On a Tuesday in Jersey City, the life of 24-year-old Moshe Hirsch Deutsh, a rabbinical student from Brooklyn, was tragically cut short in an act of domestic terrorism. On December 10, 2019, Deutsh was a customer inside the JC Kosher Supermarket when two assailants, David N. Anderson, 47, and his girlfriend Francine Graham, 50, deliberately targeted the establishment in a hate-fueled attack.
The quiet street was shattered by the sound of gunfire as Anderson and Graham, armed with rifles, calmly exited a stolen U-Haul van and immediately began firing into the store.
The violence that day did not begin at the kosher market. Earlier, the attackers had shot and killed Jersey City Police Detective Joseph Seals at a nearby cemetery. Following that initial confrontation, they proceeded to the grocery store on Martin Luther King Drive, a central fixture in the growing Orthodox Jewish community. Once inside, they continued their rampage, killing three people within minutes. Along with Moshe Deutsh, the store's co-owner, Mindy Ferencz, 33, and an employee, Douglas Miguel Rodriguez, 49, were also murdered. Rodriguez was killed while holding a back door open, allowing another customer to escape.
The attack triggered a massive police response, leading to an hours-long shootout that transformed the neighborhood into a war zone. Law enforcement officers exchanged hundreds of rounds with the heavily armed shooters who were barricaded inside the supermarket. The siege finally ended when a police armored vehicle breached the storefront, and the two assailants were killed in the ensuing confrontation.
Investigations following the attack revealed the chilling motives behind the violence. Authorities determined that Anderson and Graham were driven by anti-Semitic and anti-law enforcement beliefs. Anderson had a history of posting hateful messages on social media. Evidence, including a manifesto-style note and a pipe bomb found in their stolen van, pointed to a targeted act of domestic terrorism. Officials also announced that the duo had been planning much larger attacks that could have resulted in dozens more casualties. Furthermore, Anderson and Graham were the prime suspects in the murder of an Uber driver that had occurred in Bayonne, New Jersey, just days before the grocery store massacre. While the two main perpetrators were killed at the scene, the investigation did lead to one arrest. The phone number of a pawn shop owner was found in Anderson's pocket, and the owner was subsequently arrested and pleaded guilty to being a felon in possession of a weapon. However, he was not charged with supplying the weapons used in the deadly assault.
