Seattle, USA - A Richland, Wash., man accused of killing a woman and wounding five others when he allegedly opened fire at a Jewish center made his initial court appearance Saturday, and a judge set bail in his case at $50 million.
Naveed Afzal Haq, 31, faces one count of murder and five counts of attempted murder. He appeared in court clean-shaven, shackled and wearing a white ultra-security jail uniform.
Haq surrendered to police without a struggle at the Jewish Federation of Greater Seattle on Friday afternoon, authorities said.
King County prosecutors told District Judge Barbara Linde that they do not plan to pursue the death penalty against Haq.
Haq allegedly forced his way into the federation building and through a security door after an employee had punched in her security code, police and witnesses said. He then began shooting a semiautomatic pistol at those in the building.
Pam Waechter, 58, an assistant director at the federation and former president of Temple B'Nai Torah, died at the scene, said Nancy Geiger, the federation's interim chief executive.
"This is just an extraordinary shock. We lost a really wonderful colleague, a wonderful friend. It's hard," Geiger said.
The other women who were shot included a 37-year-old who is five months pregnant and was hit in the forearm. She was hospitalized in satisfactory condition, along with a woman who was shot in the knee. Three others were shot in the abdomen and were hospitalized in serious condition. The surviving women are 23 to 43 years old. Robin Boehler, chairwoman of the Jewish federation, said three of the victims are not Jewish.
Haq was stopped on a minor traffic violation about a half-hour before the shooting, Seattle Police Chief Gil Kerlikowske said at a news conference Saturday. He did nothing to arouse the officer's suspicions, the chief said.
Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels said Friday that the shootings were the "purposeful, hateful act" of someone "acting alone."
Nevertheless, police officers on Saturday circled Seattle's Seward Park area, the city's traditional Jewish neighborhood and home to three major synagogues. Uniformed guards stood outside the Bikur Cholim Machzikay Hadath synagogue and the Sephardic Bikur Holim synagogue.
"There is high security," Boehler said. "This is the thing we dread the most happening."
Kerlikowske said police are also protecting mosques "because there's always the concern of retaliatory crime."
Authorities have been advising synagogues and Jewish groups to be vigilant in the weeks since hostilities erupted between Israel and Lebanon. Assistant Police Chief Nick Metz said the warning was not in response to any specific threats.
Haq grew up in eastern Washington state -- his father helped found the Islamic Center of Tri-Cities in Richland in 1981, the Seattle Times reported -- but he had been living recently in Everett, just north of Seattle.
Police said their initial telephone conversation with Haq, while he was inside the federation building, indicated that he was a Muslim. Police would not disclose the content of the conversation.
Local media reported Haq was on medication for a bipolar disorder.
Haq's parents were shaken by his arrest, said Haq's lawyer, Larry Stephenson.
"I talked to his father, and his mother is crying, and they don't know what is going on," Stephenson said. "They are very, very shook up."
In a statement, the Islamic Center offered condolences to the shooting victims and said that "we disassociate this act from our Islamic teachings and beliefs."
The Jewish federation, founded in 1926, provides fundraising and educational services for Jews in the Puget Sound region. It also advocates on behalf of Israel. Last weekend, it organized a large rally to demonstrate support for Israel in its fight against Hezbollah in southern Lebanon.
After Friday's shootings, a silent march in the Seattle suburb of Kirkland to protest Israeli actions in Gaza, planned for Saturday morning, was canceled.
"The events that are happening in the Middle East should not spill over into our city," said Arsalan Bukhari, president of the Seattle chapter of the Council of American-Islamic Relations.
Rob Jacobs, executive director of the Anti-Defamation League of the Pacific Northwest, said acts of anti-Semitism are on the rise in the region. Complaints of bias and discrimination reported to the ADL in the Pacific Northwest quadrupled in the past three years.
"We see ourselves as very tolerant and accepting of all people, but the reality is that, on a day-to-day basis, we are sadly not too different from many other places," Jacobs said.