As Tree of Life shooting trial begins, there’s new hope for changes to Pa.’s gun, hate crimes laws

The Tree of Life synagogue in Squirrel Hill, Pittsburgh. (Capital-Star photo by Stephen Caruso)

PITTSBURGH — In 2018, a lone gunman, armed with an assault rifle and handguns, opened fire in the Tree of Life Synagogue in the city’s leafy Squirrel Hill neighborhood. By the time the final shots echoed, 11 people, many of them elderly worshippers, were dead.

On Monday, nearly five years later, jury selection for the accused shooter’s trial will get underway in U.S. District court here. And while the killings have changed this city profoundly, the laws that could have prevented it have not.  

That doesn’t mean that advocates and legislators have not tried. 

Pittsburgh officials tried  to ban assault rifles in the city in the months after the synagogue shootings, but saw the effort struck down by state courts. In Pennsylvania, the Uniform Firearms Act prohibits local municipalities from regulating firearms, leaving that responsibility in the hands of the Legislature. 

Likewise, local elected officials have tried to strengthen Pennsylvania’s hate crimes laws, but with little to show for it so far. 

State Rep. Dan Frankel, D-Allegheny, whose district includes Squirrel Hill, has tried for years to amend the Pennsylvania Human Relations Act and update the commonwealth’s hate crime statutes. 

But he has not given up. Far from it.

On Monday, Frankel, state Senate Minority Leader Jay Costa D-Allegheny — who also represents Squirrel Hill— and state Rep. Napoleon Nelson, D-Montgomery, will introduce a package of bills aimed at revising Pennsylvania’s hate crimes laws. 

And with Democrats in control of the state House after nearly a decade as the minority, gun control advocates have renewed hope that progress may eventually be possible there as well. 

“We feel more momentum now for life-saving gun violence prevention policy change than we’ve felt in years,” Josh Fleitman, western Pennsylvania manager of the gun safety advocacy organization CeaseFirePA, told the Capital-Star. 

“With the new gun safety majority in the House, and the constant drumbeat of the majority of Pennsylvanians increasingly demanding change, we’re hopeful that we’ll see real progress on broadly popular legislation like safe firearm storage and requiring the reporting of lost and stolen firearms, as well as extreme risk protection orders and universal background checks,” Fleitman continued.  

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Frankel told the Capital-Star that the legislation to be unveiled Monday includes four bills. 

They would expand the classes of people protected under the state’s hate crime laws, to include the LGBTQ community and people with disabilities, and provide for the training of law enforcement in Pennsylvania to be able to identify and prosecute hate crimes. 

For instance, using spray paint to vandalize a sign with graffiti is not the same crime as spray painting a swastika on a synagogue or a mosque, Frankel explained. 

“That’s not just a crime against the person or the property, it’s trying to intimidate a whole community of people,” Frankel, who is Jewish, said.

Another of the four bills would expand the Safe2Say Something youth violence prevention program, which allows students to anonymously report acts of bullying and sexual harassment. Under the new legislation that program would be expanded to allow the anonymous reporting of hate-based intimidation.

“We know that college campuses in particular are targets of hate groups, both for recruiting young people who are very impressionable, and also vulnerable as potential victims,” Frankel said. 

The fourth bill would provide for a rehabilitation program for people convicted of hate crimes, to receive education about the group or groups that they had targeted, before they can rejoin society. 

“I’m genuinely optimistic that we can get some movement on these bills,” Frankel said. “There is bipartisan support in the House, and I’m hopeful we may be able to get a vote in the [Republican-controlled] Senate as well.” 

Frankel, Costa, and Nelson will hold a rally on the steps of the state Capitol on Monday at 10 a.m., likely around the same time jury selection is beginning in Pittsburgh. They’ll be joined by Lt. Gov. Austin Davis, an Allegheny County resident; House Speaker Joanna McClinton, D-Philadelphia,  state Rep. Jessica Benham, D-Allegheny, co-chair of the House LGBTQ caucus, and members of the Coalition Against Hate.

Hate and violence continues unabated

Anti-Semitic incidents in the U.S. hit an all-time high in 2022, according to the Anti-Defamation League’s annual audit released last month. 

There were 3,697 incidents— which include vandalism, harassment, and assaults— a 36% increase from 2021. According to the ADL report, 2022 marked the third time in the past five years that the yearly total of anti-Semitic incidents was the highest number ever recorded. 

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The ADL report showed Pennsylvania had a total of 114 antisemitic incidents in 2022, up from its 2021 total of 69. 

The numbers are not encouraging for gun violence, either; in 2023 alone, as of this writing, there have already been 160 mass shootings in the US, according to the Gun Violence Archive. 

In Pennsylvania, gun safety advocates have reason to be skeptical, but with Democrats controlling the state House and the governor’s office, they’re finally seeing hope on the horizon.  

Dana Kellerman, of Squirrel Hill Stands Against Gun Violence, said it was accurate to say little had happened legislatively since the 2018 shootings, and that she thought it was fairly clear why. 

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“I think it largely has to do with the fact that legislators who care about gun violence have not had the power in Harrisburg to do anything about it,” Kellerman told the Capital-Star. 

She said she and others in her organization are “thrilled … to have a gun safety majority in the state House, and a gun safety champion in the governorship.” 

But they’re not optimistic about what is happening in the current session of the Republican-controlled state Senate. 

“I would love to think that the Senate would listen to their own constituents and do what the people of Pennsylvania want them to do,” Kellerman said. “But they haven’t so far, and I don’t see any reason to believe this session is going to be different.”

Where she and her organization have more hope is the direction the state hast been moving toward redistricting and getting rid of gerrymandering, Kellerman said. 

“That silences the voices of so many folks,” she said. “But I think there is real potential with continued work that in two years, gun safety advocates will control the Senate. It’s happened in other states; look at Michigan, look at New York state. 

“I think there is real potential that come 2024 Pennsylvania will be able to follow the lead of those states, and pass the kinds of legislation that will make a huge difference in gun deaths and gun injuries,” she continued. 

That will mean keeping pressure on legislators and making sure that candidates who support gun safety regulations can win elections in Pennsylvania, she added. 

Frankel said he’s sensed a shift among voters, particularly Gen-Z voters who cast ballots for the first time in 2020 or 2022— a population who, in the US, has never known a school year without active shooter drills in their classrooms.

“My Republican colleagues are at risk of basically alienating an entire generation of young people,” Frankel said, “with their rigidity with respect to things like LGBTQ rights, reproductive rights, and guns in particular.” 

These younger voters, he added, have a firm grasp of how important it is to get involved not just in presidential elections, but local ones as well. 

“These are all state initiatives,” he said. “If they want to change the commonwealth of Pennsylvania, they’re going to have to get involved at the state level. I think that’s becoming more and more clear to people, especially young people.”

Frankel said he tries not to get frustrated at how long it’s taken to get meaningful updates to the state’s hate crime laws, and stays focused on the long game.

But with the trial beginning this week, many in Pittsburgh’s Jewish community will be dealing with the trauma of Oct. 27, 2018 all over again. 

“I think there’s a lot of anxiety out there among the survivors and the families of those who were murdered,” he said. “But we live through it every day, every time we see a mass shooting. I think everyone wants to see justice done. And we’re pretty resilient, even while we’re traumatized, we are a pretty resilient community.”

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Originally published at www.penncapital-star.com,by Kim Lyons