One of the victims killed during the vehicle and knife attack at a British synagogue was accidentally shot by a police officer, officials said Friday.
Adrian Daulby, 53, and Melvin Cravitz, 66, died from injuries sustained during the assault on Thursday morning at Heaton Park Hebrew Congregation, which has been declared a terrorist attack by the authorities.
The two who were killed were standing close together behind the synagogue door as worshippers “acted bravely to prevent the attacker from gaining entry”, the police said.
Eyewitness Ivan Telzer said he was in the middle of his prayers at the synagogue when people started shouting.
“Shut the doors!” they cried. “Shut the doors!”
Telzer said he could hear someone pounding from outside, trying to get in the synagogue. Some of the roughly 20 congregants who had gathered for morning services on Yom Kippur, including the rabbi, used their bodies to barricade the large black doors, he said.
The police later identified the person outside as Jihad al-Shamie.
Within minutes, amid the panic inside the synagogue, Telzer saw one of the congregants slump to the floor, he recalled in an interview.
On Friday morning, the chief constable of Greater Manchester Police, Stephen Watson, said a pathologist had found that one of the victims who died had suffered “a wound consistent with a gunshot injury”.
He said in a statement that the perpetrator of the attack, Jihad al-Shamie, was not in possession of a firearm and that the only shots fired were from the armed police officers responding to the attack.
Watson said: “It follows therefore, that subject to further forensic examination, this injury may sadly have been sustained as a tragic and unforeseen consequence of the urgently required action taken by my officers to bring this vicious attack to an end.”
The statement did not specify which deceased victim was believed to have been shot. Al-Shamie, a 35-year-old British citizen of Syrian descent, was also shot dead by the police at the scene.
Watson said one of the three surviving victims who were injured in the attack had also suffered a gunshot wound, which was not life-threatening, and was being treated in a hospital.
The attack, which came on Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the Jewish calendar, has added to growing fears about the safety of Jews around the world amid a rising wave of antisemitism.
The police have not formally commented on the attacker’s motives, but Prime Minister Keir Starmer said in an address to the nation on Thursday night that the man had “attacked Jews because they are Jews”.