Texas synagogue hostages escaped right when FBI SWAT team moved in
Global News
“I think we both kind of realized around the same time that: It’s time to go,” Matt DeSarno, the FBI’s special agent in charge in Dallas, said at a news conference.
In the final moments of a 10-hour standoff with a gunman at a Texas synagogue, the remaining hostages and officials trying to negotiate their release took “near simultaneous plans of action,” with the hostages escaping as an FBI tactical team moved in, an official said Friday.
“I think we both kind of realized around the same time that: It’s time to go,” Matt DeSarno, the FBI’s special agent in charge in Dallas, said at a news conference.
DeSarno said that just after 9 p.m. on Jan. 15, he authorized his teams to enter the synagogue at the moment the hostages came to “a similar conclusion” to escape.
As agents approached the building, he said, they encountered the three remaining hostages running out and continued moving toward the synagogue to face Malik Faisal Akram, the 44-year-old British citizen who had taken four hostages during morning services at Congregation Beth Israel in the Dallas-area suburb of Colleyville.
Akram had released a hostage shortly after 5 p.m. but those remaining said he became more belligerent and threatening as the night wore on. Rabbi Charlie Cytron-Walker said Friday that while Akram had a drink in his hand, he threw a chair at Akram and he and the two other remaining hostages fled.
“We were constantly looking for an opportunity to leave,” Cytron-Walker said.
As the moment came, the FBI rushed in and fatally shot Akram, DeSarno said.
The Tarrant County Medical examiner on Friday said Akram was killed by multiple gunshot wounds and ruled his death a homicide, a determination that does not necessarily indicate it was a crime. The medical examiner determined that Akram died at 9:22 p.m.