Two Brooklynites Among 6 Killed In Jersey City Mass Shooting

BROOKLYN, NEW YORK — Two Williamsburg natives were killed in the Jersey City mass shooting that claimed six lives Tuesday, according to officials.

Leah Minda Ferencz, 33, and her husband, Moshe Deutsch, 24, were killed in a shootout at their Jersey City Kosher grocery store, which they opened after being priced out of Williamsburg, Rabbi David Niederman told reporters at a City Hall press conference.

"She was a lady full of love for others," Niederman said of Ferencz. "Unfortunately her life was cut so short."

Deutsch, the son of Rabbi Abe Deutsch, was known in Williamsburg for being a man who helped his community with food drives that fed thousands, Niederman said.

Niederman called the young couple, whom he said could not afford a Williamsburg home for their growing family, pioneers.

"This is who we lost," he said.

Not all the names of the six victims of the kosher supermarket standoff have been released, but Jersey City Detective Joseph Seals also lost his life, according to NYPD Commissioner Dermot Shea.

The suspected shooters had been identified as Francine Graham and David Anderson, who may be connected to the Black Hebrew Israelite movement, designated as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center, according to the New York Times.

At the City Hall press conference Wednesday, Mayor Bill de Blasio said there were no specific threats against New York City, but that the NYPD was on high alert.

He called the shooting a hate crime that left the city's Jewish community living in fear.

"What we saw yesterday was a premeditated, anti-Semitic hate crime," said de Blasio. "In other words, you can say, it's an act of terror."

The NYPD has seen a 22 percent increase in Anti-Semitic hate crimes in 2019, according to the NYPD commissioner.

"We have to understand we've entered a new reality," de Blasio said. "No one is happy about it."

A new NYPD unit has been formed to focus on online hate networks, announced John Miller, NYPD deputy commissioner of intelligence and counterterrorism.

NYPD sent critical response units to Jewish communities across New York City Tuesday where they have since been stationed, Shea said.