Story at a glance
- A 22-year-old California man was sentenced on Thursday to life in prison without the possibility of parole for killing one worshiper and wounding three others at a synagogue in 2019.
- Earnest attacked Chabad of Poway, a synagogue near San Diego, on April 27, 2019, with a legally purchased rifle with 10 bullets loaded and 50 more on his vest.
- Earnest killed 60-year-old Lori Gilbert Kaye, and wounded an 8-year-old girl, her uncle and Rabbi Yisroel Goldstein who was leading the Passover service.
A 22-year-old California man was sentenced on Thursday to life in prison without the possibility of parole for killing one worshiper and wounding three others after storming into a synagogue and opening fire with a semiautomatic rifle.
John T. Earnest, a former nursing student was spared the death penalty, but the victims’ family members were given the opportunity to give statements directly to him in San Diego Superior Court, The Associated Press (AP) reported.
Judge Peter Deddeh denied Earnest’s attorney’s request for his client to make a statement as it would deprive Earnest of a “political forum” to espouse hateful ideologies, The AP noted.
“I’m not going to let him use this as a platform to add to his celebrity,” Deddeh said.
Earnest faces federal sentencing Dec. 28 after pleading guilty to charges for which he will not be subject to the death penalty, according to The AP. He pleaded guilty to an indictment of more than 100 counts earlier in September, NBC reported.
Earnest attacked Chabad of Poway, a synagogue near San Diego, on April 27, 2019, with a legally purchased rifle with 10 bullets loaded and 50 more on his vest. He then called authorities moments after.
“I’m defending our nation against the Jewish people, who are trying to destroy all white people,” he reportedly said.
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Earnest killed 60-year-old Lori Gilbert Kaye, and wounded an 8-year-old girl, her uncle and Rabbi Yisroel Goldstein who was leading the Passover service.
“The voice of my mother is reclaimed within my own,” Kaye’s daughter Hannah said in her impact statement, according to CNN. “John Earnest, your bullets will not wreck through my body today as they did my mother’s. She is here. She is alive within my words… You are unable to destroy the truth of my experience as much as you may want to.”
Earnest’s family wrote in a statement that their “sadness pales in comparison to the grief and anguish our son has caused for so many innocent people.”
“To our great shame, he is now part of the history of evil that has been perpetrated on Jewish people for centuries,” they wrote.
“Our son’s actions were informed by people we do not know, and ideas we do not hold,” the family continued. “Like our five other children, he was raised in a family, a faith, and a community that all rejected hate and taught that love must be the motive for everything we do.”
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