home was shot in the arm.
Both victims were shot at close range while leaving religious services wearing black jackets and head coverings that “visibly identified” their Jewish faith, according to the complaint.
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