A triple murder in Petach Tikva early yesterday morning, coming on the heels of the grenade attack on a Netanya discotheque that took six lives just a week ago, has aroused alarm over a new wave of violence from criminal elements and youths on the fringes of society. The Petach Tikva killer, Yossef Padova, aged 21, surrendered to police nearly two hours after he shot to death three of his friends with a submachine gun in the apartment of one of them. He is also believed to have fired the shots that severely wounded a police sergeant who tried to enter the flat.
The three victims were identified as men in their early twenties. Three others in the flat at the time managed to escape when Padova suddenly went berserk with a submachine gun and sprayed the flat with bullets. They jumped through a window to the ground 10 feet below. One of them described Padova as unemployed, unbalanced and despondent over a love affair with a girl not yet 17 that went sour.
When police arrived, shots from the flat kept them at bay and wounded the sergeant. For over an hour, Padova refused to surrender. Then he demanded that his estranged girl friend be brought to the scene. When police found her and brought her to the flat, Padova laid down his weapon and was arrested.
Crimes of this type occur in all societies. But in the close knit, more or less homogeneous society of Israel where crimes of violence were rare not too many years ago, the Petach Tikva murders and the Netanya grenade attack worry sociologists and psychologists as well as the police.
The police are especially interested in how Padova came into possession of so lethal a weapon as a submachine gun. They know that Ezra Avraham, the 22-year-old army deserter who confessed to the Netanya discotheque attack, stole the grenade from an army supply depot.
Sociologists point out that in a country that has gone to war four times in 25 years, firearms are easily obtainable. They say the root of the problem is the social gap that has kept large segments of the population in perpetual poverty, alienating youths who are unable to find employment because they are untrained or for other reasons. The sociologists and psychologists are also critical of the failure in many cases to detect mentally unbalanced persons and treat them. Finally, they say the courts have been too lenient in sentencing persons convicted of violent crimes.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
