LOS ANGELES — A man with a history of making antisemitic statements was charged Friday with federal hate crimes on suspicion of shooting two Jewish men as they left religious services in Los Angeles in recent days.
Jaime Tran 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 shootings, according to a criminal complaint unsealed Friday in federal court in Los Angeles.
Tran had a disturbing history of antisemitic threats, according to the complaint, including emailing dozens of former classmates that Jews are “primitive.”
In a statement late Thursday, the LAPD said that “the facts of the case led to the crime being investigated as a hate crime.”
“For the last two days, the community has been on edge and continues to be on edge, even with the arrest of a suspect,” Ariella Loewenstein, deputy regional director of the Anti-Defamation League Los Angeles, said Thursday. “Anytime that a community is targeted because of who they are — and in this case who they worship and being Jewish — it’s always terrifying.”
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 8:30 a.m. Thursday near Pickford and South Bedford streets — about two blocks away — when a man walking home was shot in the arm. Both victims survived the attacks.
The men described seeing a male shooting suspect, said Police Lt. Park, a spokesperson for the LAPD who declined to give his first name.
Authorities tracked the suspect to an area in Riverside County, and investigators began working with federal and regional partners to find him, according to the LAPD. He was taken into custody around 5:45 p.m. Thursday.
Detectives recovered several items of evidence, including a rifle and a handgun.
Stephane Sultan, who runs Trattoria Natalie on Pico Boulevard near Bedford Street, was outside his restaurant when he heard the gunshots Thursday.
At first, he and his colleagues thought it might have been the popping sounds of a souped-up car muffler. But when they saw police arriving, they knew it was the second shooting in two days in the area.
“Of course everyone was scared yesterday,” Sultan said Friday. “Everybody at the restaurant at the market was talking about it.”
Police cruisers, LAPD officers on horseback and volunteers from the security nonprofit Magen Am patrolled the neighborhood Friday morning, a show of force beyond even the stepped-up patrols that followed antisemitic mass shootings such as the Pittsburgh Tree of Life massacre in 2018, as well as major Jewish holidays.
“I’ve seen more police just walking from our home today than in the last 30 years combined,” said local Amy Raff, who stopped to talk to neighbors about the four mounted police on the corner.
Councilmember Katy Young Yaroslavsky, whose district includes Pico-Robertson, said earlier Thursday that she was concerned by the shootings, which coincide with “a rise in antisemitic attacks in recent months.”
LAPD statistics show a 24% increase in anti-Jewish hate crimes last year compared with 2021. There were 89 victims in 2022 and 72 in 2021, according to the statistics.
The Los Angeles Police Department’s Hate Crime Unit reported 643 total hate crimes in 2022, a 13% increase over 2021’s total of 567, and more than double the total of 257 reached only five years ago.
Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. George Gascón said on Twitter on Thursday night that his office was “working with the LAPD to ensure that those responsible are held accountable.”
“We stand in solidarity with members of the Jewish community and against these acts of violence,” he said.
In a statement late Thursday, Mayor Karen Bass thanked the LAPD for its investigation and for stepping up patrols.
“At a time of increased anti-Semitism, these acts have understandably set communities on edge,” Bass said. “Just last December, I stood blocks away from where these incidents occurred as we celebrated the first night of Hanukkah together. Now, my pledge to the Pico-Robertson community and to the City of Los Angeles as a whole, is that we will fight this hatred vigorously and work every day to defeat it.”
