In a nerve-racking drama, a mentally disturbed Jewish man ran amok Tuesday at a mental clinic in the Kiryat Yovel neighborhood of Jerusalem, killing four women and wounding another two before being fatally wounded himself by police shots.
The man, who was identified as Eitan Mor, 25, showed up Tuesday afternoon at the clinic, where he had been treated in the past. He was riding a bicycle while holding a pistol and an Uzi submachine gun. He started shooting indiscriminately at the women present at the clinic.
Four women were killed instantly and two other women were slightly wounded. After he shot the women, the man rushed from the building, running uphill and aiming his gun at passersby as well as police who rushed to the scene.
During his flight, he paused to stop the car of a woman who was driving her children, aimed the gun at her head and scared off the police in pursuit, threatening to kill the woman. She later said she had calmly talked him out of killing her, and, while he was paying attention to the police behind him, sped from the scene.
Mor ended up on a local rooftop, where police tried in vain to talk him into surrendering. Instead, he began shooting again, firing into the air without hitting anyone until he was finally shot down by a police sniper.
The wounded man was rushed to a hospital, where he died on the operating table.
Despite having a mental record, the man was employed as a guard by a security company, which armed him with a rifle. He was reportedly upset because he had been notified Tuesday morning that he was not entitled to a driver’s license for a truck.
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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.