All hostages are safe after a long standoff. On Saturday, a man stormed into the synagogue and took several people hostage. Officials say that the people are safe.
Prayers were answered by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott on Saturday.
During morning service at Congregation Beth Israel in Colleyville, Texas, a hostage-taker and law enforcement got into a standoff that lasted into the nite. All of the hostages are safe and sound now.
The Colleyville police department tweeted late Saturday that the situation had been “resolved” and that the hostages had been freed, and that they were safe. Michael Miller, the head of the Colleyville Police Department, says the suspect is dead.
A law enforcement official said that the hostage-taker had been killed. It wasn’t clear right away if the suspect was shot by police or if it was an accident. After 10:30 p.m. Eastern, the hostages were found to be safe.
FBI Dallas Special Agent in Charge Matthew DeSarno wouldn’t say who took the hostages, but he said that investigators already had a global search going on to find out more about a possible motive.
DeSarno didn’t say how the hostage-taker died, but he said that authorities would look into the shooting. This is what he said: The FBI’s elite Hostage Rescue Unit was called to the scene on Saturday. They flew to the Dallas area as part of a 60-person federal team.
Local police and FBI crisis negotiators came to Congregation Beth Israel on Saturday morning. Negotiators talked to the suspect, who took four hostages at first, but one man was later released unharmed, the Colleyville Police Department says.
As a law enforcement official put it, “The kidnapper asked for the release of Aafia Sidiqui.” Siddiqui was sentenced in 2010 to 86 years in prison for trying to kill and assault U.S. nationals and employees of the United States when she was in Afghanistan. It’s not good for Siddiqui to be out because he’s in prison in Fort Worth, Texas.
The relationship between the hostage-taker and the prisoner isn’t clear, says the official, who isn’t allowed to speak out.
A rabbi and three other people were among the hostages who were taken hostage.
Soon after 5 p.m. Eastern, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki tweeted that President Biden was told about the “developing hostage situation in the Dallas area,” and he was informed. Biden thanked law enforcement in a statement that came out late Saturday.
In the days to come, there will be more to learn about the motives of the person who took the hostage, Biden said in a statement. But I want to be very clear to anyone who wants to spread hate: We will fight anti-Semitism and the rise of extremism in this country.
Rabbi Charlie Cytron-Walker is in charge of the Congregation Beth Israel in Colleyville. Cytron-Walker is a type of rabbi who is well-liked by people of other faiths in the area, says Rabbi Rick Sarason, who taught Cytron-Walker at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in Cincinnati from 2002 to 2006.
There have been threats against Jewish places of worship in recent years, Sarason said, and Saturday’s threat at Congregation Beth Israel made him think back to those threats.
People who go to synagogues, churches, and mosques all go to places where people can get along and understand each other. Sarason told USA TODAY that “Rabbi Charlie has always been a prime example of that.”
Facebook Live: The synagogue’s Facebook page live-streamed the event for a short time. The livestream stopped working around 2:50 p.m. Eastern and was gone after that.
Highway patrol and criminal investigation units from the Texas Department of Public Safety were also at the scene, a Texas DPS sergeant told USA TODAY.
The Federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives said they were “helping” the Dallas FBI and local police.
Before the hostage situation, the service on Saturday was livestreamed on Facebook. In the livestream, you can hear someone yelling inside the synagogue. As far as I could tell, the livestream didn’t seem to show what was going on behind the camera.
This is what Meta said in a statement to USA TODAY: “We removed the video from the synagogue page, and we will also remove content that praises or supports this event.”
“We are in touch with law enforcement as the situation changes.”
The Houston branch of the Council on American-Islamic Relations said they were outraged by what happened on Saturday.
“This anti-Semitic attack on a place of worship is not OK.” This is what a statement from the group said: “We stand together with the Jewish community and pray that law enforcement can quickly free the hostages and bring them to safety.”
The Colleyville Police Department tweeted that people were asked to stay away from the area. People were told to stay away from the area. It is about 15 miles northeast of Fort Worth and 25 miles northwest of Dallas. Colleyville is a small town with about 26,000 people and is close to both cities.
In a tweet on Saturday afternoon, the Anti-Defamation League said it was “aware of the ongoing situation in Colleyville, TX.” It was also working with local and federal authorities and the leaders of the community.
It’s hard to find out who Aafat Siddiqui is, but we can help you find out:
In 2008, Siddiqui, a Pakistani neuroscientist, was detained by Afghan authorities. They found a lot of things in her possession, including handwritten notes that talked about a “mass casualty attack” and listed a lot of places in the United States, like the Empire State Building, the Statue of Liberty, Wall Street, and the Brooklyn Bridge.
Other notes found in Siddiqui’s possession talked about making “dirty bombs” and other ways to attack “enemies,” federal prosecutors say. These included destroying reconnaissance drones, using underwater bombs, and deploying gliders.
She took an M-4 rifle from a U.S. Army officer and fired it at another U.S. Army officer and other members of the interview team in Ghazni, Afghanistan, when the United States tried to talk to her about the attack. During the shooting, Siddiqui said that she wanted to kill American people.
Siddiqui’s lawyer told USA TODAY on Saturday that her client had nothing to do with the hostage situation. Siddiqui’s only brother, an architect who lives in Houston, has also said that he has nothing to do with it.
It’s not her business. When people do things in her name that are violent, she doesn’t have anything to do with it at all. Siddiqui’s lawyer in Texas, said: “And she says she’s not guilty.”
People who work for the police didn’t give Elbially any information about who the suspect was or what they knew about him, so she didn’t know. Elbially said that she had read about the hostage situation in the news. The hostage-taker called Siddiqui his “sister.”
It’s not clear to Elbially who this person is or how they came up with the idea of linking him to her family in this way. “I knew right away that what they said about her brother was completely false when they said it was her brother.”
Elbially, who has been representing Siddiqui for the last year, said, “What I can say is that we really hope that no one is hurt or killed and that the police can handle the situation and take him into custody.”
The Associated Press helped make this happen.
